PauSim said:
I'd tried the gold plated silver wire, and I'd tried titanium but I got that from a company here in the US.
You're welcome.
Certainly is.
Well either your English is just fine or mine is horrible because that's exactly what I'd call such stores.
Yup. It's used for many things. Jewelry as well.
If it's a synthetic or synthetic blend it is.
Ewww. Not good.
Ewww. Even worse.
Yeah, there's just something about the natural materials that works best for me too.
Yup. I want it all. Sound. Looks. Feel. The nude version satisfied quite well on sound and looks but lacked a bit on the feel. The new version with the straight quad and silk jacket does it all for me now.
I have made some quad cables before. I found them to possess an instantly recognisable character either braided or twisted : "Foot-tapping" is what they´re all about
I´m a big fan of Bossa Nova. Listening to the Getz/Gilberto album through quad cables is an addictive experience. I simply can´t do any other thing besides listen to the music. A quad configuration can bring an extra low octave to the system and the music´s rythmic balance keep grabbing my attention.
Know what you mean. It's worked well for me too for some years now.
Yup. Straight from real bees.
I'm not twisting or braiding the wires anymore. I apply it with all four wires twisted together at one end which I then hold in a vice while I wax each of the four individual strands. Then it's into the oven at around 125F for about 10 minutes to melt the wax and allow it to seep into the silk.
Supposedly beeswax has a dielectric constant of 2.7-3.0.
I don't chase after numbers though. I've never found "better" numbers to give me consistently better results. Seems to work that way for some, but not for me and since I'm really designing for myself, I take the route that gives me the best result.
I'd also tried some other waxes, such as some microcrystaline waxes as well as regular parafin wax and even some tung oil. The beeswax worked best for me.
se
Member
Joined 2004
Banned
Joined 2002
PauSim said:
Well that needs to be taken with a rather large grain of salt.
Soon as most cable manufacturers start getting into the "technical" and "white paper" stuff, that's when they get into trouble. But I guess they feel they need to have some technical "story" to tell for marketing purposes.
se
Mark your calendar.......
I agree with Steve.
A lot of this so-called "white paper" cr@p is just that. Cr@p. Sophistry designed to rationalise away the ludicrous prices for bog standard wire, tarted up to be something special. I submit a company that uses the initials of a famous engineering college as an example.
Mind you, a few guys do things different, and for valid reasons. Dave Magnan comes to mind. He used a very fine gauge wire, that was also highly resistive. He is a smart guy, and had his reasons for doing so. No idea if he still makes them, haven't talked to him in years.
Then there is the guy down in Houston, that put some nasty fliud in the jacket. We used to joke that it was toxic waste water from the nuclear plant that he worked at. He had a lot of off-the wall ideas, and seemed capable of being able to get wire to sound exactly how he wanted it to.
Jocko
I agree with Steve.
A lot of this so-called "white paper" cr@p is just that. Cr@p. Sophistry designed to rationalise away the ludicrous prices for bog standard wire, tarted up to be something special. I submit a company that uses the initials of a famous engineering college as an example.
Mind you, a few guys do things different, and for valid reasons. Dave Magnan comes to mind. He used a very fine gauge wire, that was also highly resistive. He is a smart guy, and had his reasons for doing so. No idea if he still makes them, haven't talked to him in years.
Then there is the guy down in Houston, that put some nasty fliud in the jacket. We used to joke that it was toxic waste water from the nuclear plant that he worked at. He had a lot of off-the wall ideas, and seemed capable of being able to get wire to sound exactly how he wanted it to.
Jocko
analog_sa said:
Beats me. It began originally as a means to help keep the silk serve retained on the wire. Early on I'd had a couple of problems with shorts. This turned out to be due to the silk serve loosening up a bit too much when I'd pull back the serve at the ends to make sure I was terminating the right wires (the individual wires are all the same color).
