Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site
In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: We who are about to die... (a cable thread)
Post Subject: We who are about to die... (a cable thread)Posted by Paul S on: 6/28/2008
Most will recognize the Roman gladiator's salute. Caveat...
Based on what I've seen at AA, this is as likely a place as any (and more likely than most) to go down in flames.
My own motive for starting this up is recent experiments with super-pure silver IC, in this case it a twisted pair of 26 ga., cotton-covered OCC wire with new-type silver WBT RCA plugs. I had these ICs running from my K&K phono stage to the TAP attenuator for several months.
My previous (and present) ICs for this run are Litz braided, 4-wire (2/ea. leg) 25.5 ga. OCC pure copper magnet wire (urethane coated) and Vampire copper RCA plugs (with gold sputtered directly onto the copper). I also melt bees wax into the wire braid before I cover it with a braided poly sheath.
Today I ran direct sound comparisons using Bruckner's 9th, just to be sure everything would stay off-balance.
The silver is at the same time calmer yet more extended on top, and it is obviously biased upward, frequency-wise, compared to the copper. The silver also does some very interesting things with the soundfield, namely it seems to increase the sense of "spaciousness" in general, and "depth" in particular. It also renders more obviously the "audible" part of percussion, such as the sound of fingers picking and letting go of plucked strings, or the "rise" of a piano note. However, the copper better renders the "felt" part of percussion, namely the "impact" of the plucked string or piano note, and likewise with bass notes; it better renders the immediate "vibe" of a bass, bowed or plucked. The copper had more "image density", almost to the point of "congestion". The silver had more "separation" of images, almost to the point of striation/stratification.
I wound up getting a little manic exploring the finer points (who, me???), swapping the cable back and forth after just a few bars, and I found the results to be very interesting.
The upshot? If stuck with one kind of wire for this run, I'd have to say, copper. But I'm not so sure I want to be stuck with either of these options, so I plan to try both --- at once!
To start, I think I'll +/- disassemble the silver IC and then rebuild it using 4 wires per IC, meaning a silver and a copper wire on each leg, and I'll start with the silver WBT connectors.
In doing this I am not simply equivocating; rather I aim to include, if possible, the best each wire type has to offer in one IC.
Please do not suggest or even mention silver-coated copper...
Paul SRerurn to Romy the Cat's Site