A real head scratcher

As I wrote yesterday it still baffles me why long balanced interconnects seemed to sound better than long speaker cables. I previously shared with you my experience at HP's home with an Audio Research preamp. That demonstrated just the opposite. So one conclusion we can make is the equipment you're using has a lot to do with which connection method will sound best. If you're tube based, then you're likely better off with long speaker cables. And by tube based, I am not referring to a tube preamp like the BHK, which is a hybrid:tubes in front, high current MOSFETs for the output. A pure tube preamplifier will likely struggle driving a long set of interconnects. If you have a good driving circuit in your preamp, and many do, then it seems to come down to the quality of the interconnect itself. Once I built the new Music Room One, the distance between the preamplifier increased from 30 feet to 50. 50 feet is a long distance and for that run, I turned to my friend Bill Low of Audioquest. Bill didn't hesitate. He recommended a great set of his WEL Signature balanced interconnects and made a custom 50 foot pair. Hell, they sounded significantly better than my former 30 foot pair. Quality of cable is critical. Once speaker cables are short, you'd wonder if they make as much difference. That's what I'll touch on tomorrow.