Price Paid:  $2.00 from wholsaler

Summary:
I was given a set of these RCA interconnects Running Belden 9860 double sheilded twinax cables. AB d them with the storebought rca peices of junk and just about fell on the floor. The left channel was running the belden between the amp and the pre amp. Right channel had another cable. The store recommened the smaller wire for more highs in my system. The bass disappeared with the smaller cables. The difference in the channel running belden was so significant the floor vibrated as the bass was opened up and extended so much more, the right channel had zero floor vibration at the same volume. Yes the smaller cables gave me more highs that was because it eleminated the lows, I got my hans on 50 feet of this 9860 belden wire at $1.80 a foot(the girl on the phone said this stuffs expensive, but no where near the 300$ (yes 300$) the audio shop was trying to charge me for this cable(3 foot pair 300$). 16 gauge single standed copped, with shield. Belden actually has a few different cable types for RCA applications. No need to get taken to the cleaners buying BRAND NAME interconnects that have a big price tags and lots of mumbo jumbo specs behind them. Just get yourself some belden cable and high quality rca ends and your miles ahead of the store bought crappy overpriced cables out there. Buy a length and check it out you will not get any better sound from a cable. I'm running A Bryston 3b st amplifier, B and W 604 ser3 speakers, nad tape deck, Thorens td 160 turntable, grado cartridge and a crappy sony dvd right now.

Strengths:
Cheap and Yet extremely high quality

Weaknesses:
Not very flexible

Similar Products Used:
axios, RCA

Price Paid:  $2.00 from wholsaler

Summary:
I was given a set of these RCA interconnects Running Belden 9860 double sheilded twinax cables. AB d them with the storebought rca peices of junk and just about fell on the floor. The left channel was running the belden between the amp and the pre amp. Right channel had another cable. The store recommened the smaller wire for more highs in my system. The bass disappeared with the smaller cables. The difference in the channel running belden was so significant the floor vibrated as the bass was opened up and extended so much more, the right channel had zero floor vibration at the same volume. Yes the smaller cables gave me more highs that was because it eleminated the lows, I got my hans on 50 feet of this 9860 belden wire at $1.80 a foot(the girl on the phone said this stuffs expensive, but no where near the 300$ (yes 300$) the audio shop was trying to charge me for this cable(3 foot pair 300$). 16 gauge single standed copped, with shield. Belden actually has a few different cable types for RCA applications. No need to get taken to the cleaners buying BRAND NAME interconnects that have a big price tags and lots of mumbo jumbo specs behind them. Just get yourself some belden cable and high quality rca ends and your miles ahead of the store bought crappy overpriced cables out there. Buy a length and check it out you will not get any better sound from a cable. I'm running A Bryston 3b st amplifier, B and W 604 ser3 speakers, nad tape deck, Thorens td 160 turntable, grado cartridge and a crappy sony dvd right now.

Strengths:
Cheap and Yet extremely high quality

Weaknesses:
Not very flexible

Similar Products Used:
axios, RCA

Summary:
Sometime around fall 98 I decided to hook up my TV audio output to my NAD 3020i. All I had was a coil of Belden 8620 (can't find it now) and I just soldered on two cheap RCA plugs with whaterever solder - and my TV sounded better than my CD player.

I put the cable between the CD (I' made a 50ft length out of laziness) and I heard a different CD Player/Amp combo. Maybe the B&W speakers helped in making the difference more obvious.

1 Star off: I still believe that for real audiophile setups that better designed cable of the $500+ would beat this.

Strengths:
Clear, open sound, well balanced accross freq range.

Similar Products Used:
Radio Shack/"Came with" type connects.

Summary:
After working in the building automation industry and using Belden cables exclusively for signal integrity I decided to my rather uninspiring RCA cables bewteen CD playar and amp... The results blew me away! The soundstage, lows lower and more attack, sweet highs magically appeared.

From just a length of Belden (don't recall the ID but oversized core, twisted pair and foil screen) and a couple of Radio Shack RCA connectors crudely soldered on my setup was rejuvinated.

Jut food for though, and worth of some more experimentation.

Similar Products Used:
Used with NAD 3020 amp, B&W Speakers, some top end Pioneer mid-fi player.

Summary:
hi john or anyone out there reading this..have you had any experience with belden 89259 cables as interconnects. like you, i have been using pretty costly interconnects and i need 3 pairs..you will see why from the equipment list..lately, upon reading john risch's work on belden cables, i purchased the belden 89259s, soldered them and hooked them up between a tube buffer and the amp and it sounded so right. no more brightness. everything fell nicely into place. anyone had any similar experiences with this cable?
equipment:
marantz 63 se cd player, hooked up to musical fidelity x10d tube buffer with chord cobras,
x10d hooked up to musical fidelity x-cans ( tube headphone amplifier) with supra eff 1 interconnects,
the x cans hooked up to an arcam alpha 6 plus with nordost blue angels.
headphones: sennheiser hd 600.
mission 751 monitors
speaker cables; nordost superflatlines biwire cables.
*planning to change all interconnects to belden for consistency and afte reading john's review, am considering belden for hooking up the speakers.

5 stars for the belden.