Marvey's Cable Rolling Adventures

Any speaker cable will have inductance (L), impedance (R) and capacitance (C). The insulation material used, the thickness of that insulation, the weave, wire gauge and stuff I'm forgetting all influence these values. You end up with a very low value high, low or bandpass filter. IMO, this is more audible than the number of 9s in your copper.

 

Ultimately i think the key here is provenance and the ability to prove it. I do believe the OCC process is very difficult to accomplish and even more difficult to prove any piece of wire is made using OCC, so there's little incentive for most wire manufacturers to set up all the tooling and the complex annealing process for OCC for something they can't prove without mass spectrometry or shoving a transverse cut of wire under a microscope. Easier just to put some OCC stickers on the spools and perhaps include some dubious 3rd party mass spectrometry indicating 6N purity. Based on everything I've read over the years, I'm content sticking with my assumption that 99.9% of all wire being sold as OCC for "audiophile" consumption (especially through places like AliExpress) is not actually OCC. I honestly don't believe any of the cable makers you mention are actually using OCC copper, even if their suppliers tell them what they're buying on the spool is OCC. And, I agree with your sound impressions; the cables that start with "F" sound great, better than anything else I've heard for the price, but I still don't think they're actually OCC copper. I could be quite convinced if I saw an invoice from Neotech for a 1000m spool of teflon sheathed 24ga stranded UP-OCC billed to the cable builder, though.

I will say that of the legit "fancy" copper I've played with, Oyaide PCOCC-A and 102SSC, Furutech Alpha OCC, and Acrolink 7N, all three have a very distinctive feel when touching/handling the bare copper that's quite distinguishable from plain OFC, aside from the obvious sonic distinctions. The latest Neotech braided headphone cable I played with that's supposed to be UP-OCC is a litz/enameled wire, so impossible to compare based on that odd tactile criterion... But it does sound fantastic.

 

After Furukawa stopped making it, seems like Furutech started their version.
Furutech PCOCC story

 

I've heard extremely good things about the Furutech and Mitsubishi DPS4/DPS4.1 OCC copper wire. Not cheap, though.

 

Interesting thread.

As someone who's shifted sideways from a 30 year career in engineering and converted a lifelong hobby into a fulltime business making cables I can attest to the fact that there are many dynamics and variables that play an intrinsic part of how cables can and do influence the overall sound of any system.

Synergy is probably the most important aspect of determining if a cable is going to work for you or not.
What works for one system may very well sound like a dog's dinner in another system.
So, to make sure my clients are 100% happy with the end result I insist that they consider my loan program so that they can explore for themselves before committing to a purchase. Makes sense right?
You don't like them or they don't meet your expectations or just don't sound good in your system? Send them back! Easy.
I don't know why more cable sellers offer this option. Some do and I applaud them for it and I'd be bragging if I divulged my success rate in terms of sales from people using the try-before-you-buy facility, but at the very least it confirms I'm making good products as well as customers being totally satisfied with a purchase.

In any case, I still enjoy exploring and playing around with different cable-types, connectors, geometries and material topologies etc. Everything can affect the SS, even down to the type of solder used.
Some things are measurable, some things are barely in/distinguishable but I can absolutely guaranteed that EVERYTHING contributes to how well a cable will perform.

I'm still exasperated and sometimes angered by the ridiculously inflated prices some of my peers charge for what is essentially a product with an almost identical cost price in terms of materials to my own products but with more zero's added to the end of their final retail/asking price!
Some of the technological and 'scientific' claims are absolutely ludicrous when you start to analyse them and many don't even offer up full technical specifications, but feel that dressing them up in nice old silky curtain material and putting them in a fancy wooden box legitimises a high asking price. It's simple profiteering on a grand scale in my opinion.
I could name names but I won't, I would just be mud-slinging and I think it's also against forum rules but I'm pretty sure many of you are savvy to these pseudo 'magic cable' peddlers anyway thankfully.

There is a law of diminshing returns that applies to the cable sector and more expensive definitely does NOT equate to sounding better!

Fancy a tip?
Braided cables.
I was inspired to investigate for myself after watching a video by Paul McGowan talking about braided power cables (it's easy to find). After conducting my own experiments and measurements I can confirm that a braided cable geometry, or creating an inverse/abstract magnetic field around any length of cable is the BEST EMI/RFI shield you can provide.
This applies to interconnects as well as power cables. There is a very noticeable improvement in the noise floor with absolutely NO disbenefits. Other than perhaps, more materials used and a slightly higher production cost.
I'm not saying that un-shielded cable sound bad, at all. But there are real and determinable benefits to a braided cable geometry.

