Cables making a difference

[slacker 1964]

Try LS 1 power cord with Gigawatt PL Evo power conditioner
( not cheap ) running 23 watt KT 88 in triode mode Audio Space ...WTL Amedeus with
clear audio virtuoso v2 ebony cartidge symmetrex tonearm ... Shangling CDT 2000
tube CD player...von schiewkart vr 22s. Madison audio labs E3 extreme 2 cables
E3 extreme 1 interconnects

 

[fredgarvin]

I have a pair of morrow MA-3's I tested them on my not so audiophile panasonic HT receiver the only difference I can note is that I went from a 3m headphone to rca to a 1m rca to rca (the MA-3's). the difference was so little that I think alot of rca's would do just a good of a job, but me being me I'm going to try the Australian aurealis interconnects seeing as I'm Australian

I doubt that there will be much improvement, an Australian hifi shop owner points out that the effect of the high freq transmissions following the jacket only happens at mhz is probably correct. But I also feel that the effect can start to take it's footing much earlier but still it is no significant property.

I will be buying some solid core wire soon and making my own cables to test the theory between multi strand and solid core, but I know for a fact that ac 50-60hz main power travels on the outside of the conductor so maybe we are doing it wrong buy insulating our speaker cables

Maybe Anticables?



http://anticables.com/speaker-wires/2-channel#!/~/product/category=3449817&id=14618506

 

[slippers-on]

I have a pair of morrow MA-3's I tested them on my not so audiophile panasonic HT receiver the only difference I can note is that I went from a 3m headphone to rca to a 1m rca to rca (the MA-3's). the difference was so little that I think alot of rca's would do just a good of a job, but me being me I'm going to try the Australian aurealis interconnects seeing as I'm Australian

I doubt that there will be much improvement, an Australian hifi shop owner points out that the effect of the high freq transmissions following the jacket only happens at mhz is probably correct. But I also feel that the effect can start to take it's footing much earlier but still it is no significant property.

I will be buying some solid core wire soon and making my own cables to test the theory between multi strand and solid core, but I know for a fact that ac 50-60hz main power travels on the outside of the conductor so maybe we are doing it wrong buy insulating our speaker cables

Sorry man, but it's probably the "not so audiophile Panasonic HT receiver". You may need to change to another Vintage that's been restored with new caps, parts and wire, or just get a more modern amp. Lots of cats with old non restored vintage gear complain about not hearing what good cables can do.

 

[MikeT.]

Your experience with the Black Mamba sounds like my experience with my Triode Wire Labs sc.

These are some of the best I've heard at any price point. I'd say mine have started to run in, at first they where dark...and that was after being cooked on the cable cooker for 100 hours. They have now opened up and wow!...There is a bit more run in to do as there is a tightness in the mids that seem to open up once I've listened for about and hour. After turning off system and after a while back on again, the tightness seems to return until played about an hour. This is a sure sign they need to run in more. I've had them for about a month and have less than 30 hours out side of the 100 hours on the cable cooker....even with more run in to do, I can assure you, these are the best I've had in my system.....Deep Cryogenically Treated copper Conductors & Connectors seem to have the most natural sound I've heard.

I just looked up the Triodes as I wasn't familiar with them. They look awesome and not cheap! How did you run across them? I see they have a 30 day money back guarantee but it sounds like you're keeping 'em.

Byron, you've built quite a system and have fine tuned it very methodically, beautiful gear.

I'm interested to see how the Shunyata breaks in, seriously I'm not moving anything for a month. With previous cables the bass was there, but bass now sounds like a wave building into the room, under complete control of the amp. Not sure how to explain it yet. The timbral balance is incredible.

 

[slippers-on]

!

I just looked up the Triodes as I wasn't familiar with them. They look awesome and not cheap! How did you run across them? I see they have a 30 day money back guarantee but it sounds like you're keeping 'em.

Byron, you've built quite a system and have fine tuned it very methodically, beautiful gear.