When you slide back the silk serve at the end of the wire, the serve starts loosening up and if you're not careful, can loosen up far enough upstream that the fibers can be separated and result in a short.
When I decided not to use the beeswax in the nude version, I prevented that by making sure I had at least three or four inches of wire past the point where I'd be terminating it.
In any case, for whatever reason, I preferred the sound of the cables with the beeswax over those without. For all I know it may have nothing at all to do with the beeswax. But I like what I like for whatever the reason so it's staying.
se
Member
Joined 2004
Steve Eddy said:
Well that needs to be taken with a rather large grain of salt.
Soon as most cable manufacturers start getting into the "technical" and "white paper" stuff, that's when they get into trouble. But I guess they feel they need to have some technical "story" to tell for marketing purposes.
se
If I remember correctly, before getting all-hyped about the speed of light, Nordost originally claimed the advantage their loudspeaker cables had over conventionals was that theirs could be hidden under the carpet, away from the wife´s sight.
Member
Joined 2004
Hey I think this was hijacked, cuz I dont even see relevance anymore to some of this, its all like inside jokes. I was learning from all of this. I had originally thought that the silk was wrapped around the wire at a single layer, like wirewrap is done, but a braid that the wire slides into is different/plausible for me to do on my own I think? Do you think that similar results could be had by using a pure silk sheath of sorts.
That bee's wax thing is intresting, I couldn't get my wooden "Resonance" blocks to fit tightly over the cables like I wanted, so I began placing bee's wax over the block where it made contact with the wire, to take up the slack, and make a tight fit. I dont know if they actually do anything, but they look nice, and the cables sound good thus far, though I seem to have a short in one from handeling it roughly.
That bee's wax thing is intresting, I couldn't get my wooden "Resonance" blocks to fit tightly over the cables like I wanted, so I began placing bee's wax over the block where it made contact with the wire, to take up the slack, and make a tight fit. I dont know if they actually do anything, but they look nice, and the cables sound good thus far, though I seem to have a short in one from handeling it roughly.
Member
Joined 2004
pjpoes said:
In my case the silk is wrapped around the wire in a single layer (it's only about 0.002" thick) and then a bundle of four strands of that is inserted into the braided silk jacket.
That place wires.co.uk sells some silk wrapped copper wire. You could use that and get some silk braid and do pretty much the same thing.
Of course you don't have to use silk and copper. Chris VenHaus at VH Audio sells some nice 28 gauge solid core silver wire that has four layers of cotton served on it.
You could try that with some of that Audio Consulting braid that Reference Audio Mods sells.
Hey, if it looks nice and sounds good, don't worry about it.
se
Member
Joined 2004
pjpoes said:
I suspect pure silk braid may be difficult to find. If you read above I got very good results with cotton tubing which is everywhere.
Here´s another IC I did using nothing but cotton tubing as dielectric and a Nylon jacket (for looks). 28 awg single stranded silver. Braided and soldered like a PBJ.
I don´t.
Unless the silk sheath is used between two copper or silver foils, like the Alpha-Cores.
Attachments
Member
Joined 2004
Yeah, I read here that ChrisVH joined the legion. Someday I will try my luck again at the local market. Tough war... local customers are either suckers that buy anything from the major brands with an "audiophile pricetag" attached or too sceptic to accept different approaches that could mean significant improvements.
For something completely different: What do you think about this as a Nordost clone (and a very poor one)?
I bought this giant spool of flat wire. Don´t ask me how I got it and how much I paid for it. 100 multistranded silver-plated copper conductors in FEP Teflon. The IC in the photo has about 30 wires total IIRC.
For something completely different: What do you think about this as a Nordost clone (and a very poor one)?
I bought this giant spool of flat wire. Don´t ask me how I got it and how much I paid for it. 100 multistranded silver-plated copper conductors in FEP Teflon. The IC in the photo has about 30 wires total IIRC.
Attachments
Member
Joined 2004
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.