I build my own speaker and interconnect cables. I like to control the quality of the cable and connectors. I also like that I can make them exactly the length that I need them. However, this Blue Jean Cable company sounds like they are making a good product that fits all of my design goals for cables.

I use the Blue Jeans Canare 4s11 speaker cable and LC1 RCA interconnects. High quality stuff at very reasonable prices.

Well Stephe this is a pretty highly polarized subject that you have opened up. I can only share with you what my near 30 years as an audio hobbyist building and tweaking amps and preamps and listening to many interconnect and speaker cables has revealed to me. That is, there can be a significant difference in sound between some cables and, typically cables of different design and material will sound different. With this said, don't expect to hear a speaker cable's true sound until at least 3 hours of playing at good volume and typically 24 hours or more for interconnect cables (I/Cs). Yes, really! There also is this long time "accepted as fact" theory out there that 1 (or is it 1.5) meter and 8 ft are the optimum sounding length for I/Cs and speaker cables respectively (I've done no testing of this.) If one can't hear the differences between cables then the system is not sufficiently resolving or, the listener isn't a critcal listener, that is, he/she doesn't sit in the established sweet spot and try to immerse themselves in the performance as opposed having the music playing while doing something else or listening from a random location in the room. When listening to, and evaluating different cables with audio friends as i did frequently on many evenings for a year or so (pretty nerdy huh?) typical words used to describe the sound differences included muddy, fat & warm, dynamic, coloured, hard, boring, engaging, not engaging, liquid, dry, masked. Possible technical reasons for these differences may be explained through difference in capacitance, inductance, properties of the insulation material with respect to different frequencies, skin effect, dynamic response to sharp rise and decay of audio signal waves, but what listener really cares? What I haved seeked to find are the best sounding cables for my equipment within my limited budget. I have had the opportunity to listen to speaker cables to around $3k & ICs to around $1.2k. Often higher price does not mean better performance. Rather, some I've auditioned are just different flavours of wrong. My Marantz 2245 receiver with Boston Acoustics speakers and lamp cord speaker wire in my living room sounds wonderful - I wouldn't change a thing. On the other hand my Thiel 2.2 speakers driven by my 60W custom tube amps in my listening room sound just plain dull and boring with lamp cord wire and overly warm with 14/2 solid core wire. Changing to a Kimber 4TC for example brings more life to the music. What I finally ended up with was a highly respected $2k cable from the 1990s which i found used, many years later for $375. The resulting realism, dynamics and peformance were (can I say jaw dropping - because thats what happened to me with the first LP I played). Over the years I have tried 25 or so different I/Cs on my turntable (MM cartridge). The best that I've heard is what i've made myself using 28 awg high purity silver in Teflon tubes fastened to cotton cord with WBT connectors (and yes the connector material makes a difference as well but that's another subject). It was a lot of work to build them. By the way, these I/Cs don't sound great on line level CD application. So, getting the right cable can be complicated and time consuming. What I tell friends who feel the need to move up from basic is to go with a long time respected product such as the Kimber PBJ (I/C) and 4TC (spkr) respectively which I've found to be good value. There are lots of other reasonably affordable cables out there but the challenge is to find the ones which will provide an overall more open, dynamic and natural sound with your equipment as opposed to something that just colours the sound.

