I wasn't the one who started this thread with a link to a post from Positive-Feedback-Online.com writer Jeff Day's blog, but I read it regularly and comment occasionally. I too have bought some WE16GA speaker cable although I only have at present a PSB desktop system that's limited to its captive cables.

I posted this last night on the comments connected to Jeff's initial post about the WE16GA and the Belden 8402 and I thought those who are reading this thread might find it interesting.

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It turns out it takes a stronger man than I to buy speaker cable with nothing to connect it to. So while the future listening room is still occupied (this is actually a very good thing, all things considered) I looked around my temporary listening space and concluded that there was a viable, if not quite optimal, way to fit in a pair of Omega Alnico monitors.

When I spoke with Louis, I mentioned the WE16GA and your experience with it. He immediately recognized the cable. I sent him the URLs for this and the Decware thread, as well as the eBay link, and he intends to buy some for himself. He uses a Swedish cable for the internal wiring and I decided to go with his stock wire. Then we discussed cabinets. I noticed that he occasionally offers non-standard driver combinations and cabinet sizes as one-offs, and he explained that while the market generally prefers a narrow baffle, he personally prefers the sound of a wider baffle. So following his expertise, mine will be 24″ H x 14″ W x 9.5″ D, rather than the standard 20″ H x 11″ W x 14″ D.

There’s no room for an MC-225 and an ARC SP6c, much less an LP12, so I’ve also ordered a 2-wpc Decware SET using a NOS Russian milspec SV83 output tube. (EL84s also work) Designer Steve Deckert recently re-designed the transformers so they’re flat to 80kHz. “There’s just more detail,” he explained to me. I’ve heard one of Don Garber’s X SETs several months after I heard the Decware, so I’m hard-pressed to describe the difference, but I liked both. The Decware is usually equipped with two inputs, but I’ve asked for one input converted to a second output, in case I choose to use my PSB subwoofer for a little extra low end.

The Decware can function without a preamp. unlike Garber’s X, and with more than a TB of music on the HD and less than 20 linear ft. of LPs, I can wait to bring the record player online.

Neither Omega nor Decware sell through dealers in the U.S., but Louis and Steve (I understand they talk on a regular basis) were very generous with their time so I was able to spend a few hours with each of them to listen to their equipment and hear them talk a bit about audio. Louis doesn’t have a real listening room, but a Chicago-area Omega owner was kind enough to invite me to listen to his Alnicos, using my MacBook Pro-Audirvana Plus-Meridian Explorer.

Among the great pleasures of returning to fine audio has been becoming acquainted with these dedicated audio engineers. (The characters assembled for the Garrard Project felt familiar) In addition to Louis and Steve, I’ve also corresponded with Paris-based Damien Plisson, the creator of Audirvana, for which I’ve lately served as a beta tester. I’ve read that Audio Research restores older models like my SP6c, and will even update them to some extent. Since the closest Linn dealer is outside Milwaukee, some Chicago-based audiophiles have identified a local LP12 expert who will revive my record player. And, of course, I’m looking forward to acquiring one of M. Beauvais’s restored MC-225s once everything else is in place.

Getting the cable first seems a bit strange, like my dad used to say about his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma: the school tried to be worthy of the football team. I think the Omega & Decware combo will match what you said of the WE16GA: “rich, musical, detailed, dynamic, and with a very good sense of timing, tempo, melody, that makes music sound very artistic, engaging, and dramatic.” It won’t be a Porsche, much less a Ferrari, but like a Mazda MX-5 in the Appalachians, it will be great fun.

Thanks to the proprietor (Art Dudley too) for helping me to focus on finding gear that can present recorded music like I imagine it can. Or at least assure me that I’m not crazy to think so.

The grain which made them sound a bit dirty has gone now. I`ve just taken all of the twists out and the bass is tamer, so I`ll run them parrallel with some small lengths of heat shrink to keep them together.
For the money they are a masive bargain. I`m going to keep them in for a very good run and may keep them in. The treble, cymbals, aren`t quite there yet but they are far from run in.

I was playing a jazz album Will, and the bass was boomy though moving air very nicely so I took all the twists out and put on a rock album, live K. Crimson. The bass was still coming through very nicely but seemed more controlled. I`m still waiting for the heat shrink to be delivered and when I run the two cables parallel I`ll still be able to put some twists in to experiment further. Just one WE 16g lead per terminal.
I originally bought the cable to make up i/c`s and have enough left for a metre pair and am waiting for 2 pairs of rca connectors.

As speaker cables they are brighter than my Isoldas but this could be that the slightly over-metallic zing to percussion is just due to their newness. They`re throwing a big picture or rather they`re not shy to show their stuff. Again, lively and dynamic.

If parallel, I wonder what putting them 8-10 inches apart might do. Seems like a lot of folks do either this, or twist to limit interference... I used my Styx spread apart for a while, and suspended off the brick floor, so must have heard something....can't recall what or how much though. May be worth a little experiment to see if it does anything beneficial.

