A discussion about high end hook up wire

I think he is asking for everyone that ONLY agrees with him to post that they agree or share a similar view. Anyone that doesnt agree, should not post at all.

 

Props if this is a self-effacing joke. Otherwise, get therapy. He quite rightly reminded folks that this thread doesn't need anyone jumping in to proclaim that any differences heard between wires is all in one's head. It was going so well too.

 

Guys,

I am looking to hear from people who are experimenting with internal hook up wire that I have not tried yet. People who have done listening tests and have experience with which wire sounds better or worse, and beyond that, for which applications it may be best at.

I did not start this thread to manage non-productive comments about:

-It doesn't make any difference.
-I am losing myself. (I know exactly where I am, thanks).
-It will hurt resale value
-It will void warranties
-It is foolish to upgrade this when I have not yet upgraded something else
-"The almighty creator did not intend for wire to be changed"
-What gear people own

This really is not that difficult of a concept. If you feel these points need to be expressed, start your own thread.

To put it another way, I am already past the concept of "there is no point in trying". This thread is not to discuss whether or not there is point, this thread is for experienced modders to post about their wire of choice and what sonic benefits they are getting from it.

If you have experience with upgrading to exotic internal hook up wire and you have reports on the increased sonic benefits thereby, please post.

Otherwise, post elsewhere.

Claro?

ccm

 

But far more often we waste sonic potential by thinking about it too little.

Please refrain from further crapping my thread.

ccm

 

I understand what you are asking and all, but a serious question about your thread:

Even though ive done some mild to moderate re-wiring and changing to speakers ive owned over the years, Ive found thats its nearly impossible to determine, IF, any changes really make a difference sonically.

Im not even talking about perception or expectations or any of that stuff, but honestly how does one do a Before/after comparison with this kinda stuff, and have any true degree of certainty as to if its changed or not.

Granted the degree of change with tiny runs of conductors etc, will be very minimal. Im not sure how one would actually ascertain if there was a difference, and how would one with any certainty be able to attribute it to a short run of conductor?

When I rewired some of my speakers I no longer own, I was filled with a great sense of accomplishment and happiness for several days. I did kinda feel like they sounded better, but couldnt really be sure if I was relying on anything concrete, or if I was just happy over my job well done. I wasnt able to compare it before/after or even to the other speaker really, as normal amounts of variation in sound, made me think they were mildly different to begin with in some way.

I guess im just asking (( hopefully you dont take this as a threadcrap at all )) how do you "know" you are hearing an improvement, after it would literally take many hours to make the changes and so on. ??

 

How about that wire that Mundorf use? - it's 99% silver and 1% gold, but not gold plating. It's the same wire that HiFi Tuning use in their Supreme fuse.

 

Kevin, above I outlined a project I am working on where I am planning to take two identical headphone amps and wiring one of them with different wire.

The A/B time difference will be the time it takes to remove one set of headphones and put on another. The source will be identical, fed to the amps with a splitter box. If no difference can be heard, then I will say so.

However, this is not a thread for "but how will you know?". This is a thread for "what have you tried, and what difference did you notice it making". I am comfortable with accepting people's anecdotal experience and considering their perceptions. I don't have 100% perceptual skepticism the way you do. I don't find that approach productive to experimentation.

Understood?

ccm

 

The Mundorf wire is listed in the wires I have asked for peoples experience with. Nobody has yet come forward who has used it. I hope someone does.

ccm

 

How is it possible that you still don't understand that this is how you enter almost Every thread you join, EVEN when the OP begs that this OFF-TOPIC crap doesn't happen???? I appreciate your sincerity and commitment to your views, but why must you keep doing this? Start you own threads on your perception theories dude. Wow.

 

That's great, Tim. Hopefully this thread might eventually help us choose the best wire for all of our projects.

That is what this uphill battle has been about.

ccm

 

Asking him how he determines something is different is not off topic.

Ive modded stuff and thought I heard a mild difference, but there is no simple way to A/B it to be sure.

Im not even espousing a view, its a question. Quit reading so much into everything I post, and quit looking for a problem where there is none.

I simply dont believe its easy to do a comparison such as what he is discussing, so the whole idea of comparing before and after becomes a bit diluted.