I have the good fortune of have a hardware store nearby that has a section in the basement where they sell electronics parts, all manner of wires/cables including interconnects, solid and stranded wires etc. Nothing that comes close to being high end, but they do have some options. Because I have a couple of set ups running at the same time, I need sets of speaker cables. Plus, as I build speakers, I need cables so I can A/B different speakers. One time, when comparing some 4” full range drivers, the one pair sounded very grainy/rough and a bit shrill compared to the other pair. Now, they should have sounded different as they are different speakers - obviously. And as I was running them off different amps, they should have sounded different - obviously. But when I swapped out amps driving the speakers, the rough sound travelled with the amps. Which is to be expected. The two amp sound different, but not different like this that I had noticed in the past. Speaker cables…. I thought, hmmm, let me swap the cables. The pair of cheap hardware store cables were the culprit. The noise I was hearing was not present in the Kimber Kables I use as my main speaker cables. The difference was not subtle! Was surprised to find that big a difference in what the cables did to the sound.I don’t know how high up the cable ladder I am prepared to go, money for gear is always a challenge to access :) But I do want cables that are made with better quality copper and OCC copper is just more expensive. I do like cables that “feel” nice to the touch as I am constantly shifting them around. I like cables that are flexible and that don’t put a strain on the connectors. I like cables that are well made as durability is a factor. I am ok spending a couple of hundred bucks to get some cables that check all the boxes listed above. I certainly don’t want cables to fail in such a manner that through swapping out gear, something shorts and makes magic blue smoke. Those inexpensive cable be some very expensive all of a sudden!!! I think cables matter. I think with even the three things we commonly use as common measurements in electronics - resistance/capacitance/inductance - considering we have an ever changing signal in both amplitude and frequency that is going from a dynamically reactive source to a dynamically reactive load, there is going to be a consequence. I think there is more to an electrical signal in an audio set up than there is to powering a light bulb with a battery… Look at your own experience with Solen caps in the power supply. Same rating as the others. A rating is a rating. Shouldn’t matter, and yet it does. I also think, we are far more sophisticated as collectors of audio information than we perhaps give ourselves credit for. It’s hard baked into our biological make up for purposes of survival.

Well said Stephe. Having a reasonable perspective on speaker cables and interconnects can sure save you a heap of cash for better stuff - like making a Skunky Amp!!!!

I've wired my entire system with Blue Jeans cables, including the 40 foot balanced run to the amp from the preamp with low capacitance cable. Super high quality wire and construction, my cable quest is done.

Canare 4s11 cables (a Japanese product) are my favorites. They’ve been in my system for a couple of years now and will stay there. They sound far more natural than the expensive Monster Cables I used before. Somewhere in the eighties I had Monitor Audio (British) flat litz cables. I didn’t like them at all and quickly stopped using them.

Due to a scheduling error during my first undergrad, I was able to get Partial Differential Eqs. under my belt before I took Physics, 3rd semester, E&M. People who believe that a higher priced conductor makes for superior sound do not understand the signal is not travelling through the conductor, but in the Space OUTSIDE of the conductor, as the migrating Electrons, through the vibrating crystal lattice, of the conductor, set up the Magnetic Field and Electric Field components, orthogonal to each other, which permits the signal to propagate in the Space, outside of the conductor. Mogami wire W3082 can be found for about a buck a foot. Used to buy it from Old Colony for half that.

Have used nothing but Blue Jeans speaker cable and RCA’s for 20 years, never had a failure and they are reasonable.

Truth! Thank you for saying this out loud. Keep up the great work!

Bought a set of these in 6ft, 3 years ago. That is where the speaker cable quest ended. They are not cheap by any means, but the quality is there and they are not crazy expensive either. Glad to see you do a review of these.

I've been using speaker wires branded Micca from Amazon. They are 14 gauge, soldered with heat shrink and are $25 for a six foot pair.and $40 for twelve foot. They don't lock but they look nice and work just fine, and that's all I need.

I'm not into cables myself, but I can totally agree when someone pays thousands on cables because of their looks, their feel in the hand, their perceived physical quality, craftsmenship and all that, including a perceived increase in social status because of expensive cables (I'm sure that applies to some people). Imagine a cable that is almost arm-thick, yet flexible, soft to the touch, maybe a velvet coating, with shiny connectors and ultra smooth finishing. What's not to like, regardless of the audible qualites? And if you have a vacuum robot then it won't "eat" the thick cable, which is a bonus :-) After all people also buy Rolex watches or expensive handbags that don't "work" any better than cheaper alternatives.

“They had to raise the ceiling in the room” 😂🤣😂 Spot on….

