That is the eBay seller I have bought from 3 times now.  Answers questions, quick shipping.  Fair price.  He has raised it $.20 per foot since people heard of this wire but still within reason.

Give it a little time.  I liked it right off, but like it more now.

First off these cables have a great feeling to them.  They're supple and feel great in my hands.  The sound is great with no burn in.  They are TONE MACHINES!!!

try some Mogami cable with Keith Eichmann bullet plugs... it will likely upset your understanding of boutique wire....

the connector and how the wire is connected to the connector is more important than the wire itself, as long as you use wire that meets well established electrical specifications for the transmission of audio signals between interconnected components.  

There's a reason Mogami cable has been the industry standard in recording studio's for decades.... Stop and think about it... cable designed to transmit tiny, minute, microphone signals over 10's of feet, in noisy environments, sometimes hundreds of feet.  Though those kinds of distances are handled wirelessly these days usually.

I've been up, down, across and around the world of boutique, audiophile approved wire over the past 35+ years... cables across the ranges of most well knowns, AQ, Kimber, Wire World, Goertz, Straight Wire long ago... blah, blah, blah.... too many to remember or enumerate here.  And even more I've never seen, nor heard.  There is no end to entities trying to capitalize on the insecurities of audiophiles when it comes to wire.

I will be the first to admit or agree that wire can, and does effect the sound I hear coming out of my speakers.  However, wire by itself, can only alter a signal that passes through it in a degrading fashion.  The goal is to alter/degrade the signal the least.  A wire cannot improve a signal passing through it.  Many boutique cables are actually designed to have "a sound".  They're passive EQ's in effect.  That's OK, if that's what you want, and you don't mind paying an 800-1000% markup over material & manufacturing costs.  But it seems to make more sense to use "accurate" wire, and spend your money on better components or components that more suite your taste than striving to alter the sound of your system with "wire" that costs more than the components connected on each end..... that's just not logical Mr. Spock.   just my .02₵

More and more I tend to agree with Maddog's assessment.  Find something that sounds like it's doing its job and stop there.

By the way, I am going to try the WE wire in a power cord.  Jeff mentioned this in his blog so I figured I would give it a try.  I have enough left to do a short power cord.

P.S. I have always wanted to try those Eichmann plugs on some IC's.  I've heard good things about them.

Thanks, I'll dig out what that wire is rated at.  It may be printed on the cotton jacket.

But you need to rate the current.
Volts are important but the current is what generates the heat.
Your runs sound short so not nearly as much of an issue.

My guess is 16AWG is plenty but there are tables you can find on the web I am sure.
This one qualifies I think.
http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

pal: Quote:


I made a Belden 8402 IC with switchcraft RCAs quite a while ago as per the Blog instructions. The thing I liked most about the Belden was the slightly warm and biggish body and bottom (I suspect due to the larger wire in part), its friendly midrange emphasis, friendly/open (though suppressed) highs... pretty accurate feeling timbre.

Nice cable, but it was just too limiting compared to what I was used to, my VHAudio recipe silver IC using KLE silver harmony ends. I used WBT silver solder on both.

The VH pure silver wire/design with the Silver Harmonies (pure silver and silver plated copper) are really amazing to me...very neutral, transparent and revealing without sacrifice to musicality. The more I compare it, the more I like it.

I had a similar thought as Maddog, wondering what a nice RCA would do with the Belden cable, though I have heard differences comparing good  wires so don't think the connectors are more important than the wire necessarily.

Having some Eichman Gold plated copper Bullets around, I put them on the same piece of Belden cable, it being burned in. I used WBT silver solder again. It is hard to say exactly the differences without being able to A/B directly, but even with brand new solder and RCAs, I heard the Eichmann RCAs let the cable breath better, letting through more complex information faster. I played them about a week in the main system, liking the big, warm sound with nice midrange presence and good highs.

