Mogami cables

It's possible, but highly unlikely that you'll find one spot to cryo and burn in cables, etc.

If you live close to any major urban centre my suggestion is to simply do a google search for cryogenics, cryogenic treating and even heat treating to contact those vendors to see if they have a cryo unit. You'll probably be able to track one down. The key is to cryo into the minus 300-320F range.

You'll then have to track down an audio dealer that has a burner, either a Nordost or Audiodharma cable cooker and have them burn in the cables.

Alternatively, you could ship to someone like Gene at Takefiveaudio, Steve Huang at Audiosensibility, or Alan Kafton at Audioexcellence and they can have your stuff cryoed and then burn it in (they all have the Audiodharma cooker) but you will probably be looking at a bit of a wait time as they will be sending your stuff out for cryo and have to coincide with shipments of their own to their respective cryo vendors to make it cost effective.

With respect to MC Dave, although this might elevate his cost slightly, my suggestion would be to contact Gene at Takefiveaudio and, if he is looking at single ended IC's, to have Gene make up a pair of IC's using the Vampire CX RCA's and the Mogami wire, all cryoed, and then have Gene burn them in on the Audiodharma cable cooker.

I'd expect the price to be more than stock Mogami (the RCA's alone are about $42), but the Vampire RCA's are very high quality/very high copper content and a very good sounding RCA (again, the connectors are as important as the wire), probably around $85-$100. But I'd also expect the performance to be very high.

I had Vampire make me up some IC's a number of years ago using their basic stock wire and the CX RCA's and had those cryoed and burned. Total cost was about $95 (about $70 plus the cost of cryo and burn in) and I'm still using those IC's in secondary positions in my system-they easily bested commercial products like the Kimber Hero with WBT connectors which retail for 3X as much. I'd expect the cryoed and burned Mogami with those connectors to be even better based on my experience with the other Mogami cables I have in use.

 

They are affordable, high quality commercial grade made in Japan cables. The ones I got are very flexible and very low capacitance, I used one to replace the lead from my Technics SL1210. I got them here, good price and service and dont have to buy in bulk:
http://search.store.yahoo.net/video...ogami+stereo&.autodone=http://www.svideo.com/

 

Ok thanks.

 

Regarding reeler's recommendation of http://www.svideo.com

It's not that obvious what you are getting there. They don't mention the Mogami part #2534 for the Neglex OFC quad.

 

I might like to reach out to Gene too, but for a couple sets of balanced. You have connector recommendation to use with Mogami wire?

 

The good thing about buying these from the big distributors already terminated is the low cost.

Maybe they are not terminated with the best RCA connectors. The XLRs are certainly fine, because they use Neutriks and there is little to complain about. But they are done in a factory with correctly adjusted equipment (I'm speculating) to keep the soldering to a minimum and so on.

I somehow think that the low price and high performance is what makes these attractive and a bit of a no-brainer. Hand terminating, cryogenic treatment, paying for Cable Cooking etc. - just moves these up in price so and this brings in the competition.

 

In theory differences between balanced cables in use with a fully balanced circuit should be minimal (some argue non-existent) as opposed to those that might be audible with the same cable single ended.

I haven't really compared a lot of balanced cables but the one pair I do have in use in my system (Gene built those-I know he likes and recommends the Vampires) uses Vampire XLR's. I have some Neutrik XLR's kicking around that I never did use and for the extra $5 or so a pair the Vampires would definitely be my choice but the Neutriks can save you a few dollars.

All of the better Vampire connectors (RCA, XLR, spades etc.) offer very high copper content and serious bang for the buck IMO, particularly when compared against a lot of the audiophile jewellery stuff like WBT.

 

Grover made a number of balanced interconnects for me and he used the Switchcraft XLRs which are also very nice.

I have a feeling the design of the XLR is basically pretty good and (unlike RCAs) you are probably going to be hard pressed to hear a difference between the various manufacturers.

Again, my point here is that the pre-terminated cables are good value and they use Neutrik XLRs.

 

Don't totally disagree with you when it comes to balanced, where audible effects should be, at least in theory, minimized. If I was buying Mogami balanced I'd be very tempted to buy it pre-terminated.

