View Full Version : A few questions - Re Line Conditioners and Speakerwire


adman227
02-27-07, 06:45 PM
Any thoughts on Line Conditioners? Any, or Specifically, Rotel's for about $550 ?

What's more important to the overall sound Speaker Wire or Interconnects?

I currently use AudioQuest CV-4 speaker wire, and am considering an upgrade to their Gibralter series. Thoughts?

ChrisWiggles
02-27-07, 06:49 PM
These are all expensive tweaks that provide arguably little or no sonic difference. Unless you have a very high-end system and your room is already well-treated and more important things are addressed, I think you'll find that many will recommend you just buy quality cables, basic copper stranded speaker wire of sufficient gauge for the length of run, and call it a day. There are many other things that are vastly more important. Such as buyind music.

AV Doogie
02-27-07, 07:24 PM
Adman, Chris is right. Spend your money on things that make the biggest difference first.

Line conditioners, while sometimes helpful, are often times a product looking for a problem to fix.

ensmarcum
02-27-07, 08:54 PM
You know what, I am going to go ahead a disagree...uummm riiiight.... HAHAHA! Anyway, and seriously, I do disagree with everyone. I believe in the fact that good insulated high gauge wire makes a good clean sound. I think that what you have is good enough but I would upgrade if I had the money. I think that both interconnects and speaker wire are important, and if I were you I would spend more money on interconnects not speaker wire, because you already have pretty good wire. I use audioquest too, and I upgraded interconnects in the front and noticed a difference. I upgraded speaker wire and noticed a difference in the clarity and depth of sound. If you can change the room environment to have better accoustics then go for that, but if you have a home theater in a living room like I do then you may have a wife who doesnt like bass traps, so you have to do what you can. I think you will find 100 people that say interconnect/speaker wire is noticably different, and 100 people who say they cant tell. it's kind of like the coke and pepsi debate, I mean you know how it is. But I believe in good cables, not radioshack cheapies. So there you have my two cents.

adman227
02-27-07, 10:19 PM
I run 2 Martin Logan Mosaic speakers - the ones made here in the US when they first came out. Very clean sounding. Paired with a 200 watt Rotel amp, pre-amp, and their CD/ DVD player.

I use AudioQuest Interconnects, but didn't upgrade those. CV-4's are probably good enough.

I can say, the depth issue is true. I also noticed a difference in the clarity from the line conditioner. All of this when you get to a certain level is probably very subtle.

My next purchase is to change my amp to a 300 watt two channel Bryston. Then I'll change the interconnects.