HRFC said:
Not sure yet. The initial cables will be sent out with the directions known to the listeners in order to assess whether directionality manifests itself significantly enough with these particular cables. If it does, we'll move on to sending the actual test cables where the directions won't be known to the listeners. If not, we'll have to try and find something which does.
se
Well, I played around with some twisting tonight and just didn't care for the results. Just too inconsistent. When you start getting out past the origin the already twisted portion wants to keep twisting and the pitch of the twists begins changing.
Anyway, I figured if we want something simple to begin with, there ain't much simpler than a parallel pair so I just took two lengths of the wire and fed them through some clear heatshrink tubing, shrunk it, and then used a short pieice of black heatshrink to indicate the reference end.
Yes? No? Something else?
se
Anyway, I figured if we want something simple to begin with, there ain't much simpler than a parallel pair so I just took two lengths of the wire and fed them through some clear heatshrink tubing, shrunk it, and then used a short pieice of black heatshrink to indicate the reference end.
Yes? No? Something else?
se
Attachments
Hi,
How did you do it? By hand?
If you have the simplest of handdrills this can be done within minutes and it should be pretty consistent throughout.
The best way, IME, to fix one end in LS clamps and the other in the drill, get the entire length under some tension and start drilling while keeping suffucient pull on the wire.
It's also easier to do the entire lenght of wire in one go and cut it up after twisting.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned I don't even need an I/C, a single piece of wire of at least .5m is enough for me already.
Two times should make it easier still, but it's not must.
After all we're going to see if the wire is directional at all, are we not?
Cheers,
How did you do it? By hand?
If you have the simplest of handdrills this can be done within minutes and it should be pretty consistent throughout.
The best way, IME, to fix one end in LS clamps and the other in the drill, get the entire length under some tension and start drilling while keeping suffucient pull on the wire.
It's also easier to do the entire lenght of wire in one go and cut it up after twisting.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned I don't even need an I/C, a single piece of wire of at least .5m is enough for me already.
Two times should make it easier still, but it's not must.
After all we're going to see if the wire is directional at all, are we not?
Cheers,
fdegrove said:
Yes. I was concerned about the pressures and tensions of the drill method with regard to creating shorts in the wire seeing as this is enameled wire.
Ok. I got out my little Stanley hand drill, chucked up a pair and gave it a go.
Seems my concerns were unwarranted.
I tested for shorts and it was ok. I also checked under a microscope for any deformation of the enameling and it looked ok too.
Pretty amazing. I knew that the enameling isn't as fragile as one might think, but it's even more robust than I gave it credit for.
Ok. So twisted pairs for Eric.
Okie doke. Man, if only you were so easy to please on other matters.
We are.
se
fdegrove said:
By the way, I just finished up Eric's three pairs. I did them as a single length and cut the three lengths from that. The test set I did earlier was only about half a meter. This was more like three meters and when I looked at it under the microscope, I saw what appeared to be some abraiding or some stress cracks on the insulation.
I checked it for shorts before I cut it up and it checked ok, but I'm a bit concerned about what I saw under the microscope.
While this method seems to produce fairly consistent twists, I got to thinking about what's actually going on with this method. Seems to me that you're not just twisting the pairs together, you're also twisting the individual strands torsionally.
Seeing as Eric was concerned about stresses on the wires themselves due to the braiding I'd originally suggested, using a drill to make twisted pairs would seem to be the worst thing you could do in that regard.
se
Hi,
Never seen it before, never really looked either as it never seemed a cause of trouble.
And I thought you not even worried about copper oxides on the surface?
When I said drill, I did say handrill and slow.
Alternatively you can use an electric drill but again slow with not too much pull on the wire.
Too little and you'll end up in the middle of the twist.
Yes you are, of course....Go slow or you'll have all the Mr. Ohno crystals dislocated.
Thank god you didn't order spool of 5N silverwire then?
Eric, sorry but you're going to have do with an inch of wire for that's all that was left after my twisted experiments....???
And I thought you guys in CA knew what a twister was....
Cheers,
Never seen it before, never really looked either as it never seemed a cause of trouble.
And I thought you not even worried about copper oxides on the surface?
When I said drill, I did say handrill and slow.
Alternatively you can use an electric drill but again slow with not too much pull on the wire.
Too little and you'll end up in the middle of the twist.
Yes you are, of course....Go slow or you'll have all the Mr. Ohno crystals dislocated.
Thank god you didn't order spool of 5N silverwire then?
Eric, sorry but you're going to have do with an inch of wire for that's all that was left after my twisted experiments....???
And I thought you guys in CA knew what a twister was....
Cheers,
fdegrove said:
I'm not. And it was ERIC'S concern about the stresses. I was just curious as to why he'd be so worried about the stresses of hand braiding yet recommend that I twist the cables using a method
The Stanley I used is a hand drill. And I did keep it slow. And I only put as much pull on the wire as to take up the slack.
se
Steve Eddy said:
Yes, I also find it amazing such wires aren't more fragile, but
if they were, I suppose the transfomer manufacturers would
have to throw away about half their production or so. Maybe
we have them to thank for the quality of such wires? Not exactly
the ones you are using, but enamlled ones in general.
Christer said:
Yup.
Which leaves me wondering why most every cable out there is literally entombed in thick, extruded thermoplastic insulation. I mean you've got the conductors themselves in thick extruded insulation, often accompanying various solid and/or tubular dummy cores for spacing and whatnot, thick extruded jackets, and seemingly just to add insult to injury, some sort of woven plastic sleeving.
You'd think these things were being used in the field for military purposes or something when all they really have to do is sit peacefully behind our audio equipment inside a nice comfy home.
And of course none of that plastic is required to get the signal from point A to point B. All you need is the conductive medium, i.e. the wires themselves.
I sat down and calculated the percentage of conductor to dielectric for the total volume of a 30 gauge solid core single build enameled wire wire and a 30 gauge solid core extruded thermoplastic wire.
For the extruded wire, the insulation constituted 79% of the total volume and the conductor only 21%. For the enameled wire, those figures more than reversed with the conductor making up 84% of the volume and the insulation just 16%.
And here we're talking about JUST the insulated wire. Not all the other stuff. Looking at many of the cables out there, including some of the most highly regarded, I see stuff I'd estimate on the order of 95% insulation and more.
Gotta wonder if these companies are in the wire business or the plastics business.
se
Still, the insulation isn't strong enough to be used outside the
case. A friend of mine tried quadtwisting (is that how it is called,
that old telecom double-twist?) of thin enamelled solid copper
wires for interconnects.
This was recommended as the latest and most fantastic
tweak by our Swedish tweaking guru Svalander. First, I am not
sure my friend really found them that good, but more importantly,
having three cats and a daughter aged a year and half, they
didn't last very long. Some of us don't have that problem, but
I guess enammeled wires are better used inside equipment.
case. A friend of mine tried quadtwisting (is that how it is called,
that old telecom double-twist?) of thin enamelled solid copper
wires for interconnects.
This was recommended as the latest and most fantastic
tweak by our Swedish tweaking guru Svalander. First, I am not
sure my friend really found them that good, but more importantly,
having three cats and a daughter aged a year and half, they
didn't last very long. Some of us don't have that problem, but
I guess enammeled wires are better used inside equipment.
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