So I have been looking in making my own cables for a long time now? I have been looking at Gothem , and Mogmai and canare cables. I saw the Canare hdmi 9.5 foot cable that's $45.00 bucks on Clarence At full compass audio for $3.65 each. So I said why not try it? I ordered a few cables and got them in a few days. I don't believe that the 1's and 0's on a hdmi cable can be made cleaner or move faster no matter what you do. ( Thanks blue jeans cables). Well what ever canare is doing with their cables it has impoved my ; sound, a clear picture and more vivid deeper colors. It works and am happy. My family has said somthing about the 3 things I have mentioned about the impovments from this cable. I do have a $100.00 dollar cable I was using but, am happy and content with the canare cables. So I just wanted to share my thoughts and experience with this cable. I am a canare fan now. Thanks to everyone who has told me to not buy but, save your money and buy and make your own cables. My wife approves 110% of diying and saving money. Cheers Jeff
I've been using various cables for around 2 decades with great success. The idea is to apply different type of cables to different sound systems, and cater for different tastes.
This goes back to time when I was modifying quite expensive HiFi gear that was most of the time shipped to my place for modifications. In an attempt to give best result for the fellas who were trying to get to that audio heaven, I was also suggesting different cables / materials that would bring the end-result very close to what they were trying to achieve. So, they were also getting sample cables to try and choose what best suited them. This was great recipe … but I had a source of great “raw” material to work with…..
For transistor gear, and high powered amplification, the solid core copper cables where the best. The order in which the cables were affecting the sound was power cables, interconnects and then speaker cables. The speaker cables are made from copper ribbons, but they could be also made from solid round cross-section copper cables.
Next is the mixture of tube amplification and everything else solid state. This worked very well with solid core copper, but silver and then gold plated. The speed / harmonic richness was ideal for a mixture of solid state equipment and valve gear.
The last group was single ended triode amplification with either a turntable as a source, or very natural sounding digital source. This was simply ideal for silver ribbons. Very expensive, but simply outstanding. The catch was that not many people were really ready to hear the resulting sound, which can simply be frightening because it is very fast and revealing. People simply do not expect to hear that anywhere else, but at live performances.
I suggest you obtain solid core copper cables to start playing with power cables and interconnects. For power cables, use 4 cables in total; 2 for phase and 2 for neutral. The ground wire can be a standard multi litz yellow/green wire. Place them in circle (phase/neutral/phase/neutral) and then twist them lightly. You must place this in a sleeving for the power cable. The ground wire should not be part of the 4 twisted cables – it should just run flat in parallel with twisted cables.
For the interconnects, use exact same technique, just use smaller diameter solid copper cables and do not use shield at all. So, you’d have hot/return/hot/return. You can even fine tune the sound by applying various amounts of twist, which will change capacitance and inductance by a small, but easily “noticeable” amount. Do not use any sleeving for interconnects! If you have to, then use cotton.
Soldering should be done with 9% loaded silver solder – the silver will end-up at the surface of the solder joint, which will work really well especially at higher frequencies.
Latter on you can move to solid core silver wires, but this would have to be annealed, and then carefully handled to prevent unnecessary twisting and bending of annealed silver. Just remember that both the power and the interconnect should receive the “silver” treatment. And this is where the sound can become really good… in a good system.
This goes back to time when I was modifying quite expensive HiFi gear that was most of the time shipped to my place for modifications. In an attempt to give best result for the fellas who were trying to get to that audio heaven, I was also suggesting different cables / materials that would bring the end-result very close to what they were trying to achieve. So, they were also getting sample cables to try and choose what best suited them. This was great recipe … but I had a source of great “raw” material to work with…..
For transistor gear, and high powered amplification, the solid core copper cables where the best. The order in which the cables were affecting the sound was power cables, interconnects and then speaker cables. The speaker cables are made from copper ribbons, but they could be also made from solid round cross-section copper cables.
Next is the mixture of tube amplification and everything else solid state. This worked very well with solid core copper, but silver and then gold plated. The speed / harmonic richness was ideal for a mixture of solid state equipment and valve gear.
The last group was single ended triode amplification with either a turntable as a source, or very natural sounding digital source. This was simply ideal for silver ribbons. Very expensive, but simply outstanding. The catch was that not many people were really ready to hear the resulting sound, which can simply be frightening because it is very fast and revealing. People simply do not expect to hear that anywhere else, but at live performances.
I suggest you obtain solid core copper cables to start playing with power cables and interconnects. For power cables, use 4 cables in total; 2 for phase and 2 for neutral. The ground wire can be a standard multi litz yellow/green wire. Place them in circle (phase/neutral/phase/neutral) and then twist them lightly. You must place this in a sleeving for the power cable. The ground wire should not be part of the 4 twisted cables – it should just run flat in parallel with twisted cables.
For the interconnects, use exact same technique, just use smaller diameter solid copper cables and do not use shield at all. So, you’d have hot/return/hot/return. You can even fine tune the sound by applying various amounts of twist, which will change capacitance and inductance by a small, but easily “noticeable” amount. Do not use any sleeving for interconnects! If you have to, then use cotton.
Soldering should be done with 9% loaded silver solder – the silver will end-up at the surface of the solder joint, which will work really well especially at higher frequencies.
Latter on you can move to solid core silver wires, but this would have to be annealed, and then carefully handled to prevent unnecessary twisting and bending of annealed silver. Just remember that both the power and the interconnect should receive the “silver” treatment. And this is where the sound can become really good… in a good system.
For analogue cables, including power, all you need is sufficiently low resistance (including at the connections) and inductance and capacitance which is not unusually high or unusually low. For digital cables you need the right characteristic impedance. Ordinary commercial quality cables provide this. Anything significantly different is almost certain to be electrically inferior, however much you paid for it or however carefully you made it.
That's being kind. There's a veritable Gish Gallop of total nonsense there. Story-tellers have the advantage over rationalists in that they are unshackled by the necessity of experimentally-verified truth.
Ahh the resident experts who don’t have any clues and obviously never listened to high end system.
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One of the useful things about people who talk nonsense is that challenging their statements often provokes an insult against the person instead of a considered response to the challenge, thus advertising the fact that they have no facts on their side so those looking on with insufficient technical knowledge to judge the issue can still form an opinion. Usefully, the insults often follow well-worn paths: deafness, bad equipment, lack of experience, lack of money, bullying (which is funny when used as an insult!), censorship.
Well everyone has their option. I did not say anything due to the sensitive matter ( but, I use to work for a small high end cable company. ( A lot was going on trying to sell the cables and get the name out and advertise. It was all about the money from the hifi mags. That's when I knew I was done.) so hay that's why I find it fun to buy and build your own and everyone's option is welcome. Now that am building my own there's no competition now just build plug and play sit back and enjoy. Jeff
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At Axpona earlier this year in the Chicago it seems every cable manufacturer was there. Only one attempted to 'prove' their cables actually sounded better. The problem was there was a good five minute time frame between listening to ordinary cables and their high end cables.
One manufacturer, Silnote Audio, has the audacity to sell cables for $5000. That was one company that did not offer any kind of A/B comparison. And because of dealings with the owner I wouldn't trust him if he said there was a money back guarantee.
One manufacturer, Silnote Audio, has the audacity to sell cables for $5000. That was one company that did not offer any kind of A/B comparison. And because of dealings with the owner I wouldn't trust him if he said there was a money back guarantee.
That's a lot of money for cables $5,000. I know there are people out there that can afford and buy these cables ( I have been very close to being there ( buying the cable and I sold them). Also a sales pitch is as good as a hot air in a ballon. It's full of hot air and that's all it is. Jeff
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