Cremona M Room Placement

[bodiezaffa]

Originally Posted by antipop

I went from banana to bare. For sake of clarity, the banana were added to a bare wire, they were not factory installed as some manufacturer do. These were not cheap banana but rather expensive furutech ones.

I have spades on the amp side, I'll try to remove them and see if there is a difference.

I have never heard that removing the termination and going bare improves the sound.
Can anyone shed a bit more light on this.

[Rick U]

That graphite stain looks great!!

[Glisse]

Originally Posted by bodiezaffa

I have never heard that removing the termination and going bare improves the sound.
Can anyone shed a bit more light on this.

I think it depends on the quality of the termination, the plug, the socket, and the type of cable.

If you do go bare, with copper cables, you'll need to clean them quite regularly, as they will oxidise quickly. Not so important with silver, as silver oxide conducts almost as well as pre silver, whereas copper oxide increase resistance quite a lot.

Which also means if you re-terminate, or un-terminate a copper cable, it will often improve sound because you have cleaned it to some degree

But for sure, a connector can't improve sound over the cable itself. If you can get a very good contact width and clamping action on whatever terminal you are connecting the cable to, I am not surprised it will sound better, as Antipop found. A lot of aftermarket style cable connectors (both banana and spade) use a center screw to bite down on the wire inside the connector sleeve. On a stranded wire cable, maybe only 20% of the wire is being clamped onto the sleeve. The rest is flapping around in there. Often arcing. Which is why you should use something like WBT sleeves crimped over the wire, then screw down on those.

[bodiezaffa]

Great reply, thanks.

I'm going to check my terminals very closely tonight.

[Amado]

Originally Posted by AudioPhilio

Rick,
I have a similar room arrangement to yours. My ceilings are 18' vaulted as well and since it is a common family room I don't have the option of moving my speakers much at all. I have spent a lot of time over the last 2 years with the Cremonas tweaking all aspects of my limited range and have pretty good sound all things considered. The bass in not at all boomy in this room (it opens to the kitchen straight back and the foyer on one side). It is well controlled, punchy, and tight.

Based on your pictures it looks like your present speakers are not really that tight compared to what I am faced with. It appears you have a decent amount of room to work with. As others have said, every room setup is unique. I really just wanted to let you know I have good results with a tight speaker setup, and I love the sound. It is open, musical, and has decent imaging.

I am also a fan of SF aesthetics, which to me is the frosting on cake. Not only does it sound delicious, it looks beautiful

I love graphite

[AudioPhilio]

Originally Posted by Rick U

That graphite stain looks great!!

I have to agree, graphite has always been my favorite. As luck would have it that was really the only color that my wife wanted with our decor.

[antipop]

Originally Posted by bodiezaffa

I have never heard that removing the termination and going bare improves the sound.
Can anyone shed a bit more light on this.

Glisse said it better than me.

You should do the test, it's very easy to do and compare which you prefer. For me, it was like there was a thick curtain in front of the speakers

[Glisse]

Originally Posted by antipop

Glisse said it better than me.

You should do the test, it's very easy to do and compare which you prefer. For me, it was like there was a thick curtain in front of the speakers

You're going to have everyone pulling off their connectors now, LOL!

Still, it is a timely reminder how even small things can have a big impact.

BTW, I should also have said by now how great AudioPhilio's graphite Cremonas look in that setting. His wife was right

[Rick U]

I know a lot of boaters use dielectric grease to keep wires from oxidizing at the connections. It works but can be messy.

[Glisse]

Originally Posted by Rick U

I know a lot of boaters use dielectric grease to keep wires from oxidizing at the connections. It works but can be messy.

There are of course audiophile products which can do the same thing, except cost 1000 times more

To be fair, these often include conductive material and are intended to go over the entire area, and then inserted. I used to use a product called Walker SST, which is a silver paste. Tricky to work with, because it was easy to create a short if not very careful with the application. Trouble with that product was that whatever oil (probably a vegetable oil) was used, the emulsifier was not stable, and the product broke down after a couple of years. But it was excellent. Particularly good on valve/tube pins.

I now use Furutech Nano Liquid, which is priced like liquid gold. But I think all of these products are best used if you are leaving the system alone for a year or so. I'm constantly tweaking and changing things around, and it is easier just to clean things along the way.