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When 1994 began, I was living at home, working two part-time jobs. Without much money, I had to get bang-for-the-buck audio products. Kimber Kable's 4TC and 8TC speaker cables seemed to fit the bill.
At the same time, my girlfriend ACS (above) was a junior at UC Berkeley. She still found time to work a few hours a week, at the Victoria's Secret in San Francisco's Union Square. Yes, that store was just a few short blocks from Ultimate Sound, which was a Kimber dealer.
ACS was a huge fan of black lingerie, under blue underwear. And that was a major reason why she approved of Kimber's black-and-blue 4TC and 8TC. In addition to these speaker cables, I also had Kimber's affordable PowerKords, PBJ line-level interconnects, and AGDL digital cable. These products gave me peace of mind. And because they did not completely wipe me out financially, I still had time and a little bit of money, to go places with ACS.
In the photo above, ACS felt like throwing up, but the women's restroom was occupied. Thus, I brought the men's garbage can to the door. Although many cables made you want to throw up, I actually kept those 4TC and 8TC, until the end of the 1990s.
In the late-90s, I would make trips to my second home, Honolulu. And of course, I went to Audio Directions Ltd., which was a Kimber dealer. Stewart Ono (AA's late UncleStu52) had verified that the dyes used in the Teflon insulation could affect sound quality. Sorry ACS, we know how much you liked the black-and-blue colors of the TC series. But Kimber then switched the 4TC and 8TC to white-and-clear. If you do a search here on Cable Asylum, you can read Stu's comments about this.
In 1998, I acquired the Kimber KS-3033 speaker cable, which replaced my old 8TC. That old 8TC then went to an uncle, who lived on Oahu.
In the late-2000s, my uncle's daughter started at UC Berkeley. As a freshman, my cousin lived in the dorms. Heh heh, she and her two roommates were watching adult videos. Anyway, my uncle wanted to replace the ol' 8TC. At my own home, I had plenty of MIT, Wireworld, and XLO speaker cables, but not Kimber. So I hit up my audiophile circle/web, who pointed out that, instead of replacing my uncle's 8TC with new white-and-clear 8TC, why not look to upgrade to the then-new 12TC?
Just as now, in the early-2010s, the Bay Area did not have any Kimber dealers. Although plenty of Kimber products come my way, I did not yet encounter any 12TCs. So, the first time I ever saw a 12TC was at my uncle's house.
Although everyone's bugging me about Kimber's unaffordable Naked interconnect, I can't believe we haven't done any reports about the 12TC. Apparently, the 12TC is one of Kimber's best-selling. As we do with other cables, we'll put the 12TC through the wringer.
-Lummy The Loch Monster
Follow Ups:
Fine report, thank you for your insight, I have some 12tc from Alixpress burning this last couple of weeks I made up with the pure silver Viborg banana and spade connectors, I will soon be trying these in my main system upstairs in hope of de throning my very expensive cables I have had for a number of years. We shall hear !
BTW I see they do some with 50% silver plating and 100% silver plating now also.
For a 2 meter terminated pair the Kimber costs about $800.GR Research, on its youtube channel, has more than suggested that the same cable that Kimber uses for 12TC is available in bulk from China.
I imported some myself a while back for a tiny fraction of the Kimber cost, modified it as per GR and terminated it.
Yes, it's very fine and modified as GR does it arguably performs better than the Kimber version.
You might consider importing some of this stuff and putting it through the wringer too.
Edits: 02/12/24
Kimber uses PE insulation. Does this chinese cable use PE insulation? Is the metallurgy of the actual wire exactly the same between the Kimber and the chinese knockoff? Assembling this cable is going to be a nightmare. If you screw up with a single strand you might have to start completely over. And suppose you nick one of the strands while stripping it? Then what?But no matter. If you think the sq of the chinese knockoff is superior then, ipso facto, it is, no matter the metallurgy or the insulation or the braiding. And the knockoff stuff is certainly cheaper, by a long way.
ln any event, my experience is that solid core speak wire sounds vastly superior to stranded wire. But make the comparison for yourself.
Lack of skill dictates economy of style. - Joey Ramone
Edits: 02/14/24
Perhaps you didn't understand. An industry insider in a position to know says they are the same.
I agree that terminating this cable is not easy, but not for the reason you state. After all they are color coded; you'd have to not be paying attention to mix up the strands. If you're fearful of stripping, use a self-adjusting stripper as I did. As for superiority, that can be accomplished, according to some, with either the Kimber or the (origial?) Chinese cable by stuffing it with a thick rope altering the relationship among the individual wires.
As for solid core speaker wire, I have made the comparison a long time ago and found it wanting even as compared to lesser cables than the Kimber (style) cable.
+1. Even a fully assembled version from GR is going to be less than half the price of the stock Kimber.
Half price would be $400.
But how about $40 or so; terminate it yourself.
If we believer GR it's the same cable.
Very tempting now that you mentioned $40.
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