I've used Kimber products for years. The 8TC is a classic. If you have a lean-sounding system and/or room, I suggest you go with this sweet, warm-sounding cable. On the other hand, if your system is too thick sounding, the leaner and more transparent 4TC is a better match. If you have speakers which are biwireable, go with the 4TC on top, and a shotgun 8TC on the bottom. Killer!
If you want a significant improvement over the 8TC, don't waste your time or money with anything less than, say, the Kimber Select KS3033. The KS3033 walks all over the Monocle in terms of detail, refinement, and scale. If the 8TC is three stars, then the KS3033 would earn four. When I find a speaker cable worthy of fivestars, I will let you know.

In the mean time, you can't go wrong with Kimber's 4TC and 8TC.

Hard to terminate and a very time consuming process.

I am currently using a DOUBLE run in bi-wire configuration to my Totem Mani-2 speakers. With my speakers I do not like the sound of these cables and imediately noticed a difference switching over to them. They have an upper midrange "glare" to them that I don't like. They do have an excellent bass and a fairly decent treble response though...other than that, no thanks, these cable are coming off of my system and are not for me.

Similar Products Used:

Cardas, MIT, Harmonic Technologies

Clean natural sound. The best I've heard for the price.

Non sheilded cable that you have to be carefull running near power cords.

I've been using this cable for almost 4 years, and have never been disapointed. It sounds as great today, as the day I bought it. I've compaired it to several cables costing up to 3 times as much. I've always found the Kimber to be the most neutral sounding of everything I've compaired it with. Don't waste your time on other cables. Go get yourself some Kimber 4 or 8TC, you won't regret it.

Similar Products Used:

Monster, Audio Quest, Belden

STUNNING improvement in image & bass, just STUNNING!!!

Harder to tie than fishingline

First let me say I am not sure of EXACTLY what model of kimber cable this was...but it was around 1985s vintage.
I USED to be one of those people who refused to believe that
speaker wire could make a difference...BOY, WAS I WRONG!
I got two short lengths of "HIGH QUALITY" cable with some used 18" Hartley speakers about 10 years ago. The owner said it was Kimber and that it had been very expensive. I was dubious about the benefit of high grade speaker wire but figured here was a chance to try it out at no cost. So I A/B'd the wire with the conventional speaker cable I had been using with my Magneplanar tympani/lux valve amp combination using both LPs (linn sondek LP12, stax carbon fibre arm, Denon DL103, pos-vibes tube pre-preamp) and CDs. (Marantz something)
The difference? Zilch! Zero. Zip! And besides, the lengths were too short to be useful- around 3' each.
I put them in a box for a few years. Then one day I was feeling dissatisfied with the sound of the mini-monitor speakers that lived on a tiny shelf in my bedroom. What I needed was to get them out from the books and onto the walls. I had wall hooks...but what about string? I looked everywhere without success and finally in desperation cut up the now unused lengths of Kimber cable. I split it into single strands and strung it across the back of the small speakers. I then hung them on the walls about 8' apart. I connected them to the amp with my usual Radio Shack 30c/ft speaker wire. WOW! What a difference to the sound. The bass was clearer and the stereo image improved out of sight! All this from just a few wall hooks and 2 12" lengths of Kimber cable! So now I'm a convert- YES, SPEAKER CABLE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Similar Products Used:

Bellwire, fishingline, picture hooks

Full bodied, warm, great imaging and huge soundstage,,

Rather costy, a little dark sounding

The best cable I have tried...Very strong and firm bass, superb vocals rendering, unfatiguing presentation and inherently musical...

Will try the shotgun version with 4TC to bring out the best from this cables....

certainly an outstanding cable!!!

Similar Products Used:

Audioquest Cobalt, Slate, Nordost Flatline gold, QED Silver series, IXOS, MIT, and a lot more

Transparency, soundstage etc. etc.

Some feel this cable muddies the sound when in direct comparisson to the also excellent 4TC.

The reviewer below intrigued me with his review so last night I took my 4TC out of my HT system and hooked it up in place of my 8TC (biwired) in my audio system.
I admit when I first bought the 8TC I wasn't impressed after having the 4TC already. However the 8TC seems to have really come around since then. Burn in?
I found that the 4TC seems to be a lively cable, but while listening I felt that I was missing out on something. The 8TC has better soundstaging and overall creates a better sense of envelopment. Remember this is in biwire configuration. This sound isn't muddy at all. In fact I found the 4TC and 8TC are nearly identical tonally (transparency). Not a big discovery, being how they are essentially the same design. This is my 2 cents. I think the 4TC is still an excellent cable and is probably THE BEST VALUE, but if you're like me and enjoy the 4TC, but want every last ounce of soundstaging you can get without blowing the bank the 8TC is better. Worth the extra cost? That's up to you to decide. Either of these cables are about THE BEST until you get into the REALLY REALLY expensive stuff. Hope this helps.