Depends on what the costs are with single ended. Looking at Gene's (at Takefive) pricing, which is quite aggressive, doing cryo and burn in will add approximately $18 to the cost of a 3 foot pair of cables. Not sure what his labour costs are as I haven't had him build anything for me in quite some time but he has always been pretty reasonable.

From there you have cost of connectors. Personally I look for high value connectors-not cheap junk with lots of nickel and brass, but good quality copper based connectors that typically don't have audiophile jewellery prices. So yes, you will pay a bit more for those, and you will also pay another $5-$10 for the cryo on 4 RCA's.

I'm not one that "flips" or goes through a lot of different wires (the last set of speaker cables I had I used for probably 20 years) so I don't see these extra costs as being particularly exorbitant.

It's only speculation on my part (but an educated guess based on some experience) but I would venture that a lot of the performance of the big name cable manufacturers higher end product comes from treatments like cryo and burn-in that their products are subjected to. If I can get that treatment on good quality, but reasonably priced wire/connectors-the most expensive cable I have in my system was about $225-$250 and most of the other wire was a lot less than that-and enhance its performance considerably (and that is my experience), I'm happy to pay an extra $30-$40, maybe even $70 or $80 or so to get excellent performance relative to a simple commercial product that might be quite a bit more expensive, but some might certainly feel different about it.

 

Sounds like my kinda cable. I may try them out just because I detest the concept of fiddling around with cables as though they are tone controls.

 

Man, I dunno about that. In 2009, when we dismantled Complete Post on Sunset (across the street from the old United-Western), I was stunned to see the number of deteriorating Belden cables in the racks, some of which had been there since the early 1980s. The dialectrics were totally falling apart. I hesitate to think how a 60-year-old cable would hold up...

Almost all our work was being done with CAT-5 and CAT-6 cable, so these cables had been unused for at least 10-12 years. Still...

 

That would depend on the dielectric I would think. Some of those plastics last forever, some don't (particularly some of the foamed stuff). All kinds of different stuff is used for dielectric for different goals.

There was a certain kind of plastic that Monster used in the 90s, for example, that rats just LOVED to eat. They changed that up, and a lot of "mysterious" system problems that were cropping up after a few years suddenly went away...

 

Sometimes you see vintage Western Electric 50-year old cable up for sale on eBay. Cotton covered, so less prone to deterioration.

And the cable goes for a very nice price, so WE collectors must love it.

 

The ones I got are not quad, they are coax, 1 stranded center conductor w/ shield wrap. I figured they would be easier to solder onto the PCB, which they were. They are specified as audio/video cables and have very low capacitance plus high flexibility, which met my needs for phono wires- they do say mogami on the insulation, I'd have to look at them for the model number, they come terminated w/ decent quality RCA plugs.

 

yes, the coax is lower capacitance.

 

I just looked on the mogami site, I have 2964- a 3 foot run is under only about 57pf

 

Spoke with Gene from Takefive today and ordered two pairs of cryo'd and burned balanced interconnects. I'm hoping to have a new pre-amp with balanced ins/outs in the near term, so I'll be good to go within a month. The long run to my amp is less than 9 feet, so for now I'll keep my speaker cables and go with the "power amp between the speakers" model.

Much appreciate the advice!

 

Send 'em over to me for the interim. I'll keep 'em churnin' and burnin'.

 

Cool, congrats. Let us know how it turns out...

 

Will do. Major system overhaul. I'm excited, but at the same time the "big bang" upgrades (speakers plus pre-amp, switching to balanced interconnects, etc) kinda take away from the incremental fun. Oh well, I have had the same speakers since 95 and the new speakers deserve a top shelf pre-amp.

I would like to use the burned/cryo'd interconnects for six months and then get some without the treatment just out of my own curiosity. I think it will be worth the couple hundred bucks plus it isn't a bad idea to have extras. Meantime, I'll try to make sure my room and everything is else is nailed down. I'm not the best critical listener, so if I hear a difference, then it will be meaningful. Gotta get some of the super-audiophiles on the forum over for a demo too.

 

The big bang approach is unusual, but I'm sure you are going to enjoy it.

 

Sounds good!

 

I've still never received shipping crates, so that life-goal is still out there for me.

 

I've decided not to replace the FM Acoustics cables with Mogami. I bet the Mogami is great, but the FM really works wonderful in my system. The only cable I feel that would better it would be the Siltech stuff.