Cablemakers of the forum - try it for yourselves!
You'll thank me later. lol

 

Hi Chris,
in your store im looking at the bnc cable you make, I also need a toslink cable I do not see any on your site any recommendations, glass ones?
best,
Josh

 

I think this design should be very close to teflon pipe twisted noodle one, by VHAudio: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/cable-building.86/page-36#post-284122

No idea which one is better, but both are striking towards the lowest capacitance possible. The difference could be in inductance and noise resistance.
I've built a noodle one for myself using a salvaged transformer wire and Neutrik XLR, and it's crazy good. One day I'll rebuild it with silver like recommended here: https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/synergize/synergize021998.htm

 

Air dielectric constant is 1.00059, Teflon 2, Polyethylene 2.3, Polyvinylidenefluoride 8. Smaller is better, 1 is the absolute lowest.

 

I've never built a silver interconnect myself so I will skip on sound silver vs copper. What I gathered from many threads, messages and sites is that the silver interconnect wire must be extremely thin, 30 AWG and up. You can even find something like 45 AWG. So anyone blasting a silver wire after hearing it in 24 AWG incarnation is only confirming that, and should listen 30 AWG before making the final conclusion.
No, interconnect wire resistance doesn't matter. I am using Slagle Autoformer volume control with 50 m of 30 AWG wire in the coil and my volume control dial is at 1 pm.
Why is that? It's just skin effect. Even at 20 AWG the wire sounds as a whole, without much skin effect, but at 30 AWG the wire is several times thinner than the skin effect. At this thickness, the dielectric and the microvibrations are the most important. My wild guess is that at 30 AWG the wire moves as the whole, while in a thicker wire the opposite sides are moving against each other. Same is the dielectric - it affects the wire as the whole, not just the nearest surface.

 

Please, which wire the Pangea Premier SE XLR is using, for the DIY purposes? What is their main physics trick (low capacitance, special dielectric, monocrystal, etc)? If something is found to be good, why don't we open it up for budget DIY club to enjoy?

 

Pangea is very secretive about their cables, but they do sound good. They've basically only said that they use Cardas grade a one copper. So they call it.

I suspect the capacitance is very high because when I used the Yggdrasil and a XLR -> SE transormer for it, cable capacitance after the transormer matterred, and Pangea would not tell me the capacitance of their cables. They said they didn't think it was an important factor to their sound. But clearly if it was low they would tell me.

I'm currentliy mostlly usnig Audio Envy IC's. He's a great guy, the owner, but he tweaks the cables every new batch. A few years ago they sounded like bassier Panea's, but I tried them again and loved them. Resolving, open, transparent, natural. But they've been tweaked again since that batch so no idea. JPS labs are very resolving an have good tone, but aren't as open sounding as the AE.

Audio Envy uses OCC copper and a very unique surround, that feels like all cotton stuffing wrapped in a very thin layer no rubber coating. they have very low capacitance.

Pangea makes a headphone extension cable, and you can make two 2 meter headphone cables out of it, and it sounds really good. Great easy way to make a very rock solid cable that sounds great and feels stock.

i'm enjoying reading your thoughts on cables.

 

Thank you! Mutually. I also think that if you have any sort of transformer in line, the most important in the cable is the low capacity, or it will form a low pass filter. My case is similar, instead of conversion transformer I have a volume control autoformer (strongly recommended approach):


Here I'm using VHAudio teflon tube ultra low capacitance spiral design, salvaged transformer wire and Neutrik XLR connectors. Literally $20 cable. It sounds a lot, a lot better than Schiit Sys pot with "world's best cables" RCAs. The design should be comparable with what Marv did in this thread with magnet wires in packing tape, should probably sound the same, which means good. If anyone is interested how to wire autoformers with balanced cables search my 2 months old posts.
As it's literally an experimental cable and I've made several design mistakes I will eventually rebuild it, but probably next year. I will collect the best cable building advices for 6 months and then will follow the worst of them.

 

If you don't mind I've used this post to create another threads about "subjective" "objective" tests: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...l-can-compare-without-in-person-meetup.15155/