Dear Stephe I agree with you strongly and actually I have personally done some sighted and blind tests, and the results have been quite interesting. First of all the test was done in Interconnect cables and no other, first of all, the test included mogami cables that accidentally had a dry solder joint and amphenol ends, 30 year old guitar cable used as interconnect with cheap and loose fitting ends, van damme ofc cables with cheap half broken and corroded rusted rca plugs (that's how low quality they were) 6N pure ofc cable with neutrik connectors, 7N OCC neotech cable with ETI type rca and silver solder. Lastly 99,99% pure silver in Teflon insulation cable with silver soldered neutrik ends. In the sighted tests after finishing assembling the cables and being excited to try them I heard a difference it seemed. But the effect wore off and the next day there magically was no difference, tried again after a while for the blind test and still no difference, I think this proves that expectation bias and placebo is infact VERY real. But I did not stop there, I also conducted an experiment with 3rd party listeners online recording a song from my DAC, with the only thing changing being the rca between the DAC and ADC. The files were sent and users were asked to describe any difference if they felt there was a difference. The results? 8 in 13 people felt there was no difference, one person felt the mogami cable with the dry joints was best and the rest was the same and four people prefered the cable with the corroded broken and rusted ends, claiming that sample had a warmer and more musical sound and was best while the rest where all the absolute same. That's really funny isn't it? My take away from that experiment was that ANY competently made cables are absolutely transparent in their sound. Thank you for reading.

I am still using the cheapest Van-Den Hul silver coated speaker cables I purchased in the late 80s. I got them to replace early Monster Cables that had started to corrode. Recently I got some of those budget Nakamichi banana plugs from temu that are made from non-ferrous metal and seem to work well. Even though my speakers are quite revealing, neither made any difference to the sound imo.

Hey, thanks for the insight! I really agree with you - the cable has to be well made and have low RLC, (in case of interconnects) good dense shield and reliable connectors. The look and feel is technically secondary but affects the listening experience on the subjective, psychological level - which matters to audiophiles, so they'll buy the fancy schmancy utterly expensive stuff with tons of snake oil to it, unfortunately. I'd really love the manufacturers to not beat around the bush, say what things are like and have the actual science and engineering to support their claims rather than some woo. I come from the pro audio background, having volunteered at a campus radio, done some live sound and maintained pro audio gear. These things, including cables, live a hard life, on the move all the time, sometimes trodden, kicked and thrown around, also exposed to moisture or even liquid ingress - so they have to be built like a tank. There's no place for pseudo-scientific BS and marketing woo there, and the good practices and reputable brands such as Neutrik, Klotz or Belden have been around for decades. In comparison, audiophile gear lives a life of a princess, warm and comfy at home, pampered most of the time, and only sometimes moved around. Still, if it's built like live sound gear, it'll definitely work well.

I honestly think letting a cable warm-in/burn-in makes for a better evaluation. Especially when comparing to ripcord. That's like saying generic Gin or Vodka will taste the same as Bombay Gin and Gray goose 🪿 Vodka......no comparisons.

you are absolutely right. last speaker cable you ever need to buy.

Not sure about the snake oil thing but I do think that cables can make subtle difference in the sound of a system. Decades ago, I worked at a HiFi store just down the road from where MIT manufactured its cables at the time. I was invited over to the sales reps’ house to audition three of the speaker cables in their current line. I don’t remember the speakers but the turntable was a Sota and the electronic were Electrocompaniet. I could hear subtle differences between the cables. What made one cable sound different from the other may be considered snake oil BS but I do think that a given cable can have a more synergistic effect in your system. Naim, a British hi-fi manufacturer, uses specific speaker cables to provide the correct inductance and capacitance for output stability in their power amplifiers. For those looking to fine tune their system then cables may be the route to nirvana. Personally, I have used modestly priced cables in my system. I do have a Blue Jeans digital interconnect that I a more than satisfied with.

I been using some blue jeans cables for few years really good quality stuff

I have the same cables and I thought they were pretty good. But the World's Best Cable 7 AWG Ultimate cable surpassed it in sound for just a few bucks more.

I haven't bought interconnects for quite a while now. I have been building my own XLR and RCA and find that Mogami wire has given me the biggest bang for buck. Usually it's 2534 or 2964 but all of it is very good quality IMO. Blue Jeans does offer a good product unquestionably at fair prices.

Great review!! I generally don’t think I hear much of a difference as well. I do, however like to buy quality built cables. Cables that I know will last. I usually go with worlds best cables for my speakers and interconnects. They are priced well.

