will
|
Nice input Maddog. I was writing for a while off and on, and forgot to check if there were new posts, but glad to glance over your post after posting the below. I will read it more carefully and hope mine, from my angle, is not redundant or contrary.
Sounds like you might have been following Jeff Day Puggy?
To me it is all so relative, what we used before, and what we are using for power, other components, room, and what effects we want if we seek something a little off neutral.
As I recall it was Jeff Day's Japanese vintage amp modding friend who got a buzz going on Belden ICs, as well and NOS WE 16 gauge speaker wire via Jeff's site (precursor to Duelund tinned copper as I recall). I was intrigued, and made some Beldon/Switchcraft ICs, and tried some NOS WE 16 gauge tinned copper too. Both were interesting to me, but definitely flavored, each in different ways... To me, the Beldons had a nice seemingly resolving, biggish warm midrange, but to me lacked the finest detail and space. A little rolled off as I recall, and a little slow, and though big/warmth was convincing, it was just more "flavored" than I had come to need for what I find "musical."
Then I changed the switchcraft RCAs with Eichmann copper IC ends I had on hand, and that helped resolution, speed and space some, but they were still a little too colored "warm," and missing fine detail for me.
The WE 16 gauge wire was also flavored, this one not particularly weighty, or excessively warm per se, but leaning toward a lively and exciting upper midrange, and I liked that sound. But again, missing some of the finer detail in the balances I had come to love, and with them the bass in my system just plain died... 16 gauge not enough wire to get bass happening with my HR-1s in this system and room. I can't say how this would relate to faster/efficient open baffles, or other higher efficiency speakers not having any, but here, these wires were extreme in low end leanness, though with a seductive midrange.
But where was I coming from?
I had some nice VHAudio recipe power cables and ICs and had made some complex speaker cables of Ethernet cable wires for my SS system, so I knew how much cables could matter. Then, especially after getting into Decware, and tuning my room more, better cables became attractive toward even more transparent resolution and speed... bringing out more "lost in the music" potential... and a long quest began.
When Belden ICs and WE wires came on the scene, I had my first personal variation on the VHAudio recipe using UPOCC silver/cotton with nice KLE ends, and liked it notably better than the VH recipe. And my speaker cables then were Synergistic Research Copper Elements I had found a great price on, with their special active ground and UEF treatments, both very effective in AB tests. Both ICs and speaker cables had notably complete resolution, and being really good materials and design, while apparently seeking neutral and transparent revelation, they both allowed very complete detail complexity with smoothness and musically.
They fit pretty well in what I think of as a musical "reference" sound, which has always been to my tastes. I can definitely enjoy some pleasantly colored things, tubes, cables, amps, speakers, (though I always craved resolving and balanced front ends), but I rarely love notable colorations if I can't tune them into a more transparent, neutral and resolving base... leaving a touch of the sweet coloring, but the primary impression of transparency and neutrality. And for me, this has to happen without notable sacrifice to any part of the spectrum, spectrally and resolution wise.
As I developed my Decware systems, tuned to be very resolving, neutral and a little sweet/warm, but basically uncolored... with increased resolution and harmonics, I became intrigued by the very fine information, and less tolerant of loosing any complexity and space if seeking subtle colorations damaged space and fine detail. This was especially the case once I got my Tranquility DAC (now many mods later/better), and a computer, software, and cables tuned for it to show all its resolving potential. I loved very fine detail in space, and the Tranquility took it to new levels once I got it balanced well in my system/room. Less smearing, more resolution, giving more convincing and complete harmonics in space... textures, decays, spaces between players, room spaces and decay trails.... and importantly, less hardness due to the more resolved and discrete detail complexity tending to feather hard edges if tuned right.
But I did like that WE 16 gauge upper mid lift and complexity, so started to experiment.
I had gotten a big length of the wire from Ebay before it got expensive, so I tried doubling them up, two to + and two to -. And the upper mids that were compellingly, became harder, more rigid though the bass body and weight did come up a notch or two. Then I tried three wires together, and the same happened in both areas, the bass still a little lean here, but usable then, and the mids were still a little punched up in the upper mids, but not as sweet anymore, too concentrated, losing complexity... hard.
Luckily though, this is what led me to make the cables I love and still use... I reasoned that by using one strand of WE 16 gauge it would probably retain its sweet mid complexity, and to bring up bass I made a more optimal gauge for my needs by adding soft annealed pure copper in air (oversized teflon), and soft annealed pure silver in air (oversized teflon). I hoped I might get the best of all three worlds... And it worked, getting some of that compelling WE mid flavor but less obvious, along with a neutral and extended soft annealed pure copper feel, and the whole made more resolving and extended with a neutral and more resolving but smooth soft annealed silver character. After getting the right wire sizes to give nice seamless balances, I played with the number of wire crossings using loose twists to reduce minor smearing until I got enhanced clarity and speed right down into the bass, but not obvious... cleaner, but still smooth and musical.