Similar Products Used:

4TC. Audio Quest Type 4 (This cable is horrible, but that's another story).

good re-sale value, time tested design that is hard to beat.

more wire is not necessarily better

My experience:

4TC is an amazing upgrade from the lesser cables in Kimber's line, and is all the cable one will ever need.....it's cheap, flexible, and inexpensive. It might be too transparent/lively (too good) for some people's tastes, so unless you need to muddy things up with 8TC and kill the life of the music....stick with 4TC. Less is more!

Bass is NOT better with 8TC, it is actually noticably worse. This is after comparison with a well broken-in 10ft run factory terminated with WBT-0645 bananas. Acoustic bass will really get killed in attack and body when directly compared to 4TC. Switching to 8TC (and most other brands of cable) sounds pretty life-less...it is similar to when one slaps the resistor on a Magnepan MG1.6QR or 3.5R (to lower its HF output). You only need to do this once to realize...yuck. Yeah, it will smooth things out, but the loss of transparency and musical life sucked-out are not worth it.

You can achieve better sound by using 4 of the strands of 8TC for bi-wiring, but that solution is not ideal. It is not recommended that the low and high sections be carried in such close proximity without some electrical or physical means to isolate them...but it is still a better solution than running 8TC in a single run.

Similar Products Used:

4TC, pbj, silver streak, 4PR, etc.

neutral, transparency, detail, warmth

haven't compared enough with others to know any

I think I fell into Kimber's cables by accident and I have had no regrets. The 8TC was a BIG improvement over the 4PR. Sound is neutral and transparent with plenty of detail. I purchased 14 feet off a bulk reel and terminated with gold spades from Radio Shack. Cost was only $140 at $10 per foot; better than paying $200+ for their special spaces.

associated equipment:

Audio Alchemy stuff > Theta Cobalt d/a > passive attenuators > Muse 100 > (NHT Super Zero, Supertwos and now 2.5) KCAG connect it all together. Great transparent sound. Still working on that imaging thing... must be the cheap DAC.

Cables matter!

Similar Products Used:

Monster flex connect, Kimber 4PR, Straight Wire ribbon stuff

Good sound and flexibility

Need a lot of work to terminate them

First, I use the Kimber 8TC for my 2 front Definitive Technology bp3000tl bi-polar speaker pair. Although this cable beats many others including the monsters, audioquest etc, I did not think too much of it in the beginning, after all, a cable is a cable so I thought.

I had the 8tc bi-wired to my def tech in a 4x4 setup: 4 wires to the high and 4wires to the mid. Each def tech has 2 tweeters and 4 mid range woofer, the big woofer in the bottom is wired separately. Under this setting, the Kimber 8TC sounded "balanced", detailed and transparent, not too bright and not too warmed. Now, as I peruse some of the reviews here, I noticed some reviewers mentioned this cable being too warm while other mentioned its too bright, I, on the other hand, find the 8TC sound just right. So I ended scratching my head and didn't know which reviews I should believed. Then one day, I decide to get myself a new pair of 8TC for the purpose of bi-wiring my centre speaker as well (I used to use the Monster wire for the centre before). So, my new challenge is how to bi-wire the centre speaker or should I tri-wire them. Here are my choices: single wire, or 4x4 bi-wire; 5x3 bi-wire, 6x2 bi-wire, 7x1 bi-wire, or 4x3x1 tri-wire… I think you know where I'm getting at, this wire offer incredible flexibility!

Now my centre speaker has 1 sub-woofer, 2 mid woofers and 1 tweeter. As I played around with the different configurations of the Kimber 8tc, this is what I found out: the 8tc sounded very warm any lacking detail when used as single wiring. For example, in the "Jackal" DTS DVD, Ch. 2, when that Russian lady cop first appear, after she lights up her cigarette, and close the lid on her lighter, I used to hear a pleasant "click" as the lighter is closed, now that "click" is almost gone missing. Bi-wiring is definitely better with the 8tc. When bi-wired via the 4x4 config, the 8tc sounded balanced. However, when only 1 or 2 wires hit the tweeter, they can sound bright, or very bright. Very interesting! I ended up with the 4x3x1 tri-wire config and my centre speaker never sound as good. I'm amazed.

Similar Products Used:

Monster, audioquest

I've gone through the whole Kimber line up and the double run of 8TC I finally settled on has finished my quest for high quality speaker cables. Okay, I'm intrigued by the new Monocle cables but I'm thoroughly satisfied by the clean, clear, and dynamic 8TC! A couple hundred bucks is a lot for most people to blow on ANY hi-fi gear much less a pair of cables. But I stand by my experience and say they are a HUGE bargain!