I'm interested to see how the Shunyata breaks in, seriously I'm not moving anything for a month. With previous cables the bass was there, but bass now sounds like a wave building into the room, under complete control of the amp. Not sure how to explain it yet. The timbral balance is incredible.

Hi Mike! Thanks for the kind words. You've a nice system as well.

I was speaking with Oscar through email one day last year and he gave me a tip about Triode Wire Labs Power Cords....said he had been using them for a while, and they beat a lot of cords much more expensive. So I did my research as always and discovered they had been reviewed by every one, pro magazines as well as consumers and they all seem to say the same thing.....clear, transparent, natural and neutral. So I did my research into this guy they called Triode Pete! He was the engineer behind the product. So I called him up and he sent me out one of his power cords. I was just blown away. No silver, but all copper. (My system doesn't need any silver at all) The power cable was just like they all said....transparent, clear, natural tones and very neutral...nothing tilted up, and seem to just get out of the way..notes seem to linger a little longer and there is more air. To this day, I don't know how a pc can do these things seeing they are not in the signal path.

One of my dealers here in STL has Clarus Crimson Power Cords......8 gauge, Pure Copper Ohno Continuous Casting (PCOCC) - the world's purest copper. http://www.claruscable.com/intro.cfm ( I am a huge fan of Casting copper. My Solo Crystal copper cables are Ohno Continuous Cast copper.) The Clarus retail for $1500 per 5 feet I believe. Excellent Power cords as well as interconnect. They are all that! Well we did a shoot out with that Clarus and the Triode wire Cord. I've the 10 gauge which is Cryogenically Treated which makes them sound like casting copper. Now im not going to pretend I know much about casting copper or Cryogenically Treated copper, but I can sure hear the difference in those from a pure OFC. The cast copper and Cryod copper sound identical to my ears. They both seem to be hi-resolution products.

The Clarus Crimson cord which is 8 gauge had a little more dynamic than the 10 gauge Triode cord. But the most obvious thing we noticed was the Triode Wire Labs pc did the exact things the Clarus Crimson did, but at a little smaller level. The Clarus cost $1500 while the Triode pc cost $400. So the thinking is, I will get another Triode wire Labs PC, but this time I will get the 7 gauge pc at $500 and it should pass or at least equal the Clarus PC in what it can do. So after I had excellent results with Triode Petes power cords....I made another call to him to send out the speaker cables.....they two are some of the best speaker cables I've ever heard. Pete makes a great product.

For me, having had lots of experience with a few pc's , interconnects as well as speaker cables over the years, I'm one who looks for a great product before the market drives up the price... Triode Wire Labs seems to fit the bill.

A buddy of mine in St. Louis has a full loom of Clarus products...interconnects, power cords, and speaker cable. He spent some big loot on the Clarus Crimson stuff, He is driving Pass Labs, Clearaudio Performance DC ,a Levinson $15,000 CDP and Revel speakers. He was also at the shoot out of the power cords. He also seems to think the Clarus Crimson PC and the Triode PC are very much alike with the bigger gauge Clarus edging out the small gauge Triode because of size. My next one will be the Triode Wire Labs 7 gauge.

I've heard that cables and power cords really don't reach their full potential until a few years down the road. We may hear that it stopped changing and seems broken in after a certain amount of hours have been put on them, but to get them really submissive to what the gear is really trying to do may take a few years in the same system. I think its best to not move cables or interconnects. I've had experiences where I've taking my main interconnects to a buds house and put them into his system for a few hours, got them back at home in my own system and they just didn't sound right until I've let her play for about 2 hours.

 

[Kt77]

Hi Mike! Thanks for the kind words. You've a nice system as well.

I was speaking with Oscar through email one day last year and he gave me a tip about Triode Wire Labs Power Cords....said he had been using them for a while, and they beat a lot of cords much more expensive. So I did my research as always and discovered they had been reviewed by every one, pro magazines as well as consumers and they all seem to say the same thing.....clear, transparent, natural and neutral. So I did my research into this guy they called Triode Pete! He was the engineer behind the product. So I called him up and he sent me out one of his power cords. I was just blown away. No silver, but all copper. (My system doesn't need any silver at all) The power cable was just like they all said....transparent, clear, natural tones and very neutral...nothing tilted up, and seem to just get out of the way..notes seem to linger a little longer and there is more air. To this day, I don't know how a pc can do these things seeing they are not in the signal path.

