Marvey's Cable Rolling Adventures

Discussion in 'Modifications and Tweaks' started by purr1n, May 7, 2016.

  1. starence

    starence Facebook Friend

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    I've cooled somewhat on the KAB SpiralAir cables. Not bad overall, but details seem a bit smoothed over. I wonder if they would sound better with the more expensive ETI bullet plugs.

    My go to for the foreseeable future is the Mogami W2497 cable with Canare F10 connectors from Redco. These just sound right to me, through the entire frequency range. Very transparent. With shipping, these will set you back about $75, but you could build them yourself for a lot less.
     
  2. bengo

    bengo Friend

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    For the uninitiated: Redco custom cable orders
    You need to choose 'Unbal.Instrument' for type of cable.
    I was quoted $62.40 for 10ft.
     
  3. zonto

    zonto Friend

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    Interesting. A 1M pair is about $65. Have you ever tried Blue Jeans' LC-1? Trying to triangulate as I've only spent meaningful time with those and Cardas Golden Reference.
     
  4. starence

    starence Facebook Friend

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    I tried the BJC LC-1 about a year ago, to me they seemed somewhat veiled.


    In case it's not obvious, you have to set the quantity to 2, unless you just want a single cable.
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2017
  5. bixby

    bixby Friend

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    Agreed on the BJC LC-1, as good as the specs look, I woudl not use them in any of my systems. My hunch is the cable is probably not so bad, and it may just be the connectors!

    Pro wire is a super way to go for decent sound for pretty cheap. Another decent pair can be made up with Canare GS-6 and F09 for about $25 per 3 feet pair. Not great but more balanced than LC-1.
     
  6. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    What are some favorite wires and connectors for digital coax? I need to make a short one to connect my pi3/hat to my Modi Multibit.
     
  7. Jozurr

    Jozurr Facebook Friend

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    Thank you for sharing this. I also currently use the Zu mission line for interconnects. I have sent you a PM.
     
  8. m17xr2b

    m17xr2b Friend

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    I noticed cable differences only recently once my system became transparent enough. I managed to snag a pair of wywires platinum xlr for 300. With these I will settle the high end cable debate for myself.
     
  9. bixby

    bixby Friend

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    Any well made RG-6 based copper wire will work well. Since it is stiff be careful of sharp bends. Lots of concern over the rca connectors, with folks all spun up on 75 ohms. Since they do not exist and even the Canare ones (supposedly 75 ohms) have come under fire, I would not worry about it.

    A step up seems to be silver based or silver clad wire. I have heard many $20-$300 digital coax cables and the silver ones sounded the best, but you can get quite close with a simple well terminated copper coax. My cable drawer has a superb silver clad one for under $175 that I keep should I ever need to test coax spdif.

    I also have a $25 one that beats the oft mentioned Blue Jeans coax.
     
  10. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Does anyone have experience with Audio Sensibility Statement copper or Neotech 3001 rca cables?
     
  11. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    And which one is that? In what ways is it better?

    Can it be custom ordered in short lengths like the BJC?
     
  12. bixby

    bixby Friend

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    Been a while since I had the BJ but from memory the Purepiper was more open and a bit more dynamic compared with BJ. Not sure if it can be ordered shorter, mine is 3 feet. google it, the company is out of China. Luckbad had my Purepiper for a few weeks, you might ping him for more recent sonic impressions in his setups.
     
  13. bixby

    bixby Friend

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    I have an Audio Sensibilites cable made from their PCOCC wire and it is very good. It is a specialty cable I used with the Chord Mojo when I had it. Up for sale now.
     
  14. Garns

    Garns Friend

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    I recently asked for a source for OCC copper XLR cables on here and @Daveheart was generous enough to offer to make me up a pair. I got these just before Christmas and thought I'd write and share how these have been going for me. Wall of text follows (guess who's on holiday).

    My setup is Yggdrasil -> Freya -> Klein and Hummel O300D monitors. I have increasingly found I prefer the passive mode on Freya. Tube mode does nice things to sound stage and macrodynamics, but loses microdynamics and microdetail, smooths things over a bit too much and is a bit slow on transients (this with a wide range of different tubes including plenty of nice ones).

    The problem is that my O300Ds have an input impedance of only 14k, so when running in passive mode, cables make quite a big difference. In particular, treble smoothness differs radically with different cables. I think I am a bit like @Serious in that I can handle a good amount of treble as long as it is extremely smooth.

    Between the Yggdrasil and Freya, in the past year I tried Mogami 2534, 2549 and 3080, and found I preferred them in that order: the latter were more open in the mids and quicker, with greater quantities of treble, but also smoother treble. About 6 months ago I picked up a pair of Dyson "Facemelter" XLR interconnects to replace them. These are OCC copper, Teflon dielectric, unshielded, with four conductor wires in a Litz braid and pin 1 unconnected, and around $100. These I found were a big improvement over any of the Mogami OFC cables: MUCH smoother in the top two octaves and better microdynamics. Once again, the smoother treble seemed to go with a slightly brighter FR, but that is fine by me.

    Between the Freya and monitors I had Mogami 3080, and my next thought was to replace that too. I tried to order another set of the Dyson interconnects but could not get Dyson to respond to my emails. Hence I put the call out here to find alternative sources, and was answered with unexpected generosity!