But once I put back the VH recipe silver I was glad to hear all the Beldens were holding back. Once again, the silvers let through more fine information improving everything...air, speed, texture, subtle bass timbre, spaciousness, ambient information, soundstage, more accurate sounding timbre of all voices and instruments regardless.......but I did miss the seductive slightly bigger sound of the Beldens at first.

Again, not a great comparison though, not being the same RCAs, but they are family anyway. Cable to cable, I think the Belden/Eichmann is a respectable and friendly sounding IC. But at least here, the VH recipe with KLE Silver Harmonies (KLE is the new and improved Eichmann) is world class, outperforming the Belden in most every way without a downside to me. But my system is tuned to be very revealing, micro detail critical to the magic, so I could clearly hear the better transmission of the VH silvers, the vast complexity making the music feel extra real.

The main things this experiment did for me is prove that very pure, soft silver in cotton, with really good RCAs, is sweetly revealing without being hard or cool...accurate without a sign of rigidity...fast and unrestricted, it is revealing of all subtle info top to bottom. It just seems to let it all through bringing out beautiful music, textured and rich with complexity. The other thing the experiment made me want to consider is trying a 24 gauge VHAudio silver recipe IC (mine are 28 AWG), liking the slightly bigger sound of the larger gauge Beldens. Might even consider going all the way using pure silver KLE RCAs!

But as I listen now, I am totally satisfied with the 28 gauge Chris VenHaus chose for the recipe, so may never get around to the experiment! And I am enjoying the Belden/Eichmanns in my second system where they started for burnin, but sound really good.

Thanks Will. What do you think it cost you to build for VHaudio?  I have been intrigued by that recipe for some time.  If I remember correctly, he sells all the ingredients on his site.

Just as a test I put my decware sliver back in.  I lost bass definition which surprised me.  So back to the Belden I went.

Palomino

I am not sure if the bass definition thing is that the Decware ICs go deeper, pushing the Torii/room tolerances, or something else. But I have experienced this too. Here the Decware silver has a little too much upper mids up, and a little too thick down low for me.

The VHAudio recipe is not cheap, but it uses world class materials, really good design theory, great damping, and was carefully arrived at by Chris Venhaus' experimentation. I have not heard the Duelund wire BW speaks of so can't comment, but I have been temped by this wire for the Torii signal path. Also Chris V seems quite open to email questions should you have some.

http://www.venhaus1.com/diysilverinterconnects.html

You would have to do the math but I think 200 give or take depending on length, buying enough wire for two sets or one, and the RCAs used. I did see the KLE Pure Silver are at a good price on the VHAudio site, just a bit more than the lesser valued Silver Harmony I have from partsconnexion. Whether worth the money is not a question for me, but with your love of the WE and Belden in your system, it sounds like you are in a good place for your musical pleasure!

If you want more transparency with the Belden wire, some KLE RCAs should be interesting. But with what I gather your system/room presents, if you really want to hear it all, I feel like the VHSilver recipe will show it...Question is if that will be pleasing! Might take some adjustment.

It would be interesting to see what Chris Venhaus hears differently with his 24 gauge silver/cotton wire, bigger than the 28 in the recipe. I wonder because I tend to like thinner wire ICs better, less pushy. Grover's allow a bigger transmission across the range, a mixed blessing to me. But that cable has a mix of wire materials and who knows what does what in the sound balance. On the other hand, the the bigness of the Belden is pretty nice here. Though I have found several bigger wire ICs sort of in the face, VHAudio silver is so smooth, I wonder if it may be good bigger?

Just talked myself into emailing Chris. Will report back on that.

I have found EQ through Pure, Audirvana, and Amarra excellent tools though the Amarra I tried would not allow other EQs than their own. It sounded great put was too limited for me with only 3 EQs.