One of my dealers here in STL has Clarus Crimson Power Cords......8 gauge, Pure Copper Ohno Continuous Casting (PCOCC) - the world's purest copper. http://www.claruscable.com/intro.cfm ( I am a huge fan of Casting copper. My Solo Crystal copper cables are Ohno Continuous Cast copper.) The Clarus retail for $1500 per 5 feet I believe. Excellent Power cords as well as interconnect. They are all that! Well we did a shoot out with that Clarus and the Triode wire Cord. I've the 10 gauge which is Cryogenically Treated which makes them sound like casting copper. Now im not going to pretend I know much about casting copper or Cryogenically Treated copper, but I can sure hear the difference in those from a pure OFC. The cast copper and Cryod copper sound identical to my ears. They both seem to be hi-resolution products.

The Clarus Crimson cord which is 8 gauge had a little more dynamic than the 10 gauge Triode cord. But the most obvious thing we noticed was the Triode Wire Labs pc did the exact things the Clarus Crimson did, but at a little smaller level. The Clarus cost $1500 while the Triode pc cost $400. So the thinking is, I will get another Triode wire Labs PC, but this time I will get the 7 gauge pc at $500 and it should pass or at least equal the Clarus PC in what it can do. So after I had excellent results with Triode Petes power cords....I made another call to him to send out the speaker cables.....they two are some of the best speaker cables I've ever heard. Pete makes a great product.

For me, having had lots of experience with a few pc's , interconnects as well as speaker cables over the years, I'm one who looks for a great product before the market drives up the price... Triode Wire Labs seems to fit the bill.

A buddy of mine in St. Louis has a full loom of Clarus products...interconnects, power cords, and speaker cable. He spent some big loot on the Clarus Crimson stuff, He is driving Pass Labs, Clearaudio Performance DC ,a Levinson $15,000 CDP and Revel speakers. He was also at the shoot out of the power cords. He also seems to think the Clarus Crimson PC and the Triode PC are very much alike with the bigger gauge Clarus edging out the small gauge Triode because of size. My next one will be the Triode Wire Labs 7 gauge.

I've heard that cables and power cords really don't reach their full potential until a few years down the road. We may hear that it stopped changing and seems broken in after a certain amount of hours have been put on them, but to get them really submissive to what the gear is really trying to do may take a few years in the same system. I think its best to not move cables or interconnects. I've had experiences where I've taking my main interconnects to a buds house and put them into his system for a few hours, got them back at home in my own system and they just didn't sound right until I've let her play for about 2 hours.

Good morning B ( Byron ),

It's very nice to see you're enjoying the Triode Wire Labs 10 Plus AC Cord and American Speaker Cables, it seems to me they've in fact allowed the innermost beauty of the notes to flow more freely in your system - as you've mentioned about, I to came to love their 10 Plus AC Cord, after reading the re-reading everything I'd find on them - at the time I was using Acoustic Zen Tsunami Plus on either of my two tube based Integrated's along with an entire loom of said AZ, but you know how it goes!, we sometimes seem to want to find means to enhance our systems even more.

Which lead me to 3 brands that have gained more advertising by word of mouth - yet I felt deserved more attention - namely Kaplan Cables HE MK II - Wywires Power Juice II and said TWL 10 Plus and their more high current design in the 7 Plus - as one of those music lovers whom is always open-minded enough to venture outwards as a means of voicing/tuning Mi-Fi to suit what I view as my priorities when it comes to fidelity as I've often heard it rendered at small venues where acoustic jazz is being played by either a trio or quartet - I began noticing little things like how to my ears ( at least ) double bass notes seem to roll upwards from the floor and seemed to float upwards towards the corners of the room or said venues, as if it took on a life all its on - the weird thing is, I also noticed that in ones system the more neutral/transparent it becomes - bass notes are more unpinning the other instruments in the band, without drawing any attention to itself until it's called for - I'd say this effect would be similar to a properly designed and functioning active sub-woofer ( the best I've heard being the olde Vandersteen 2wq, as I've yet to find one that can actually keep up with the faster sounding Mini-Monitors out there.