Even it I changed all the wires in one of my speakers, it would take a lot of time to remove the drivers, rewire and solder everything and then reinstall the drivers and hook it all back up.


My question is very ON TOPIC and legitimate. How does one, with hours of work being done, truthfully to ones self even, do a comparison such as this?

Im asking seriously. I cant remember how something sounds exactly even after a couple minutes, let alone a whole afternoon etc.

I can remember "How it sounds", but not "How it sounds exactly"

 

The part bolded makes sense.

Are you then just asking to hear about peoples happy stories, whether they are reliable or not then?


To truly "Experiment" as you say, requires a different methodology. So either way, if you are truly experimenting or simply wanting to hear positive stories, I guess as they say on "Shark tank", ......"Im out"

 

But this is ALWAYS your basic point: We can't trust the differences we hear because of A, B or C. ALWAYS.

 

I made a pair of ICs from Duelund 1.0 silver foil/silk oil a few months ago having previously tried silver from HGC and Jupiter, whilst those two brands sounded clean and clear etc, I still found them a little too sharp for my tastes.

But since using the Duelund, I've found myself enjoying listening a lot more than before, I would say the effect is that I forget that I'm listening to a recording. They possess no sonic artifacts that I can hear, I also think that imaging is better than before and even though I haven't twisted them together they don't seem to pick up any noise at all, very quiet cables.

I think I'll be buying some more.

Edit: didn't realize you were talking about internal hook-up wire, sorry!

 

Meme,

Your comments are actually quite relevant, since you have experience passing signal through one of the kinds of aftermarket boutique wire that I have asked for people's input about.

The Duelund is a foil wire - I'm not sure that twisting foil wire would be a good idea anyway, since the idea of twisting is to have equal and opposite exposure to external field effects. With two foils twisted together, the relative geometry of the wire material would be all over the place.

Thanks for your expressed positive experiences with the Duelund. Particularly in light of your other experience with HGC and Jupiter silver.

ccm

 

You should never have been in, and you know it.

This thread is not about making sense to you. It is about collecting experience from people who are already working in this particular branch of modding.

ccm

 

I've done a fair amount of "modding" with wire. This was mostly in the nineties. I have a STAX SRM-T1 headphone amp where all the internal wire was replaced with silver-clad continuous cast copper crystal Van den Hul 18 gauge hook-up wire. The AC wire was replaced with a 12-gauge version of Silver-Clad etc. and a Bybee filter. On top of that caps and resistors were replaced. No question that all the improvements combined made for better resolution and a better noise floor. How much I can't say.

When I changed the internal wiring of speakers I usually used wires that cost less. I find that the lower-end speakers where I've made these modifications usually have obvious compromises not only with the internal wire, but in particular with the connectors. I find it's best to eliminate such connectors and in particular get rid of as many wire joins between the amp and the speaker's drivers as possible. Often there is a significant compromise of sound from the series of wires and contact points within an amplifier. Fuses seem to also have a negative impact on the sound quality from speaker to amp. I think there are two issues here. One is that the wire joins within the amp and the speakers compromise the sound. The same holds true for fuses. The other is that the connectors found on most mid-fi gear use metals that have no business being near an audio signal.

Low-cost wire options that I have found to work include 10 gauge Blue Jeans speaker cable and Canare Star-Quad microphone cable. If anything, the Canare Star-Quad is the real sleeper among interconnects. Of course, you'll have to be able to solder well to realize the potential advantages of Canare Star-Quad. I soldered a single run to my SME III arm. As it is much more flexible than your typical 'high-end' interconnect it's much better with turntables—no resistance to my turntable's 4-point suspension. The shielding and geometry of this wire are very fine for blocking AC leakage, the sound of this finely stranded all-copper wire is comparatively neutral. I've also bypassed the cheap RCA jacks on some of my older receivers with a meter run of Canare Star-Quad, terminated in RCA plugs, with good results.

One more thing—I have much more faith in wire nuts for connecting raw wire to gold-plated anything, including five-way binding posts and speaker lugs. Gold may not be the worst conductor of electricity, but it is far from the best.