I prefer Apple AUfilter over highly appreciated free EQs I have tried. AUFilter comes up as a choice in Audirvana. It is quite transparent and has a lot of power with 3 parametric EQs that you can adjust the width/steepness down to very fine adjustments and a high and low shelf (or cut). I use pretty narrow Qs (like .1 - .45 octave, usually the narrower) for precision. I also like the high and low shelves on each AUfilter. With the option for four of these modules with Audirvana, you can do some serious fine tuning if inclined.

I think the only way AUFilters will negatively effect your soundstage is with the wrong frequencies cut or increased. Alternately you can potentially increase it with the right ones by reducing masking or heightening attenuated good stuff.

Interesting list of speaker tuning tunes. I think I have the Kronos CD around here somewhere, but none of the others.

BTW, Just in case anyone gets interested in Eichmann or KLE RCAs, look around online for ideas on how to solder without damaging the delicate plastic casing. The encased metal is very minimal on these ICs, I think to reduce mass, so when the metal gets hot it can soften the fit in the casing. On my second ones (after messing the first set up a little) I put them on an RCA plug to dissipate the heat while soldering.

AC-5 maybe? Or a Pangea AC-9?

Congrats on the no fire!

I agree. Before I settled on and managed to corall AC-12s everywhere in the system I played around with other PS Audio, Shunyata, Analysis Plus, TARA Labs, Decware, and MAC cables. Quite interesting results various cables various places .  .  . but I preferred the AC-12 in each instance and with the system fully equipted with these I'm not tempted to play around with power cables any longer.

Yes, moving them around could yield good results!

I know you have monetary concerns that I don't and have done really well with what you have made and acquired second hand. (I've acquired a lot of second hand cabling myself). Being able at two periods of time to spend quite a bit I'm glad I experimented with the VooDoo Cable line and with the power cords that I did. . . even if that means a few boxes of cables not in use right now! I really have found a synergy that I don't want to mess with, in fact other than perhaps upgrading my vinyl front end a bit in the future, and installing a few more of the VooDoo Cable Iso Pod footers, I'm really not inclined to make changes. No DAC tempts me as the PS Audio DirectStream still floors me, no amp or speaker tempts me as I have the amp and speaker compatibility and marvelous sound that I want. And though I probably will start selling some components and speakers, it's nice to know that with just a trip to the storage unit I could set up another system, in fact another two or three systems. That's a comforting sort of "headroom" to have. Life is good, I feel blessed (and in the way of life partners, friends and family as well) and should ride the crest of this wave as long as I can. I hope all of us feel or will feel this way.

Understood. I'll be very selective in the future as well. . . don't want to mess with the synergy of the components I have.

I am still using the we16g power cord. I am not noticing the forward sound Jeff notes.  Then again, my system is a little forward sounding to begin with.  

I bought a fair amount of this wire and will try it in various things.  So far still the biggest impact as speaker wire.

ive been running the we10ga bare, amp to external crossover, with very good results.  ive tried various termination, but like them bare the best.

also have a full set of 8402 ic's that i made over the holidays.  like them very much too.  using the switchcraft rca's.  i have much more expensive ic's laying around doing nothing now...

More info from Jeff's Place concerning the new Duelund Wire.  This wire "should" be very close sounding to the WE wire that is almost extinct and very reasonably priced IMO.

"Parts Connexion will be pricing the Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA wire at an introductory price of $9.95 USD per meter for the first 30 days after they receive it. The link to order the new Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA just went live at Parts Connexion here, so get it while you can!"

I have some of the Duelund cable coming, I'll comment more when it arrives.
The WE 16 is nice stuff!

I purchased some 10g western electric wire to run as speaker wires off the crown amp to my augies.  I didn't like it.  So this weekend I tried it in a power cord.   I had already tried the 16g and liked it.  I think the 10g bests it in all areas except fine detail. The bass boost was so much that I had to recalibrate the crown.  Anyway just an option if somebody wants to give it a try.

Hey guys, another audio writer (Jack Robert's of Dagogo) speaking highly of the new Duelund DCA16GA wire.  12 meters of wire for only $120 bucks ... this is a great deal for those on a budget.