Steve at Sounds Heavenly wrote:

Good speaker positioning will do far more for sound quality than good cables ever can!

Very true! And also of course very difficult in most homes as the rooms are lived in!

As far as B&O being high end, it rather depends on what you mean. As with most things in life, you can do it the hard way or the easy way. B&O offers the ability to enjoy superb sound and vision in a very easy to use package, usually in a manner which is acceptable to other members of the household. It will usually be capable of being worked by everyone as well without recourse to a large manual and will set up with little fuss.

You can of course get a collection of different makes and you might hit an audio nirvana. But you may then find that there are a multitude of cables, remote controls and intimidating buttons and controls. Over the years, this has lessened but many of us are refugees from such systems.  To us, B&O offer sanity and calm and an ability to just listen to the music, not the system. Therefore I applaud Steve for his project but will not be troubling the scorers on this one!

Steve at Sounds Heavenly wrote:

My aims were as follows:-

Prevent any crosstalk between the left and right audio channels

Reduce the audible mains hum in ICE Power speakers

There must be no data pulses induced into the audio channels

Minimise signal loss, particularly at higher frequencies

Improve the clarity and give a more neutral musical tone

Keep to a slim cable that works with all models of Beolab speaker

While I agree with the first four aims, I have only ever heard aim two mentioned as a complaint on these forums. I would also assume, if they are three core, rather than eight, they are not only better but also less expensive.

John makes an excellent point. B&O is not "high end" and I thank the audio gods every day for that. I've seen and heard too much official audiophile approved "high end" gear that just sounds and performs attrociously, but someone out there will believe it's the bees knees because it's gotten a writeup in Stereophool or TAS. Often small manufacturer high end gear measures just horribly too, not even meeting minimal standards of engineering competence, and the high end afficionados who love it will claim that the fact it sounds so different with different speakers or power filters is a sign of it's sensitivity that "reveals" the differences, rather than the fact it's so psychotically poorly designed it causes the susceptibility to these things. I remember a YBA CD system that didn't use any post reconstruction filtering, because we all know filters are bad, bad I say, letting every bit of the ultra high frequency nasties from not filtering out the digital steps pass thru, then the manufacturer had the gall to say obviously this piece is so sensitive you need to use these special cables, which were crappy brick wall analog filters in their own right they were so bent in RLC parameters, to make it sound halfway acceptable.

As for long runs, 100 meters is pretty darned far for an unbalanced signal, which is why the Masterlink is a balanced setup. You'd be amazed at how far studios will run balanced line level stuff, often on things like phone cord, to connect places. In the old days of the Columbia Masterworks recordings they ran signal miles over such setups to mixing/reverb tanks and to the studios from the recording venues. And these are some of the most prized recordings to this day, so go figure.

Jeff wrote:

I remember a YBA CD system that didn't use any post reconstruction filtering, because we all know filters are bad, bad I say, letting every bit of the ultra high frequency nasties from not filtering out the digital steps pass thru, then the manufacturer had the gall to say obviously this piece is so sensitive you need to use these special cables, which were crappy brick wall analog filters in their own right they were so bent in RLC parameters, to make it sound halfway acceptable.

Wonder when we start seeing high end Pupin coils to even out the badness in long speaker cables 😁

Having spent over 10 yrs in the UK high end audio industry, I know what some of these posts are getting at - there IS an element of snake oil with accessories and cables.

That said, Steve makes great stuff, and his description sounds credible interesting.  I have heard cables make a clear difference to systems in the past.

My PL cables have been plastered over and decorated over though... 🙂

Thanks folkdeejay! 🙂

I suppose when I think of B&O, I view them as "high quality", not "high end", although I still think that it is worth exploring how to improve the sound from a B&O system.  My approach has always been to aim for good quality sound from sensibly priced and specified hardware, which I find is something that seems to work well for Naim, Quad and Meridian enthusiasts as well as B&O owners.

I like Puncher's idea of getting the 3 core cable cheaper than an 8 core Powerlink cable! (in practice the extra labour cost to hand build this cable accounts for the small extra cost over the fully-wired cables).  I've been surprised at the split of opinion over cable thickness, as it seems to me that for every person who says a mk.3 Powerlink cable is too thin (2.5mm), there is another who will say that the fully-wired version is too thick (4.5mm)....... 😮

I must admit to being quite shocked at the high electrical resistance of the audio circuit within a standard 20 metre long Powerlink cable, which was one of the initial drivers behind this project.  I quickly found that reducing this resistance gave a direct increase in volume at the speakers, matched to a correspondingly "nicer" sound - akin to the effect of changing a long cable run for a much shorter one.  Which really sums up the aim of this project in a nutshell - I wanted to be able to use long cables to my Beolab speakers, but without having them affect the sound in any way.

Kind regards, Steve.

joeyboygolf wrote:

In my re-seller role with Beo4life, I have listened to many B&O speaker systems and in my opinion,you have wasted your time Steve.  I have never noticed any of the problems that you describe, provided the correct type of cable specified by B&O is used and they are routed sensibly.

My feeling is that you are medling for medling's sake.............or is there some other more dubious motive?

'Dubious motive'?!

What are you insinuating?

Steve's EXISTING cables make the world of difference to nearly all BeoLab loudspeakers - if you can't hear that then you quite clearly need to have your hearing tested.

Original PowerLink cables are useless, with humming, buzzing and the awful 'Beo 4 pulse' when the volume is adjusted. Sounds Heavenly cables eliminate all of these in their present format, so I'll be very interested to hear what these 'high-end' versions can do.  

Keep up the good work Steve; I for one appreciate it! 

The Secret Alpaca wrote:

joeyboygolf wrote:

In my re-seller role with Beo4life, I have listened to many B&O speaker systems and in my opinion,you have wasted your time Steve.  I have never noticed any of the problems that you describe, provided the correct type of cable specified by B&O is used and they are routed sensibly.

My feeling is that you are medling for medling's sake.............or is there some other more dubious motive?

Steve's EXISTING cables make the world of difference to nearly all BeoLab loudspeakers - if you can't hear that then you quite clearly need to have your hearing tested.

Original PowerLink cables are useless, with humming, buzzing and the awful 'Beo 4 pulse' when the volume is adjusted. Sounds Heavenly cables eliminate all of these in their present format, so I'll be very interested to hear what these 'high-end' versions can do.  

I have used Steve's standard cables for speed of supply and price reasons, both Mk3 and Mk2 equivalents and have not noticed that they are any better or worse than the B&O equivalents.

I rarely use cables longer than 5 metres, occasionally 10.

Granted, Steve's service is second to none and nothing is too much trouble. I hope he will continue to supply me when I need him!

I can only say it as I find It so you can maybe understand why I am searching for a reason for the "project".

No problem Graham!

I fully understand your views.  Many B&O owners are completely happy with the sound quality that they get from their system and I don't want to knock that in any way.  My trouble is that I'm a perfectionist and once I notice a problem (no matter how small), I can't rest until I've put it right.

Thanks for your kind words (and thanks to The Secret Alpaca too!), I'm pleased to hear that my standard cables are doing their job properly as sensibly priced, good quality replacements for OEM cables.

Kind regards, Steve.

Steve at Sounds Heavenly wrote:

I must admit to being quite shocked at the high electrical resistance of the audio circuit within a standard 20 metre long Powerlink cable, which was one of the initial drivers behind this project.

I'm intrigued - what values did you measure?  Am I wrong in thinking that the typical Powerlink input resistance is in the 5K - 10K range?