But cabling wise - all to often I question how it is guys can spend $10.000 or tap out at say $46.000 on a system ( as one of my friend owns ) and then never seem to want to tube roll ( relying on the stock tubes - nuts to me ) or even worst only spending a total of say $890 on their entire cabling loom, yet swear that their systems are ' clicking ', but as Byron knows all to well - my word/thing is

" spend it ".

As those little items like isolation feet/platforms/devices - speaker interfacing devices ( for those whom own stand mounted speakers ) - cartridges ( does one need one with a wood or metal body, to balance out the sound as heard from their system on a whole? ) - AC Cords ( which allows proper power to reach those vital components like ones Source or Pre/Power Amp or Integrated, less one never know what they might be capable of to begin with ).

Cabling

* For me is the final frontier - yet the one thing that I've found out is of the most importance - as this is where a systems sense of flow is made or broken if you will, starting at one amp/speakers interfacing - one needs to find cables to allow the amp to be neutral as possible, while designed to drive any given speaker based upon two factors that are often overlooked - its efficiency and the actual size of the mid - bass drivers, one has to drive the speakers properly in order to drive ones room ( common logic, no? ).

But by starting at ones speakers and going upstream - to that one last piece of wire that connects to one Source is more often then not where the magic begins/ends - get it wrong here and nothing downstream matters, but back to the TWL line as a whole ( before I write a book ) these are receiving a great deal of ink ( press ) and as stated before plenty of lip service and deserving so, if one cares about fidelity that is?, while some will play it safe and limit their budget on said components ( cables in my mind are ) - I tend to ulitize my friends/associates as well as my guys over at the Cable Conpany to explore the truth of the matter and borrow cabling looms to know what's BS?, and which ones are a reality and play tunes to my ears!, once again it's about how one hears their own system that matters - and while something's can be generalizes like the sound of speakers per SE - cabling is a very personal matter that is all to often overlooked.

TWL - Wywires - Kaplan - Grover Huffman - Clear Day Cables and finally my cabling loom of choice Cable Research Lab ( CRL ) should be at some point be heard by all Music Lovers at least once in their lives ( as most allow 30 day free demos ) while those whom like to collect boxes ( so-called Audiophiles ) need not bother, as we know you'd rather spend your funds chasing your 5th pair of speakers in 3 years.

Cabling loom are vital in pulling it all together, and should be viewed as such.

Logically - it should've always been.

And lastly, Byron - thanks for trusting in my opinions and ears, I know it has been hard at times, as you know I'm very passionate about most things as they relates to audio and tweaks, but in truth - you're one of 4 of my friends that I can honesty say - get it, once again, I can only speak on matters as I hear them - fantasy isn't an option.

Peace,
:tears:_o scar

 

[slippers-on]

Hey bro! No problemo! This is a shared hobby and we need to treat it as such! Doesn't mean we have to agree but we should be able to get advice/suggestions from others....and ahh bro! Dont be cream puffin now.

 

[Kt77]

Hey bro! No problemo! This is a shared hobby and we need to treat it as such! Doesn't mean we have to agree but we should be able to get advice/suggestions from others....and ahh bro! Dont be cream puffin now.

Brotha B,

You know how I feel about posting/writing these days - yet, I feel obligated to assist someone whom I can tell needs assistance and am more inclined to help then - as some cats feel they've all of this down to an Art - but as I'm prone to do.........., just sit back and watch some of them continue to change components the way any decent guy changes their underwear, and know they're clueless in finding the importances of Synergy as well as a sense of contentment and put the focus on where this hobby resides - in expanding ones passion for Music ( and collecting it, no matter the format? ).

Music is meant to be felt on a purely emotional level, as it lets us all know when it's done right through any given system or when something's wrong, do we then try to isolate what's wrong?, and correct it through voicing/tuning?, or do we merely sell it off and start again?.

