Bought some new Blue Jeans! Woohoo!

Furutech has a very nice line of connectors for a wide range of budgets however I am not sure whether you are being sarcastic because of the description or not. I have found by chance that connectors and adaptors can make a difference too. I would not at this stage be so mad to start wasting my time analyzing which connectors I like best. There are not sufficient years left of my life to waste it that way. I am happy just to trust them nad go for something mid to high quality. I was meant to do it several weeks ago but keep putting off -money last longer that way- but I am about to buy cable and connectors from Furutech to make a pair of XLRs. There are too many cables I like to upgrade but it is a very slow process.

 

Not being sarcastic. Feel free to think the cable itself is more important than the connectors. I strongly disagree, probably because I used to be in the interfacial processes department at the Rockwell Science Center (now Teledyne Technologies headquarters). For 7 years I troubleshot problems caused by interfaces.

 

That is in the eye of the beholder. Did you read the page I've linked to before? Introducing Iconoclast Cable from Belden -- Blue Jeans Cable

That is one long, full page, crammed with words that told me absolutely nothing.

 

1)Where did I actually say that? Please quote.

2)You disagree? I thought you don't hear any differences and what matters are just the components.

 

To answer 1.

"I would not at this stage be so mad to start wasting my time analyzing which connectors I like best."

I see you are treating the entire cable (including connectors) as a "whole", nevertheless your statement insinuates connectors are unimportant. Like I said, I strongly disagree.

As far as 2, I have not tried single point/low mass RCA connectors such as some of those found on this site so I can not comment. But I strongly believe in the theory and have worked on a number of electrical problems caused by/at interfaces (car window regulator sensors, automation equipment sensors, etc).

Furutech, WBT, KLEI, and ETI Connectors - VH Audio

 

I thought this was a Levi’s appreciation thread….

 

I'm guessing most audiophile 'boutique' cable companies buy the cable from companies like Belden, General, etc.. They can't extrude copper, twist it,insulate it, sheath it, etc. That is a big operation. My guess a lot of cable shops put the nylon covering on so you can't see who made it.

Blue Jeans looks reasonable for someone who isn't handy. Prices aren't crazy and it's a good product for this application. The fact they advertise using Belden tells me they know to build a good cable you need good components.
Don't reinvent the wheel.

I'm sure they consulted with Belden and Belden's engineers told them what is best for the application. Belden is a huge highly respected company and an industry leader in process control and instrumentation cables.

No shame in that: do you think BMW makes the instrument panels and seats for their cars?

 

This is why I like Blue Jeans. They dont try to hide anything. No mysteriousness, no wine descriptions, no BS.

 

On the other hand (along with a gazillion other cable manufacturers).......

Schmorrow (Ive noticed the Schmorrow phanboyz tend to hate Blue Jeans, go figure).

Whole lotta nothing on this site(as I set myself up for an uglyversal clapback)

Here is their "SSI technology page".

SSI Cable Technology

Whole. Lotta. Nothing.

 

I don't know where you get the insinuation from? As "I like best" clearly indicate there would be some connectors I would prefer over others.

I have no time to be that picky to try tens of connectors separately for sound on a regular basis. Next I will have to be struggling about the brand of solder I choose, I just buy good solder, I don't strive to get the best, same with connectors, at least most of the time.

You also say that you disagree about whether the cable or the connector matters more but I wonder based on what. I have tried many of both cables and connectors your posts indicate that your experience with cables is fairly limited and I don't know about audio connectors but is"But I strongly believe in the theory and have worked on a number of electrical problems caused by/at interfaces (car window regulator sensors, automation equipment sensors, etc" relevant to sound ? Or give you any experience on connectors made for sound?

 

To me when you used the words "wasting my time" told me you dont value connectors so much. But like I said, you are treating the entire cable, including connectors, as a "whole". So fair enough.

IMHO, a good crimp is a better connection than solder(or do both).

 

Bunch of hooey

So the signal hopscotches from strand to strand? It's not a fluid or solid. It is an electromagnetic wave (no different than a radio wave in air of a different freq) following the path of least resistance, the one more conducive to absorbing the wave. You have some leakage resulting in stray fields but even they follow the traveling wave, still part of, just less dense since air isn't as good a conductor.

THIS is the stuff that teaks my melon, talking nonsense to those not schooled in the subject, not everyone is, it's ok.
Just say it's better, don't make crap up to 'prove' it. But if 1 out of 100 calls BS no big loss, play the percentages.


1. Cables That Use Stranded Wire:
Under the insulation of a cable, you will most likely find tiny bare wire strands all twisted together. This is called stranded wire. In stranded wire designs, the strands touch each other thousands of times at various points along the length of the wire, causing the signal to jump from strand to strand instead of flowing through a solid continuum.

The results are phase distortions at each point where the strands come into contact, causing distortion of the signal; blurred imaging, lost soundstage cues, bloated and non-defined bass, etc. Details like the 3rd and 4th echo off the hall, subtle harmonics and depth are lost.

 

I am of the idea that the least mixture of materials is best but as you must know, not all connectors allow for solderless joints. Sometimes you just have to work with what is available that suits the purpose.

 

I'm thinking the best is a bare wire in the binding post hole sandwiched with a Cu washer on the inside, of a thickness that extends to, or slightly over, the hole.
Poke the wire, give it a small hook, and crush it.

