Restarting my HiFi interest

[WyrleyD]

Since moving back to the UK in 2019 my hifi speakers and turntable had been gathering dust in a corner under the stairs. Mrs WD was getting fed up with it just sitting there and convinced me to resurrect what I could. The turntable had just about given up the ghost (Rega Planar 3) and even with a new belt was running slow so last Tuesday we trundled off to a specialist in Aylesbury who are going to fit a 24v motor, new belt and Rega Exact cartridge.

We've been managing with a Denon Ceol to listen to CD's but that went up with a bang and blue smoke last month, I didn't bring my amp (Onkyo) from France so needed a new one so went looking. After much too-ing and fro-ing on what I wanted I settled on a Cambridge Audio CXA61 so went looking for one which I found on eBay, it said "open box but unused" and was £200 off the cheapest retail I could find so bit the bullet and ordered, I also found a Cambridge Audio CXC v2 CD player from the same seller for £329 that was "open box" too so ordered that as well. It turned out that both items came direct from Cambridge Audio and in boxes that had clearly never been opened or unpacked as everything looked untouched.

I have now got the amp and CD player installed and hooked up to the speakers and the sound is very good to my old ears.

What I now have is:

Cambridge Audio CXA61
Cambridge Audio CXC V2
Upgraded Rega Planar 3 with Rega Exact
Pro-Ject Pre-amp
Monitor Audio Silver floor standing speakers
Monitor Audio Powered Sub (when I get to France to retrieve it)
New deleyCON Loudspeaker Cable 2x 4.0mm²

Looking forward to getting the Rega back in about 5 weeks as the chap doing the upgrade is extremely busy.

[Lucid_AV]

That all seems great, except for the speaker cable. Why have you gone for something that's aluminium at heart? That's what the DeleyCON is. It's a CCA cable, not pure copper. CCA means 'copper coated aluminium'. Ask your Rega dealer if that's something they'd recommend.

[WyrleyD]

Cheers, didn't realise that but it'll have to do for now. I'll speak to the turntable/ hifi tech people when I go to collect the Rega.

[OutInTheShed]

Lucid_AV said:

That all seems great, except for the speaker cable. Why have you gone for something that's aluminium at heart? That's what the DeleyCON is. It's a CCA cable, not pure copper. CCA means 'copper coated aluminium'. Ask your Rega dealer if that's something they'd recommend.

I'm sure if we trawl the audiophile BS thread, there must be something in there explaining why a few milliohms of aluminium will sound so different from a few more milliohms of copper?

[TonyRPH]

The copper clad cable does seem a strange choice (presumably price based), however based on the thickness, I doubt that pure copper cable will make a shred of difference.

[Tye Green]

TonyRPH said:

The copper clad cable does seem a strange choice (presumably price based), however based on the thickness, I doubt that pure copper cable will make a shred of difference.

agreed that copper won't make much difference but quality copper cables prob not much more expensive anyway.

consider the Prysmian 6242Y (4mm) which is multi-stranded & pure copper - also has the static-discharge conductor which can be tuned to the 2nd or 3rd harmonic of the tweeter's resonant frequency. Screwfix stock this so it's easy to obtain.

Edited by Tye Green on Friday 3rd February 18:45