For decades I have used Monster 12ga ofc cable. Then came Unalysis speaker cable. It is a Wolven stand cable. Didn’t think it was any better than Monster. Used it for 20 years til last year bought the SVS cable. I A B’d the 2 and found the SVS was better at separating the instruments giving a cleaner and wider sound stage. I use SVS speaker and interconnects throughout. Never expected to find difference in Sonics with cable alone. One gentleman told me he uses 14ga sprinkler cable, 2 on each side + -.

I got a pair of Blue Jean speaker cables about 6 months ago.They do sound a bit better after burn in.Keepers for sure.

I've tried a lot of expensive cables. Finally Paul Speltzs Anticabels opened up my sound in the cleanest and most neutral way possible full of detail. I was drawn to his thoughts on solid wire and the thinnest dielectric layer possible. A completely different philosophy of making cables and their real efficiency. Horribly impractical and ugly, but good as hell...and not that expensive. Just my experience. Cables mean a lot. Thanks for opening this topic.

Nordost has left the building

I use (almost) BlueJeans Cables for everything. (speaker, interconnects & coaxial) Re the speaker cable: I opted to mount the locking banana plugs myself because I wasn't sure of the length I wanted but will probably reorder and have BlueJeans do the sonic welding. I can use the old cables elsewhere. BlueJeans is excellent to communicate with and I highly recommend their products.

I use SKU speaker cable because they look great, they have a fantastic adjustable termination system, they use high quality OFC and they don't break the bank. For interconnects I use Mogami.

Thanks for sharing what you experienced.

I fell for the bait; “If you are going to own expensive gear it must be hooked up with expensive cables, else you are wasting your money”. I little over 20 years ago, we moved to a new home where I was very disappointed with the sound I was getting with my speaker placement. One weekend when my wife was gone to her mother’s place for the weekend I decided to move my speakers where they should sound best and it was a real success. Now I had opted to use my old cheap cables since the speaker cables had banana plugs and the interconnect was none locking making it easier to connect and disconnect, so I was really looking forward to an evening listening session with my super expensive cables expecting an even more amazing sound. Well, that was my first audio snake oil awakening call.

I currently use Kimber 8PR pure copper speaker cables bi-wiring my Living Voice speakers. The dealer gave me a set of cheapo bi-wire jumpers later I harvested the banana plugs from. I tried these banana plugs with my bi-wire binding posts. I beleive they made from brass. They sound not as transparent as bare wires connecting directly. I also bought Blue Jeans LC-1 cables and terminated one pair with Chinese copy Audioquest silver plated pure copper RCA plugs and one pair with Nuetrik XLR plugs/jacks. They both sound great for the price but cannot compete with my snake oil Audioquest Water interconnects.

Right now I'm just using some 12 gauge copper from a spool and put some banana plugs on it but blue jeans are one of the few brands I've considered. They're not insanely priced and seem well made. If nothing else they probably have a better connection on the plugs due to the weld and the locking banana plugs are a nice feature.

what works great is rome x ac 14-2 power cable. crazy things like ac power cables costing thousands of dollars are another scam.

Sold. Makes sense. No magical nonsense. Reasonable prices.

Hi, I am a semi-believer in cables, e.g. buy something that suits the system, to my point, one thing I have heard is that the degree to which cables can make a difference depends on the amount of feedback used on the power amp, lower or zero feedback is more revealing. What's your take on this?

There’s a guy on eBay called Legend audio speaker cables. Purchased them a few times. Made in FL I think. Excellent quality and sound.

Thanks, Stephe, for another thoughtful, useful video! 👍👍 If I didn’t know how to solder, I would have to buy some cables, but, to me, even $100 for a pair of 6 foot long cables is a bit much. YMMV, here, as in every case!

My cables gave out so much air that I had to move my speakers outside to coupe with it.