It seems to me spk cables tend to clarify a bit in the bottom and relax mids up with burn in...more open, smooth, and textured. I wonder Palomino... Do you think your somewhat loose bass has changed as the top smoothed?

I`ve taped the cables together at 4" intervals and swopped a smooth TFK 12AU7 into the ZP3. Sounds nice. I have put my EL34`s back in for a change so this would account for some  bass weight. Piano and sax have a bold presence and the percussion, well I`ll find an album that highlights it to see whats what.

As you may know, to bridge the Rachaels you join the +ve sp trmls with a length of wire. Some time ago I realised i could take out the input furthest away from the sp trms being used and the sound didn`t change. I dont know what went wrong but suspect it was from an ill fated attempt at bi wiring which left a blown power tube. Anyway, to compensate I joined both sets of sp trmls together +ve to +ve and neg to neg, just using a stiffish wire about 12g.
Same operation for the WE 16g.
Just now I took the 12g out and cut new lengths of the WE so that each sp cbl had a pair of wires joined to their ends which went to their respective pair of polarities.
I lowered the needle on a live Traffic album and OMG. Forget about soundstaging, stuff was happening all over. The guitar was almost behind me, top left and the rest of the band were in free form. The room was filled up.
Bit down to earth now with Bill Evans Waltz With Debbie, but it`s still the best I`ve heard it. Theres more intimacy, just more of everything.
These cables are making  a big difference in my listening.

I`ve just put Robert Wyatts " Cuckooland" on. Amazing. The rooms completely filled up with a 3D wonderland.
This is the sound I`ve dreampt of for 40 yrs.
Steve, you are a genius!!

Hey Syd,

From your magical report I was wondering about a polarity shift. How are things going as the wires get some time on them. Also, do you think you can hear the silver solder? I suspect at least part of the idea is to make the ends more durable, but I was able to hear it when I added silver bananas to some cables I modded. The change was from copper spades on copper wire, and even though bananas are supposed to be a lesser quality connection, I could hear better sounding transmission.

I am going to continue to completely agree with the comments written here.
If nothing else, the value of these cables is going to be hard to beat.

DIY Zen Styx terminated with silver bananas.

Admittedly, I don't have much experience here.  Prior to the Styx, it was DIY Canare 4S11 and prior to the Canare, it was some monster stuff.

I'd like one of you guys with higher end wire to give this WE wire a try.  They blog poster seems to like it as does his source, the Japanese amp designer.

I suppose I have higher end wire, the Townshend Isoldas. I allways thought these as being with me for life. Since the WE`s have been in place I`ve kind of forgotten about them except for making a mental note to compare them...one day.
Actually I`ve allready had the idea of making up my Nephews Christmas box with them and the MP3 downloads I`m accumalating. I`m sure he`ll find good use for 3m of good cable, he can throw out the old Rega cables he got from me.

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Well I recently moved solidly into the "higher end." Though a good buy on used Synergistic Research Copper Elements, I had great sound, so it sort of surprised me that these cables "caught" me. But they use a really interesting combination of state of the art design, materials, and method, so I decided to give them an audition.

A cool blend of wires and tech, they have little tuning circuit "bullets." There is an active DC powered shield, designed to solve capacitance, EMF, and RFI. Best I can tell, the tuning circuits are a buffer between the shield and a ground wire, this ground wire being separate from the signal ground. So it appears not to be in the signal path, but you can hear the bullet changes quite clearly. One is more neutral and the other more open and extended. GEEKY, but the tuning potential is my kind of thing. They are warmish, extended, exceptionally revealing, smooth....and as best I can tell without noise, smearing, distortions....

I am thinking these SR cables will be hard to beat! Even so, you all jazzed my curiosity. Supporting a diagnosis of audio nutter, I am on day six of WE wires burning in in my workroom system.

I got enough to double up, making it 13 gauge. This wire may be the exception, but every time I have tried really small speaker wire, pulling less bass makes them revealing, but I miss aspects of the bass. After a few more days of running them continuously I will experiment with single runs, double, and also twisting.

Looks like he has bumped the price up to $1.39 per foot on eBay.

Will, I am obviously smitten by this wire, so I'd discount everything I've said except the overall impression of musicality.  I have a hard time being technical about it.

Just this morning, I got up saying I was going to do some hard core A/B.  Didn't happen.  I settled in the chair and only emerged when nature called.  Maybe I'm just in my happy place.

On the blog, there are people that are getting different sound out of twists vs no twists.  I also think there are people experimenting with various gauges of the wire.

The ebay seller seems to be doing well.  When the blog broke, he had sales in the 10's.  Now he's in the hundreds of units and raised the price.  So there could be the lemming effect going on or people like the wire.

I anxiously await your impressions.  I just don't know if I am brave enough to read them.  I don't want to come out of my happy place

Bought 60ft of the black this morning to replace my crossover leads.  Hopefully Palomino and Raven will lend a helping hand!

