Interconnects - Magnet wire?

[gunalangingan]

Onix interconnect

Hi. I am about to purchase an Interconnect for my humble system. I found Onix Black Silver at USD150. Can anyone give me some suggestion regarding this product. I found little information about ONIX in the Internet.

Thank you.

 

[AndrewT]

$150 sounds about $120 too expensive.

 

[sonidos]

gtforme00,

Have you ever used Canare star-quad as an IC? The more I read about twisted pair, the more I want to try to build a pair from another manufacturer. I've seen some comments where Canare is high in capacitance.

I've bought Kimber, Van den Hul, etc. and I think I can get more bang for the buck rolling my own.

Can you drop me an email? I may be interested in a bit of your spare cable to try making a set of ICs. Thanks.

 

[analog_sa]

Re: Onix interconnect

I found little information about ONIX in the Internet.

Not a good sign. It may indeed be excellent but the resale value won't be good.

 

[olriley]

I made some DIY solid silver-in teflon interconnects (helix twisted pair for each channel), non shielded, plenty of guidance on the web, important to use 99.99% fine silver, cheap and easy, sound as good if not better than any commercial offering I've used so far. Regards - Oliver

 

[keantoken]

Perhaps I'm not current with the discussion at this point, but I have a comment regarding the consideration of different insulation materials for their dielectric constants.

I heard somewhere (pertaining to nonlinearity in capacitors) that insulators with higher dielectric constants usually have less linear characteristics. Teflon, having a low dielectric constant, would decrease phase shift/treble attenuation as well as being more linear, resulting in less distortion.

I've never done anything with cables, I'm just throwing this out there.

- keantoken

 

[sonidos]

olriley -

Thanks for the info. I found the info on the web. Does anyone know why 4 9's silver is preferred? Is this to reduce tarnishing? I seemed to have read that somewhere.

I had put together a simple attenuator circuit with Dale resistors, sealed relays, and silver wire. I decided to scrap it and salvaged the silver wire. However, when I was pulling out the wire, I noticed that when I pulled back the insulation, the wire had a deep blue tarnish. I went to my parts box and pulled out some unused silver scraps to compare and it was free of tarnish.

Any of you metal guys know what may have happened?

 

[olriley]

I don't know specifically but I guess its to do with reducing inclusions within the atomic structure of the metal, which could affect its electrical properites... it is reasonably cheap though, I used 0.315mm stuff. Quite soft and delicate. Blue tarnish something to do with application of heat from soldering??
Regards,
Oliver

 

[gtforme00]

I just saw this thread again, sorry I didn't respond sooner.

I have never tried any "brand" of cable, I just don't put that much importance on it. Not disparaging you for being interested, it is just not my thing.

I design and build SONAR transducers. The receive signals are on the order of microvolts and are operated in sometimes very electrically noisy environments. For this application we use the lowest capacitance cable we can find, but this is due to high frequency of the signal (50 to 800 kHz). There may be some benefit to higher capacitance if you are interested in filtering these high frequencies, but I don't see why you wouldn't just add bypass capacitors to achieve the same thing.

The cable I have available to me is by no means exotic. It is standard tinned copper wiring for the most part, and typically consists of two to four pair of individually twisted shielded wire pairs. The dielectric is probably PVC, though I could be mistaken. I have found that there is no set rule to which side of the shield (or both) should be grounded. It can be surprising the results of playing with the ground scheme.

In the audio world, this type of cable is seen as substandard, but it works great for me. My line of thought is that as long as you have good shielding and reliable termination, you have achieved everything that matters in the art of interconnects.

Regards,
David

 

[sonidos]

David,

Thanks for responding. I didn't find your remarks at all disparaging. I guess I came at this hobby from a different angle because I started reading Audio magazine in my teen years and kept seeing all those Monster Cable ads and I wasn't sure about how to roll my own.

But based on what I've read here, it seems the cable companies put tons of $$$ into marketing and I learn quite a bit from engineers on this site.

I'm not knocking what someone may hear with their $3000 set of speaker cables, but I'm on a budget with another kid on the way, so this seems the way to go and wean myself off of exotic cables and have more fun with this hobby.

-Javier

 

[ginetto61]

... would solid core magnet wire work as well as cat 5? ...

Hi ! exotic hook-up wires are made of teflon insulated thin solid silver wire
I am wondering if this is the best way to pass a signal.

 

[Speedskater]

For RCA analog interconnects, the central conductor can be:

• Solid silver
• Silver plated copper
• Special copper
• copper
• Copper clad aluminum (CCA)

There will be no differences!

* * * * * * * * * * *
The dielectric can be any of the common wire insulator materials.
Again, there will be no differences.

* * * * * * * * *
The central conductor can be solid or stranded. Lerge or small.
Once again, there will be no differences.

 

[MrKlinky]

I believe that most of these cable questions moot; the magic is in the speakers and always will be. Don't lose sleep about cables - pick the ones you think will work and/or look the best and they usually do. Besides, a good bottle of red during listening will improve the entire listening experience more than any piece of wire ever will...

 

[Scottmoose]

Hi ! exotic hook-up wires are made of teflon insulated thin solid silver wire
I am wondering if this is the best way to pass a signal.

For an unbalanced interconnect? No. It would be a very good way of increasing the potential for RF pickup or triboelectric issues though.

 

[ginetto61]

For an unbalanced interconnect? No. It would be a very good way of increasing the potential for RF pickup or triboelectric issues though

Hi ! no i had in mind hook-up wires for signal connections inside the case like in the preamp in the picture attached
No question that RCA cables to be used for connecting units must be shielded and also very well. No question about that.
Speaking of interconnects my listening experience reflects what i have read online about some brand ICs using litz wires. This is the cable
Cardas Audio 300B Audio Interconnect Interconnect Cables user reviews : 4.7 out of 5 - 3 reviews - audioreview.com
i quote

...He commented that the metal dome tweeters in the 805's needed taming and that he would let me borrow the Cardas 300B's for trial.
I can tell you that I am no longer considering getting a new CD player! Those cables did tame the speakers and I am now enjoying music again.
The MIT cables added significant dynamic range over the Monsters, but the Cardas cables added musicality...

My personal experience matches the one of the reviewer
i had a cd player from Rotel the sound of which i did not like completely.
Then i borrowed the mentioned ICs and bam ... much much better.
I really do not know if the cable was acting like a filter .... it could be But for sure i enjoyed the sound of my cd player so much more
And something similar happened with a DIY cables made just twisting two thin pieces of magnet wires together .... taken from an old transformer. (by the way i could have done hundreds of ICs with all those primary windings, RCA plugs aside of course )
There is something in solid core ... and the midrange Maybe they just cut bass Hzs and very highs exposing the midrange ? but it was very nice.