I’ve played with different interconnect cables and think that is the first place to spend your money. Caution: if your speakers are not highly revealing, you may never hear the difference. Same with the speaker cables. I use the Canari cables and love them

Started w Canare 4s11 Quad Star Moved to Kimber Monocle XL, WBT Upgrade Kimber Select KS6063 😊 Clarisys, Alsyvox & Magnepan tell all

Key point might be. Decent quality ends and proper gauge for the length of wire for the voltage and current of the signal. Then esthetics can be important, and that comes with a cost. A speaker cable with a nice jacket on it doesn't sound better but looks awesome, that comes with a price..... 🙂Interconnects, same story.... :-)

My got for speaker runs is 10ga -- I use McBride MC10GA - 10 Gauge Wire, I have also used run o' the mill 10ga 2-conductor household wire. Color me a pleb, but I could not tell the difference between the two. I used 7ft runs and 22ft runs.

Well said. I had never seen those locking banana plugs before, nice idea. But rather than conductivity, which this would improve, I like the idea of a stiff pullout. Nothing is worse than playing the amp and you tug on a speaker cable and then silence, poor amp. Selection of the wire gauge is paramount also the number of strands in the wire can improve the cable impedance. BUT there is no sense insisting on using a 10 ga. wire for a 3 foot cable, unless the output power of the amp is insanely high. Here comes the TLDR part. You should consider the current magnitude (wattage) of the signal to the cable gauge. For example, driving 100 watts into an 8 ohm load is about 3.5 amps (P=I^2*R) in the cable resulting in a voltage drop across the speaker of 28 volts (V=I*R). Or for SET people, 10 watts into 8 ohms is about 1 amp and 8 volts. (These are resistance calculations to be accurate you need to use impedance calculations)(Those low currents and voltages are the reason the UL and NEC does not get involved) If you are REALLY dedicated you should use identical lengths of cable for left and right so the impedances are the same then you have the same voltage drop on both channels. This is applies to long cable lengths or when using small gauge wire. But for a 3 foot cable, a half foot difference is negligible. It is all about the voltage drop. Don't get me started on HDMI cables...

I have bought spk/IC cables used and/or make my own speaker cables using Mogami W3082 studio grade speaker cable, I stay away from brass as a conductor tho.

I like Canare based (bare) cables assembled by a small manufacturer in my country, and call it a day.. Mogami for speakers are also nice.. Although I like the Ecosse branded cables I have right now too.. Nothing fancy with them, just very fine strands of pure copper..

Different speaker cables and signal cables have different sounds, but can a correspondence be established between the differences in listening experience and the performance parameters of the cables?

I couldn't agree more with you! But GR Research makes some cables that of course Danny swears by 😂

@Skunkie. I am the same way. There isn't a force on the planet that would make me spend the ridiculous prices on cables that those 'hi-end' companies ask for. I agree that it really comes down to conductivity and it is the connection as well as the size of the cable as per distance away from the source. The only place where expensive cables might be viable, is if you have a long run and want to use silver cable. Silver being the only conductor of electricity that is better than copper. Then you are looking at pretty pricey cables. But how much better is the conductivity of silver over copper? That I don't know. If comparing a similar size cable of length and gauge and the copper one costs $60 and the silver one costs $600, well, you probably can guess what my answer would be. Yeah, I will take the $60 cable. That price isn't arbitrary either as it represents the most I would spend on a single pair of cable, whether it be RCA connects or speaker connects. Going $100 on a 3 foot length of double 14 gauge cable is already taking it a bit too far. The connectors are definitely very important because if you have a crap connection, that is where you get loss of conductivity. Really cheap cables, when they start to age, will develop connection problems. I am guessing that paying $40 for a 10 foot RCA pair, should have that cable lasting quite a long time, without the connections deteriorating over time. Would it be prudent to go with silver plated connections? Hmmm, maybe, but that would certainly bring up the price. Spending $1000's on cables is nuts. To me, that demonstrates a degree of ineptitude that borders on the imbecilic. It does surprise me at how many audiophiles, in this day and age, still think that you ALWAYS get what you pay for, and that is not true. There are thousands of companies out there that just want to screw you and take the green horn audiophile for a ride, just to get that next "ounce of improvement". It's the Law of Diminishing returns that kicks in and by right, the average audiophile shouldn't have to spend more than $5000 on an entire system. There is a LOT of good stuff out there that can be had for less than $1k per item.

