Canare 4S11 Star Quad Speaker Cables

Canare 4S11 Star Quad Speaker Cable, shown here in a 4 meter bi-wire configuration, terminated with Vampire Wire #HDS5 Spades (front-right channel shown)

Canare 4S11 Star Quad Speaker Cable gets it's name from the 4-condutor-style construction that minimizes the "loop area" between twists of the conductors.  This "double balanced" pairing reduces susceptibility to electro-magnetically (EM) induced noise from sources like light dimmers, fluorescent light ballasts and AC power transformers.  The Star Quad design also improves the damping factor at the speaker.  Each of the four Star Quad conductors is 14 gauge and when used in pairs, the effective conductor size is 11 gauge.  The outer jacket diameter is 10.7 mm (.421 inch).

Take a look at the diagram to the right to get an idea of the unique construction.  The conductors are made from large numbers of thin annealed copper wire strands for maximum conductivity, flexibility, and long lived reliability.

A cotton filler material maintains the Star Quad conductor arrangement and the round shape of the cable without compromising flexibility.  Specially modified polyethylene insulation provides a low capacitance dielectric for improved frequency response.   The jacket is extruded from a special PVC compound that remains pliable even at very low temperatures.

The result is a super flexible cable, with a professional, high-quality look and feel.  Even some of the very expensive esoteric cables do not achieve this look and feel.

Performance / Value

In our descriptions, we often boast that Canare products are better than Monster, and many of our customers seem to agree.  For comparison, at the time of this writing, Monster's "Z3 Reference" speaker cables are $329 for a 10 foot pair.  It's doesn't seem fair to compare them to Canare Star Quad though -- they're kind of stiff and awkward looking, and they don't come with audiophile-quality terminations.  If you want to bi-wire /  bi-amp, you'll need to buy two sets.  They do come with a carrying case, but one must wonder how many customers actually carry their speaker cables around with them.

Synergistic Research Signature No. 3 Speaker Cables have gotten some great reviews, and they're really a closer match to these Canare cables, but a 12 foot pair will set you back $795, or more.  If you want to bi-wire / bi-amp, you'll need an additional set!

Silver Audio connects has some interesting offerings...their "Silver Symphony 48" starts at $1700 for an 8 foot pair.  While it is true that silver is a slightly better conductor than copper, the same conductivity can be achieved in copper conductors, simply by increasing the size of the conductors slightly.  And as cool as these cables may be, they are rather awkward looking, and don't look like they would stand up to much handling.

Kimber Kable BiFocal-XL speaker cables can bi-amp / bi-wire, and they have enjoyed many excellent reviews.  Their design and construction takes a different approach than Canare, but the look and feel of quality is very much like Canare's.  These are great cables, but a 10 foot pair will set you back $2140!

It's confusing, because price does not necessarily relate directly to sonic or aesthetic improvement. We had to solve this dilemma for our own custom installations.  Our customers tell us that they want performance, but they would rather have extra components than to tie up thousands of dollars in speaker cables.  That's why we settled on Canare's Star Quad speaker cables for use in our custom installation work. 

Canare 4S11 is a professional quality, high performance speaker cable, with a high-quality look and feel.  You can tell that it's nice cable just by looking at the way it runs across the floor.  If we could put a link here so that you could handle the cable, I have little doubt that even more people would choose this cable on that basis alone.

Review

Our philosophy is that the perfect cable is one that adds nothing to the sound, and that takes nothing away.  We have customers using these cables in systems that range from modest home systems to multi-million-dollar commercial venues and the common theme in all of the comments that we have received over the years is neutrality, clarity, accuracy, detail, extended frequency response, tight bass, openness, and low noise.  We've had customers tell us that these cables revealed nuances in their favorite music that they had never heard before.  That fits in with the comments about tight bass and openness because as the bass becomes tighter, the overall soundstage opens up and one begins to hear details that were previously obscured.  Others have commented that these cables are less fatiguing to listen to.  That would probably be the lower noise.  We have sold some very expensive speaker cables over the years, but these are the ones that stand out as sounding better than their specs and price would suggest.  We hope you will get as much enjoyment from your set as so many others have.