While some don't believe in Cables and their worth - try listening to your system with the cables that were included in the boxes then - and let those of us whom can actually hear/feel their sonic worth get on with it.

All one needs is a good pair of ears, and understand the relationship of pitch - timbre - tonality and texture as they relate to the finer art of audio reproduction within ones space.

Mine has always been the voice of logic and/or rational thinking, less I just wish to go to say Best Buy and throw away $1.300 on an all in one system including cables and think myself better then others - yes, it's personal - but then ones again ones taste and system should be.

And on the subject of " Cream Puffin' ", dude I'm a big arse Ex-Marine and loves fighting even at my olde age, but when something hits me hard on an emotional level - dude, I can cry along with the wife and am not afraid to show it - because most cats would be getting out of my way as it is, I'm olde school enough to know that in life - I either like someone or don't.

I'm honored to know you as a fellow human being as well as music lover.

Peace,
:yes:_oh

 

[Art K.]

I think Morrow makes good no nonsense cables that are good value for the money.

I bought 6 sets of their MA1 cables when they were $30 to test them out in a whole system.

What I can say is that they go thru a very long break in period where the overall sonic signature changes several times over but the MA1s are in the end a bit on the lean or cool side of neutral.

In my system these days and in years past, my favored cables.are.from the Chord Co. which IMO are even better bang for the buck than Moorow and dollar for dollar a better cable.

Sent from my SHV-E300S using Tapatalk

Completely agree.

 

[JBL GUY]

I will be buying some solid core wire soon and making my own cables to test the theory between multi strand and solid core, but I know for a fact that ac 50-60hz main power travels on the outside of the conductor so maybe we are doing it wrong buy insulating our speaker cables.

To be clear, at a frequency of 60 Hz, the depth of penetration is a little less than 9 mm for solid copped wire.

In simple terms, skin effect comes into play at 60Hz in terms of very large conductors such as are needed in very high current/very long length applications (needed to reduce I squared R losses).

Remember, in simple terms, it is the radius of the wire that comes into play not the diameter when we talk about skin effect.

Leaving the wire uninsulated would increase the velocity of propagation of the current being carried by the wire and might have other effects that might make an audible difference in the sound quality.


Below is a table that is close enough for illustrative purposes.

In simplified, round, approximate numbers, just for illustration, starting with Maxwell's equations and working back and simplifying to a degree, in copper...

Skin depth (in inches) = 2.6 /√f, where f is frequency in Hz.

Skin depth (in mm) = 66.4 /√f, where f is frequency in Hz.

For those that have large gauge power cables, skin effect should not be a factor at 60 Hz.

I do not have any hound dogs in this hunt, in terms of this thread in this forum. .

I post this information just for those that might find it interesting and or helpful.

How one might perceive differences in sound quality based on this information is subjective and additionally influenced by other factors involved in the construction of the audio cables.

I have my preferences in audio cables (interconnects, speaker wire, power cords and internal wiring), although my perceptions can only apply to how these relate to my specific audio chain.

It is up to each person to choose the cables that allow their audio system to sound the best to them.

 

[Scott Tex]

I know going from Nordost red dawn rca ITs to WireWorld Gold Starlight 7 xlrs made a significant improvement, more air around individual vocalists and instruments and not to mention a much higher spl with the voltage change from the xlrs.

 

[fredgarvin]

I just did a IC swap recently, from my source to the preamp. I had an old pair of Radio Shack, golds, if I remember back correctly. I stuck them in for kicks, they did open up the soundstage slightly and a little more space between instruments. The effect on vocals...was a slight loss of body...or maybe a tad more resolution. Not drastic. I swapped them back and forth and decided to keep them on. I could definitely see that one could easily pick the one with the slightly better vocal integrity as well. Blue Jeans LC-1.
A modest improvement, nothing like you'd get from a component change, but nice for my tastes. I'm not a big cable guy, but when there is a + or - change, it is what it is.

I'm going to swap them again in a couple of weeks and see if my audio taste is fickle.