Super Lumina Speaker cable

Don't coil the cable or even tie it in the familiar snake-like 'S' configuration that used to be preferred to the coil. SL speaker cable is best left loose. Later versions of the pamphlet explain this.  I'm attached a picture of the relevant bit which I hope you can read. It's the bottom bullet.

+1. Indeed, by mistake we had placed a coil of SL for one speaker near the system and uncoiled the other side and it sounded really weird. Uncoiling the cable made a huge change! Do NOT coil the cable - it really does make a big difference well, it did to us).

Frank.

Thanks MDS and Frank!  I'm going to have to experiment.  Anyone else found a better way of managing the cable?

I had the same experience as Frank. One cable was initially looped (not coiled) while the other was straight. Something seemed wrong, with the two channels sounding different somehow. So I ran the wire for the nearer speaker away from it and back to the amplifier and it immediately sounded a lot better. My wires were exdem and came without instructions, so I found this out for myself. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

I had the same experience as Frank. One cable was initially looped (not coiled) while the other was straight. Something seemed wrong, with the two channels sounding different somehow. So I ran the wire for the nearer speaker away from it and back to the amplifier and it immediately sounded a lot better. My wires were exdem and came without instructions, so I found this out for myself. 

same experience with the humbler NACA5 -- and the difference was staggering...!

enjoy

ken

Mine is in a big loop under the racks (it goes left, right then left again in big loops). Is this wrong? It's not really practical to loop at the speaker end.

Keith

Not 'wrong' per se, but it certainly won't sound anything like as good as it can. 

Oh. But going out and back at the speaker end is still a loop. How does the cable "know" which  end the loop is?

I think the point is that the wire runs out and then back on itself, rather than having lots of little loopy bits. Just try running it out to one side and see if you hear a difference. I certainly did, but then my wires are only 3m long, so I don't end up with wire all over the floor. 

Thanks Nigel, I'll give it a go, but not during the football 

We've been through some of the permutations with this. We have two 5m lengths of SL speaker cable, one channel being much closer to the rack, as per the OP.  The best sound balance for us was running the cable parallel to that feeding the farthest speaker and loosely looping it back to the speaker requiring the shorter run. Sounds perfect in our room/system. Coiling it under the rack sounded the worst to us.. 

We figured that looping the left speaker cable caused the inductance to be severely changed on that side, providing a different load to the amp - and therefore such a different sound. All I know is that it made a big difference when we laid it out and looped it back to the speaker. Not a loop as such, just a run out and back. 

Frank.

Thanks to everyone, I'm very grateful.  It seems I need to try running the "short" cable out and back, though inevitably the cable will have to bend back on itself at some point.  Even before dressing the second cable in the optimum way, I have to say the SL cable is most impressive - allowing more detail and ambiance from many recordings to become apparent, this only on days one and two!  I expect a bumpy ride and further improvements over time, as detailed by many others on this forum.

Frank Abela posted:

We figured that looping the left speaker cable caused the inductance to be severely changed on that side, providing a different load to the amp - and therefore such a different sound. All I know is that it made a big difference when we laid it out and looped it back to the speaker. Not a loop as such, just a run out and back. 

Frank.

How is a run out and back not a loop? I'm not trying to be difficult and I will give it a try, but I'm struggling to see how I can make a bigger loop at the speaker end than the rack end, in my room. 

Keith

Looping (once) was fine here  Keith. It was coiling it that turned out to sound  inferior.

If you loop any cable carrying a current several times, it becomes an inductor, which generates a magnetic field and has a consequent effect on the load presented to the amp. If all you do is one long loop, the effect is pretty much reduced to zero.

Frank.