An odd observation—for some reason, speakers that have their internal wire replaced sound really different if the wire has new solder joins on the terminals of the drivers. This effect—a bolder, more aggressive sound—is at its peak for the first day, then subsides over a week. I've never heard anyone else make comment about this odd sonic artifact, but it makes me wonder if this points to some previously unrecognized electronic phenomenon.

 

ok

 

Internal Wire

Re: "VH Audio - 24 gauge Cotton Insulated Silver Wire" used by Scott in DC for re-wiring components

"Hi Scott,

Is that the only wire you've tried? How did you arrive at this choice?

ccm"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sorry, been busy and wasn't able to get back to this earlier.

I use different wire for my modding, not just the VH Audio. I also like the lower cost wire that is referenced in the link below. If you have the cash go for the VH Audio 24 or 28 gauge. I prefer 24 or 26 gauge for inside amps and I wouldn't use a larger gauge except when I re-wire the wire run to the speaker connectors. Some people prefer the vibration reduction characteristics of cotton insulation.

I have done quite a bit of internal re-wiring in integrated amps but have never done speakers, thus the smaller gauges that I deal with.

This is an excellent low cost wire for your projects,
http://stores.ebay.com/Johns-Silver-Teflon-Wire-Shop?_trksid=p4340.l2563

Scott

 

VERY cool post, Robin L.

I use an EMM Labs Switchman 3 preamp, and when I opened it up to look for improvement opportunities, I found that there was an entire PC board that the hot AC line went through which was dedicated only to the ability to switch between 240V and 110V.

I bypassed this circuit, and WBT-silver-crimped Stage III silver wire straight from an upgraded IEC inlet directly to the correct taps on the toroidal transformer. Dynamics improved and the background got a little bit blacker.

I agree that cutting out as many contact points as you can is a good idea. Soldering or crimping connections that use "push connectors" is also usually an opportunity.

On the same preamp, the wire ran not only to this switching pcb board, but also all the way up to the front of the box, and then back again (which is about 30 inches total), just so there could be a pushbutton switch in the signal chain to turn the unit on. I left the unit on all the time anyway, so I bypassed this, shortening the amount of the cable run to about 8 in from 30. This also reduced the presence of electrical fields inside the unit.

I took pictures inside the unit and part of the reason I started this thread is that I want to find the best signal wire so that I can go into this preamp for the next phase of modification, which is to upgrade the quality and shielding of the signal carrying wire.

Your comments on the first week of a new solder connection are really interesting. I wonder if it has anything to do with the oxidation of the solder joint? I will listen for this effect in the future. Thanks for sharing it.

ccm

 

Hi Scott,

Thanks for that input.

For my projects, cost is no object. Even the most expensive of the wires that I've mentioned only runs about $55/ft. Since most projects can be accomplished with 3ft or less, this is less than $200. That is less than a modestly priced used interconnect.

So while value is certainly great to talk about - and your post was very helpful, with this thread I am seeking the best of the best more than the bang for the buck.

The lower priced wire has a lot more searchable reviews out there to find on the internet. I'm trying to find out what the deal is on the more esoteric stuff.

ccm

 

CCM, sounds like it might be worthwhile for you to contact Ric Schultz of EVS—Electronic Visionary Systems. He introduced me to rewiring speakers and AC cords back in 1985. I suspect he'd be aware of different high-end wire producers, considering the nature of his modifications.

http://www.tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/Company_Info.html

 

Thanks Robin,

I would rather not deal with guys who do these things for money. I respect them and their work, but why should they tell me the tricks of their livelihood for free?

In the end, I just can't trust that they aren't going to hold back. If they tell us everything they know, then we only need them if we don't want to do the labor on it.

Whenever there is money involved, the objectivity goes to crap.

Also, these guys aren't perfect. Maybe they haven't tried the latest wires, either. There has been a lot of development in the last few years. People tend to stick with what they know.

ccm

 

I don't know why Ric volunteered so much info for free. Maybe it was because I told him I couldn't stand digital recordings and in 1985, that meant something. However, I do understand your point about dealing with modders who make a living out of such enterprises and the constant development of new and different varieties of wire. I wish I could remember the name of a fellow in Berkeley who imported that Van den HUL wire I mentioned. He also was willing to give me all sorts of new info simply because it was hard to find someone else who cared about such things.