Flexygy 8 Cable Overview and Metrics
Aargh, Another Cable Review?!?
I know what you are thinking - not another speaker cable review?!? Don’t tell me some reviewer is about to take me on a tour of the wonders of exotic cables and how they magically can transform your hi-fi system into audio nirvana! Rest assured, we don’t suffer from audio nervosa (at least when it comes to cables) like many elitist audiophiles tend to. We are realists for the most part and do our best to keep things in perspective, especially on topics which are easily quantifiable through empirical data and analysis. Oddly it’s the topic of cables, one of the simplest components to analyze and quantify, that seems to be surrounded by the most propaganda and snake oil. We can only figure it must be because the differences between any reasonably competently designed speaker cables are so miniscule that some manufacturers must rely on these snake oils or newfound sciences to help bolster product appeal (directed towards unwary consumers who, through no fault of their own, simply don’t know any better.) Take a hobbyist for any particular passion (i.e. cars, fitness, etc) and plant the power of suggestion of them, sprinkle in some fancy techno babble while creating an urgency for the product, and they will likely buy it in droves. Add to the fact that audible preferences are very subjective in nature, and - wham - you got the winning receipt.
For a list of the common snake oils we have so far uncovered, I recommend reading the following article I authored titled "Top Ten Signs a Cable Vendor is Selling You Snake Oil"
Overview
It is refreshing to discover esoteric cable companies such as River Cable that
don’t promote snake oils or nonsense. Sure, their products are pricier than the
cables you will typically find at your local home appliance store, but then
again, the Home Depot 10AWG Zip cord doesn’t come dressed up in such nice
clothing nor sport compression banana terminations.
In “straight” configuration, the Flexygy 8 is an 8 conductor (4 paralleled hot and return wires) with an aggregate gauge of 7AWG and effective gauge of 10AWG. You can also opt for bi-wire configurations where each pair has an effective gauge at each speaker terminal of 13AWG. I prefer to use a high quality single wired solution as opposed to a bi-wired one. Bi-wiring offers very few advantages over single wired solutions, but typically several disadvantages such as doubling of pair to pair capacitance seen by the amplifier, increasing cable costs, and furthering cable clutter by doubling up on your cables to each speaker. Personally I don’t subscribe to the bi-wire craze that some audiophiles tend to, but then again, I also don’t believe in magical CD mats or soaking your cables in kosher chicken fat blessed by a Rabbi before hooking them up to your stereo system. Thus I elected for my review samples to be “straight” single wired runs. River Cable offers the choice of banana or spade connectors. My preference is for banana assuming they are of good design.
Finding a banana plug to snugly mate with my beloved Status Acoustics Decimos
has always been a challenge to say the least. The binding posts Status
Acoustics choose on this product tends to cause lesser designed banana plugs to
slide off or connect loosely to the speakers. River Cable has the perfect
solution for all of their speaker cables. Their adaptable banana plug can
accommodate pretty much any binding post out there. All you have to do is keep
twisting the terminal until the banana plug firmly connects to your amp/speakers
binding posts. Once tightened, I was unable to pull the cables off of my
speakers or amp. Having a solid termination is critical to minimizing contact
resistance. I have seen far too many poorly designed spade/banana plug
terminations used by exotic cable vendors that simply added more series
resistance to the product then they were allegedly trying to minimize in their
cable design. I consider this counterproductive and it appears River Cable is
in agreement as evidenced by their adaptable banana plug termination which is
now popularized by many of the better cable manufacturers out there.
Birth Certificates Aren't Just for Babies!
While some may think it’s a bit quaint to include a birth certificate along with
the cables, I felt it was a nice touch - especially considering so few esoteric
cable companies actually bother to measure, let alone test, their products. In
contrast River Cable does this with all of their cables. Many cable companies
simply don’t have the proper equipment or know-how to do so. Even more of them
place very little weight on measurements and perpetuate the philosophy that you can’t measure performance. We often
refer to these people as cable
soothsayers. Regarding cables, they couldn’t be more wrong.
Most of the specs on the back of this birth certificate validate continuity and physical condition. It appears they were mostly taken for quality control to ensure continuity. Their website does list the following cable metrics which are essential in gauging cable performance.
River Cable Flexygy 8 Published Metrics:
- Capacitance: 10 pF/ft
- DC Resistance: 0.003 ohms/ft
- Velocity Factor: 0.87
- Inductance: 300 nHy/ft or .300 uH/ft
The capacitance specification is unusually low and the thought of high inductance immediately popped in my head before reading the rest of their specifications. As we learned in our article Calculating Cable Inductance in Speaker Cables and Dielectric Absorption in Cables Debunked, inductance and capacitance values are interrelated and based on the dielectric and conductor spacing between the (+) and (-) conductors.
Though the inductance is a bit higher than I’d like to see in cables, there is merit in producing ultra low capacitance and low resistance cables. These are the type of cables best suited for long runs to minimize resistive losses and amplifier stability issues of marginally stable amplifier designs. It’s particularly important to use low capacitance cables when powering ESL type speakers on tube amps. In this instance, the Flexygy seem to be the most appropriate cable design I have seen commercially produced.