    The pair @Daveheart made up are OCC copper from Parts Connexion in Teflon tubing with Amphenol connectors. Just two conductors this time in a simple twisted pair, again unshielded, and again no pin 1 connection. I guess my EMI situation must be pretty good and my ground potentials very stable because there is no noise at all. Total cost was $75 including the non-trivial shipping to Australia.

    Like the previous OCC/Telfon pair, these needed a few days to break in. After that, I feel they are clearly better than the 3080 I was using before, and again, the changes seem to lie on the same axis: better microdynamics; faster and clearer bass; brighter FR, in that there is more in the top two octaves, but much smoother. I can now quite happily listen to records that are tilted bright whereas previously they were a bit painful: Aldous Harding, Donald Fagen, David Sylvian, later Björk. At this point I am completely satisfied: I have no desire at all to muck about further with interconnects.

    I don't want to say too much here because cables are so system and situation dependent, but I would at least point out that the Teflon/PE and OCC combo can be bought or DIY'd for non-stupid prices and to my ears outperform the pro cables quite noticeably. Dyson's are good if you can get a response. Maybe @Forza AudioWorks could help you out as well.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2018
  15. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    Yeah, I wouldn't touch OFC cables with a ten foot pole.

    I remember seeing a quite a few of the high end cable makers offering up their $1,000 to $3,000 cables with cleap lousy OFC wires.

    I think Nordost is one of them.
     
  16. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    just a little to add: OCC isn't quite as available as it used to be. Neotech is one of the last few who are still doing true OCC copper and silver. Furutech has a new process to draw/cast copper that, based on my limited experience with PCs, seems to be pretty darn good. I have not tried any interconnects using some of the new casting processes, but I'm interested to try some of the new Oyaide V2 cable. I found the old Oyaide PA-22 IC cable to sound pretty sterile.
     
  17. winders

    winders boomer

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    Has anyone hear used Dueland DCA16GA for speaker wire or Dueland DCA20GA/DCA16GA for interconnects? What was your experience?
     
  18. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I've been using DCA16GA (single wired, i.e., one wire per positive/negative leg, twisted about 3 twists per foot, bare wire connections at both ends) for almost a year now. I prefer it to Canare 4S11. Like Jeff Day claims, I find the Dueland wire to sound a bit mid-range/lower mid-range forward, but still extended on both ends. No high end roll-off that I can detect. Good but not great microdetail/inner detail. Not as good at microdetail/inner detail and space as my old Clear Day double shotguns, but the Dueland wire has better tone and body. The bass through the Dueland wire is better than the Clear Days.
     
  19. skem

    skem Friend

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    With respect to single-ended (phono/RCA) interconnects, I am of the view that there are two considerations:
    1. Noise rejection (test this with nothing playing, volume at max)
    2. The passive-filtering effect of the cable being an RLC circuit.

    With respect to consideration 1: Noise
    If I have a noise issue, I switch to balanced cables for common-mode rejection. I have no views on whose single-ended cable shields the best. I'll leave balanced cables aside for the moment.

    With respect to consideration 2: Passive filtering
    I'm not convinced that I can hear the RC effects of any decent cable; I keep intending to compute the filter response, but I am too lazy. Why? Because I merely take the view that the lowest capacitance cable wins. That means one should keep cable runs short and use something with the lowest available capacitance per unit length. Since I have my own precision capacitance meter, I just buy a bunch of samples so as to attain a smattering of cable (Canare StarQuad, Belden 1694A, etc), and I measure them across the audio band. So far the Belden LC-1 stuff (available from Blue Jeans) wins out.

    I'm not a certifiable objectivist (views on that here) -- but since this is a matter of signal processing where I regard 'best' as 'unmodified signal,' I do doubt that there's anything more to it than the above.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2018
  20. winders

    winders boomer

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    I have tried these cables for RCA interconnects between my preamp and amp in my 2 channel setup:

    Mogami Neglex 2497 - shielded - 5 feet
    Mogami Neglex 2534 - directional (shield disconnected at one end) - 3.5 feet
    Belden LC-1 - shielded - 5 feet
    Duelund DCA20GA - unshielded - 3 feet

    The first 3 interconnects are commercial products. The Duelund interconnect was made by me and was the first interconnect I ever made. I believe all of the wire used to make these cables is OFC. The Duelund wire uses tin coated strands in “a cotton and oil dielectricum”.

    The first 3 interconnects sound very similar. I think the Mogami 2497 sounded the best as I think it offered a little cleaner sounder in the upper midrange and treble. The difference is subtle and I probably couldn’t reliably pick it out in a blind test. It just sounded better when going back and forth for a few days at a time.

    I found the Duelund interconnect to be the best and easily so. It brought more energy to the midrange and treble without making the sound bright or harsh. I didn’t realize this was much needed until I heard the difference. This made the music more dynamic. I think the bass is a little better too. It is cleaner but just as present. I am fairly confident I could identify this interconnect in a blind test with the other 3.

    Duelund is a single conductor wire which means I used two wires to make the interconnect. I used about 4 twists per foot to keep the wire together.
     

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