Blue Jeans are great. Personally I buy the bulk Parts Express wire. 14 gauge for most stuff but 12 gauge for really long runs. If it's short runs then 16 or even 18 gauge is fine. Monoprice & Amazon are good too. The worst of the snake oil has to be the audiophile power cables & fuses. Gotta hand it to these companies for raking in huge margins off all the gullible audiophiles out there. Quality cables are cheap... I find that in many cases it's cheaper to buy the cable I need than to buy the right male/female connects to make my own cables.

Come on Skunkie...while the overview of their offerings as well as their philosophy was helpful, all we really wanted to know was how well they sound compared to other cables you have used. You got this...please follow-up with a Part 2 and thank me later.

It would be cool to do a frequency sweep and show the charts.

Hi Stephe, I now I get the context of last week's video. You wanted to do this one and avoid a total melt down in the comment section at the same time. Preparation is half the job 😁

I personally think the best way is a well shielded with the lower resistancetance the better with a strong connection . this is something you can do yourself with store bought parts . Their is no need to spend lots of money on snake oil cables . In other words if you make your own you will get the best results .

My friend has these kimber cable 8tc's he paid $1200. They must be good because they didn't sound worse than my home made 12awg straightwire with rca connectors I bought off of amazon.

Thanks for the nice review!

Current runs along the outside of the wire not through it.

Thank you for this! I trust your ears.

🤦‍♂️ OMG, Stephe….i just saw the number of views for this cable vid as well as those inexpensive class D amp vids. Wow… kinda nuts 😂 FWIW, I’m so close to finishing up another EAR clone for a friend, who went and bought one of those Schiit Mani pres without telling me, and just said he doesn’t want the EAR anymore. The whole idea was to use tubes ahead of his cheap class D amp. Tough spot being a friend of mine for many years, so I didn’t even consider taking a deposit. I’m f’n pissed.

I have to disagree with you. Cables, especially power and interconnect cables make significant differences. Speaker cables in my experience phone make the least amount of difference but still are important. Different of course does not mean better however high frequency extension, refinement, better microdynamics and subtle details are the fruits of good cabling. Yes people go overboard with cables, but there is more then just decent wire and a solid connection especially with IC's. Just my experience

Something to consider is that electrical energy, moves along the insulation around the conductor, not in the conductor. So our notion that it's all about Ohms law is over simplistic when it comes to understanding how a music signal moves through a cable. I don't think the science is well enough understood to predict what a cable will sound like from basic measurements. It's our ears that need to be the measuring instrument.....

No argument at all on this one. It’s either broken or it works the same as any other.

What about capacitors ? Do they also sound the same ....

As I trust that you have good ears, I think that your system even when sounding very well, isn't very revealing, which in itself is not bad or good. Different strokes for different folks. By the way: using high quality speaker cable but not taking care of the inner wiring of the speakers is nonsense. I know a story of someone with 20K cables to a B&W 802, while the inner cabling an all inner connectors in series are more to the side of junk...

And make damn sure you buy those elevators to keep them off the floor! smh

Why don't studios use lamp cords?

I agree at this level spending money on cables don’t make any sense.

So true 👍

Keep in mind people that have systems in the 100s of thousands of dollars. Certainly a 20 dollar cable is not for them. Like putting an aftermarket exhaust on a car. I have a Mustang and I put a 1000 dollar exhaust on it and that's great. Someone with a Ferrari that cost 300 grand puts a 30 thousand exhaust on. Certainly a 1000 dollar exhaust system is't going to attract the owner of a Ferrari.... :-)

$5K in cables or $5K in Skunkie tube amps? You offer a much better ROI.

Just out of interest, why do Americans pronounce "solder" as "sodder"? What do you have against the letter "L"?

No no and no.Speaker gauge depends what power you wont to deliver.This is AC do matth and dont lie.You can youse cheap china cable for few meters!

Key point might be. Decent quality ends and proper gauge for the length of wire for the voltage and current of the signal. Then esthetics can be important, and that comes with a cost. A speaker cable with a nice jacket on it doesn't sound better but looks awesome, that comes with a price..... 🙂Interconnects, same story.... :-)