So for me, the Beldon ICs were definitely interesting, and may have become more interesting with even better ends than Eichmanns, but those are pretty transparent ends, so for my needs, I gave up there. I could definitely see the attraction many have for this cable though, pretty sweetly musical within what to me are its limitations...
And the 16 gauge WE were great to me mixed with other more neutral wires... but were not close to right here with their bass attenuation in this system. That said, I can't comment on Duelund tinned copper sound, and how much they changed the WE sound, not having heard it yet, but I suspect I would end up pretty close to the same results with Duelund 16 gauge only. Whereas, using it as part of a more complex blend was interesting to me once the word was out on Duelund's wire. So quite a few years ago now, I bought some during a sale, hoping to make another pair of speaker cables with UPOCC silver and copper, but have not taken the time, the ones I have sounding so amazing it is hard to prioritize. I do look forward to making these cables though as I bet they will be a nice step up, and also look forward to comparing the WE and Duelund, as I have enough of both.
Looking at ICs on AliExpress for another forum member, I am finding some conceptually interesting ICs that are of good materials and interesting designs. Not having heard most of them, guesswork, but by the looks of some of them, some UPOCC copper with nice looking ends, and some very pure silver plate on UPOCC copper may be quite nice nice too. I have tried one of these silver plated cables, and was pretty impressed. Traditionally I have not been a big fan of most silver plate on copper wires, two sounds that are apparently tricky to balance together seamlessly in one wire. But these seemed to solve a lot of that for me... presumably the right silver thickness for the strands, and likely as much or more, the very high purity metals, and OCC casting.... I thought the silver traits with copper traits came together pretty nicely on this particular pair. And these extra good wire types are now pretty common in Chinese and Taiwanese cables, so I have been looking at some inexpensive variations on this theme as well as OCC copper.... I am guessing the ones with better designs and ends of both, UPOCC copper and silver plated UPOCC copper could be quite resolving and musical... good if transparency, neutrality, and more ultimate resolution are priorities. And many seem to be as cheap or cheaper than the ready made Beldens. So probably a good area to look for budget cables that may have few compromises.
All this is just another personal look, as no doubt lots of pretty serious listeners have fallen for the WE/Duelund wires and Belden/Switchraft ICs.... but hopefully this experience will help for others in sorting through all this wire stuff.
From my experience and explorations, seems most of us tend to start into deeper listening thinking of components as primary, and cables secondary. But the best components are made of carefully tuned wires, caps and resistors, connectors, etc... so are a complex of a lot of things feeding and supporting each other, including wires (like in cables) to move the energy around, hopefully without damage.
And our house power, power conditioners, and AC power cables feed energy to and from the components, giving them a leg up for better sound, or limiting potential.... the cables a big part of defining the quality of the energy feeding the component's connectors, caps and resistors, tubes, etc. And in my explorations, on components or cables, connectors are really big-time... the gateway to letting the energy flow easier, more completely, and without color.... or not, so the qualities of connectors effect everything beyond.
For everything I find power quality and flow is critical to how smoothly and completely all the component parts work, and therefore critical to the qualities of the sound these parts individually and collectively make. Smooth/clean power in the correct amounts makes for smoother/cleaner, less smeared, more resolving and neutral component sound.
Then ICs... like power cords, the character of the materials, gauges, geometry, damping, dielectrics, connectors... they effect the energy moving between components for better or worse, in the case of an IC the critical signal energy... and the signal energy is "formed" based on the qualities of the power energy... so our system sound is all one big stream of energy, and anything along the way can help or hurt. Then there is room, but ..... another topic.
So to me, getting the system energy qualities as close to "right" all along the way, circuit box to speaker drivers, is really tricky. And there can be all levels of refinement, or lack thereof based on the particular matrix that is a system... each part along the way effecting all the others. So with all great wires/cables, the metals, purity, and forming methods used, the dielectric, the gauges, geometry, damping, wire blending, ends...these all effect all the sonic balances in resolving systems. This is a primary reason I try to get all the cables and components musical, but pretty neutral and resolving, so I know I have a decent reference for improving from, and hopefully avoiding a labyrinth of compensations that can make the system harder to read clearly.
All that said, for me anyway, cables are every bit as important as the all important front end, or the amp, or pre, or speakers... all conveyors and modifiers of energy that is much more capable of producing greatness with the right conditions, and way too easy to damage with the wrong ones.
My take at this point anyway.
Will
|