 

True, least mixture of materials is best. Ideally a copper (or silver) wire is crimped to a copper (or silver) connector. You want to create as many metal-metal bonds as possible, while minimizing (the micrometerish, hence micro-arcing) air gaps with can lead to Eddy currents and micro-arcing. In other words (and in my opinion), you want to get the highest real area of contact:apparent area of contact ratio. And IMHO the actual real area of contact does not need to be that big, hence "single point"/low mass RCA connectors surrounded by a "plastic rca plug" like shown in the diagram in this link.

Eichmann BULLET PLUG - First Review of Keith Eichmann's RCA Bullet Plug Online

"When two surfaces are mated to one another, actual contact only occurs at various isolated points (the asperities) called junctions. When the areas of all the junctions are summed, one obtains the real area of contact. On the other hand, the area of contact which one determines through geometrical considerations of the actual part on a macroscopic level is called the apparent area of contact. The real area of contact is usually much less than the apparent area -- sometimes a thousand or more times less [11]. Typically the real area is about 1% of the apparent area. The diameter of typical junctions has been estimated to range from 1 micrometer to 100 micrometers [12].

Considering only the real area of contact, it is the protruding asperities which will make contact with the opposing surface (and its protruding asperities). On an atomic level, because a force is being applied to push two surfaces together, bonding will occur somewhere in the junction if the two materials have compatible structures. The extent of cleanliness and other factors such as temperature and environment also play a role. This is due to the nature of atomic forces.

Figure 1 shows the force versus distance between two surfaces [13] which is similar to the inter-atomic force vs. distance between two atoms [14]. Being in the trough signifies bonding and somewhere in any given junction there will be atoms which are in the trough. Thus there will almost always be some bonding between two unlubricated surfaces when an external force is applied. How much bonding occurs over a given junction depends on many things including the force applied, the compatibility of the crystal structures, material properties such as Young's modulus, how closely the two surfaces mate to one another on an atomic level and how clean the surfaces are. As two surfaces are properly cleaned the friction coefficient can become very large due to adhesion effects, sometimes even exceeding 100 [15]. This type of cleaning can involve sputtering in a vacuum chamber.

If one considers two surfaces, each containing an infinite number of atoms being pressed together, statistics tells us that at some location in the interface of the two surfaces, the atoms of the opposing materials will be properly positioned and will lie in the trough of Figure 1. This creates a bond."

 

The best speaker connection IMHO is solid core bare wire craaaaaanked down as hard as possible (gouge the heck out of it and create as many metallic bonds as possible between opposing surfaces)to speaker connections that are the same material as the wire. Clean all surfaces before craaaaanking down.

 

At least they stated their intentions in the first line: Blue Jeans Cable, in a marketing arrangement with Belden....
They linked the actual white papers at the bottom of the page.

 

I've actually spend a fair amount of time over the last 30 or 35 years of being an audiophile playing around with cables mostly by rolling my own. I've tried coax interconnects, twinax, with shields connected at both end, or floating at one end, braided unshielded cable, low mass single point connectors, solid core, stranded core, litz cable, different dielectric materials. Braided shielding, spiral shield, double braided shielding, braid and foil shielding, on and on. The end result of my journey was that the differences that are produced by differences between cables in common unbalanced home hifi set up are relatively small. Dwarfed, say, by the differences of moving you speakers a foot, and even often by the differences that can be achieved by cleaning your connections (and selectors). Where there are differences they are often very application dependent -- like cable capacitance loading MM carts, or the total resistance of speaker cable with tube amps, or having low resistance shielding or return paths when there's AC leakage current present. I haven't played around with the currently popular air tube construction, which is also employed by the Iconoclast interconnect. I'm curious about that but, given how much more can be achieved switching components or dealing with room issues, it's not something I feel compelled to pursue to the nth degree or even the 10th degree anymore. I like my twinax with a floating shield and KLE copper connectors as interconnects. But if in a pinch I have to use something else, I don't find it makes an enormous difference. I do like my 11.5 AWG Cardas litz speaker cables.

 

Here are the Iconoclast design papers -- The Story of Iconoclast Cable

And tech papers -- https://www.iconoclastcable.com/techpapers/index.htm

 

I read the first paper. Lots of numbers.
When you look at the scales they mean little.
For example:
Cable Z 0.1/20 deg, 0.1 Ohm, 20 deg phase shift
Speaker 8/30
If you add them and divide into V, the phase shift is 29.96 deg, the speaker controls the circuit. The largest load ALWAYS does.
The first chart is in MHz
Lot of data, little information

speaker one is bit better
Lots of data, some comparing their own cables. But ANY cable of similar construction will measure the same.

It's good cable. ANY cable applied properly is a good cable.

Those paper are 2.5 years old.

 

I think that's when those cables came out, 3 years ago, maybe a little longer. They were a moderately hot topic around the audiophile internet for a while. I don't known if they ever got much traction, haven't seen them mentioned in a while before this thread.

 

Don’t you find putting that much pressure on the copper strands breaks at least a few of them?

 

Cu is very malleable, should stretch/crush, not break.

I wonder if he means solid wire or stranded with solid stranded conductors?

 

I mean something like this. Tara Labs Space & Time Quantum III bare-wire.
Not something like original 12 awg Monster speaker cable(many fine strands). Though I was using (and now it is backup and I will not have a problem using) basic Rat Shack 12 awg (like original/basic Monster) up until recently. Thanks to this site and whoopycat , I bought some Black Cat Lectraline speaker cable (silver) based on one thing only, Steve giving them a . I figure if they are good enough for Steve then they are good enough for me.

 

That looks like stranded THHN, etc.
Standard building power conductor