I've been reading about the WE wire again...a dangerous thing...and have a question...maybe a dumb one.  Why 16 g tinned stranded.  There is Western Electric  copper solid core wire and also larger gauge wire available.  My reading has found some who believe the unique properties may be due to the cloth insulation.  Am I correct in assuming this isn't made of the super pure copper or OCC copper, etc....just plain old tinned copper strands...really old, from the 70's to the 90's.  I'm no longer skeptical about sonic differences between wires just curious about this WE wire.  Mark.

LR,  actually the 26 strands of tinned copper have a plastic covering over which is the cloth outer cover.  See Pic.  I hope Pal is bringing his WE cables to your listening session so we can get two or three more opinions.  Mark.

Good LR,  I'll look for your impressions of the WE 16g wire later tonight, before going to bed.  I'm still on the fence.  I've got so much Audio Crap around, I would hate to add more that would eventually end up in a storage box.  I've been using a pair of Nanotec speaker cables for the last 5 or so listening sessions in the Cave and have been very pleased.  The Zu Audio Libtecs I previously had, I discovered were part of my trouble with over emphasis of the High End.  The Nanotecs impart a warmer sound while still being quite detailed...just not as bright on some recordings as the Libtecs are.  So I'm curious about if the WE wire could be even better.  The reviews here have me curious, I have to admit.  Mark.

http://6moons.com/audioreviews/nanotec6/1.html

Thought same thing about vintage WE solid core and plastic coating i've seen. so the cloth is really not covering the tinned copper, is just cosmetics. thinking 14 ga instead of 16 ga?

jeffiam wrote on 05/31/15 at 21:45:53:


As far as the poll I'm assuming Solid Core = Yes ~ Stranded = No?

I've had better results with stranded and find that I get more micro details and trail reverberations than with the solid core wire and perhaps a bit more bass with the solid core.

I also find it interesting that it has a poly and/or plastic coating as I didn't really realize that.  I wonder if you post on Jeff's Place in the comments section and ask him to confirm that the stuff he used also had the same coating?

At any rate, people seem to be digging it regardless and for the price it has great bang for the buck factor IMO.

I thought the poll was cloth (yes) or not (no). Thats my No.1 yes vote just because the cable is excellent and if you want to try other gauges and/or solid cores then go ahead but why the effort when the groundwork has already been done by those that settled on the 16g as the optimum a long time before we came apon it.
I also read that the plastic sheath is a rubber of sorts and probably is different to todays coatings and may add to the chacteristics.
Shame that the other colours dont seem available anymore. Half a dozen colours were made.
The source on e-bay says they`re from WE offices. How much can they keep finding? Google WE16g image search and all other sources are from Japan and asia. Loads of it....where do they get it from ?

My cables, after 30 hrs are sounding organic, balanced, alive.
Very quick as well. Listening to the last track side one of Santanas Caravanserai the bass player is playing 1/16ths or 32nds and I could pick it out easily as well as a antother guitair playing a couple of runs in the background.
Eric Dolphy`s `Out There`has incredible room cues of little echoes and trails. The most I`ve ever heard thus far.
I also find that there is an air of mystery to them. I put records on and wonder more about whats going on. It`s like getting caught up in a `happening`more than any cables I`ve so far used.
And....the Decwares are delivering.....

Nice!

The guy selling the wire should buy it.  He's a bit of  fanatic.  He may already have one though...

Well,  I decided to pull the trigger this morning after reading some of the posts here again but when I went to the sellers store he has shut down...no items for sale.  Apparently he is on vacation.  Anyway,  those who have been using this Western Electric 16g wire for a while, could you please give a brief note on your findings to date.  By my count there should be at least half a dozen here that have this in there system.  

I would vote in the poll but am rather ignorant on the subject.  I think the few speaker cables I've used have all been stranded with some kind of plastic covering...in the case of the Libtecs, then an outer cloth sleeve.

That's either been used (who knows where) or been sitting exposed to "some" elements.
The wire I received from the vacationing seller looked pristine and matched the original postings. He had red and black.
Personally I would send him an email via Ebay and tell him you would like a notice on his return and that you would like to get x of red and x of black, etc., etc.
Unless you have zero decent cables already (and I doubt that) I would just wait. It's worth it in my opinion for the price.
The good stuff didn't have a single kink, fold or blemish to the cloth jacket.
So not only does it sound better than any of the old, cheap Monster cable I was using, it looks nice too.  :)

Mark, sellers are knocking WE cloth cable out that is pre 1900`s and looks as rough as a bears backside. .....and it aint cheap.
I cant wait to try it out !

Just put it down to how ennamoured I am to the 16g Mark.
Listening to Burell and Coltrane...it`s popping.
I wouldn`t imagine the older copper has magical properties or a placebo effect. I dont even know if the green cable is 50 60 70 or 80`s or whether the tooling altered or even if the older cables are held in higher regard.
So why buy it ? It`s dirt cheap, I have more `pristine` 16g on the way, so when I see green, not red, not black, I think OK I`ll have a pop.
They shouldn`t sound different...but will they.

Looking at mine now, they`re pink. Light red was one of their colours.