steve parker
Established Member
You may be interested in hearing the results of my mad scientist experiments with speaker cables.
(Audio Research valve amps, and various speakers)
Started off with Nordost Flatline Gold - bi wired.
Started to read up. Insulation seemed important - PTFE (Teflon) or air is good, PVC is bad. So logically, a loose Teflon/PTFE sleeve, leaving lots of air spaces is good.
I bought some solid silver (99.99% pure) Litz braided cables. 8 strands plaited/braided into an RFI rejecting pattern as per the famous Kimber cable.
No connectors - why introduce another joint and material in between the boxes?
Nordost beaten, so I sold it. The silver gave me a feeling that a veil had been lifted, and I liked the extra detail and clarity of the silver.
Then I bought some 1.5mm diametre solid silver wire, in a loose PTFE jacket. Effectively made a solid core cable - 1 length for positive, and 1 length for negative. I loosly twisted them together to get some RFI rejection. That beat the multi strand. The solid core sounded less "edgy", deeper, more relaxed, but still with the detail. It didn't add anything, but I felt I'd eliminated some small nastyness. I'd got rid of some treble emphasis which had been slightly wearing before.
Then I read up about the Spelz Anti Cable. He seems to be talking sense. His central themes are get rid of the music spoiling insulation/dialectric, and get rid of the connector. Keep it really simple. Well, i took his advice to heart, and got rid of his markup as well. I realised that he is selling magnet wire - enamal covered pure copper.
So I invested £9 in a big roll of the stuff from Farnell (but Maplin etc also sell it). Easily enough to make up cables for both my stereo and surround sound systems.
I've put the specifications below from Farnell web site - basically it is 16SWG enamal covered copper (also called magnet wire, or coil wire)
You simply cut to length. Scrape off the very thin varnish at each end. Use marker pen to show which is going to be positive wire (because they are the same colour of course). Lightly twist them together and join the amp to the speaker. I didn't use any plugs because my amp and speaker has suitable screw down terminals.
Shockingly, the magnet wire is the best so far! Another step imrovement over the solid core silver, which was better than stranded silver which was better than Nordost copper. Everything is more relaxed and mellow and listenable, whilst retaining the detail and musicality. It's got rid of that slight fatigue element that CD systems always seem to have, even when you've spent thousands of pounds on boxes and isolation and mains conditioning.
I've just taken deliver of some Grover Huffman cables fromn California, which I'm testing now - but at this early stage, the £2 home made anti cables are still the stars of all my trials so far.
Anyway - for £9 a big roll, you can't really go wrong, so try it and be prepared to be shocked.
In my fairly high end system, I'm more than happy (although worried about how much money I've wasted on branded cables over the years)
WIRE, COPPER ENAMELLED, 16SWG; Area, conductor CSA:2mm²; Conductor make-up:1/1.5mm; Current rating:2.74A; Colour, primary insulation:Transparent; Material, primary insulationolyurethane; Diameter, External:1.5mm;
(Audio Research valve amps, and various speakers)
Started off with Nordost Flatline Gold - bi wired.
Started to read up. Insulation seemed important - PTFE (Teflon) or air is good, PVC is bad. So logically, a loose Teflon/PTFE sleeve, leaving lots of air spaces is good.
I bought some solid silver (99.99% pure) Litz braided cables. 8 strands plaited/braided into an RFI rejecting pattern as per the famous Kimber cable.
No connectors - why introduce another joint and material in between the boxes?
Nordost beaten, so I sold it. The silver gave me a feeling that a veil had been lifted, and I liked the extra detail and clarity of the silver.
Then I bought some 1.5mm diametre solid silver wire, in a loose PTFE jacket. Effectively made a solid core cable - 1 length for positive, and 1 length for negative. I loosly twisted them together to get some RFI rejection. That beat the multi strand. The solid core sounded less "edgy", deeper, more relaxed, but still with the detail. It didn't add anything, but I felt I'd eliminated some small nastyness. I'd got rid of some treble emphasis which had been slightly wearing before.
Then I read up about the Spelz Anti Cable. He seems to be talking sense. His central themes are get rid of the music spoiling insulation/dialectric, and get rid of the connector. Keep it really simple. Well, i took his advice to heart, and got rid of his markup as well. I realised that he is selling magnet wire - enamal covered pure copper.
So I invested £9 in a big roll of the stuff from Farnell (but Maplin etc also sell it). Easily enough to make up cables for both my stereo and surround sound systems.
I've put the specifications below from Farnell web site - basically it is 16SWG enamal covered copper (also called magnet wire, or coil wire)
You simply cut to length. Scrape off the very thin varnish at each end. Use marker pen to show which is going to be positive wire (because they are the same colour of course). Lightly twist them together and join the amp to the speaker. I didn't use any plugs because my amp and speaker has suitable screw down terminals.
Shockingly, the magnet wire is the best so far! Another step imrovement over the solid core silver, which was better than stranded silver which was better than Nordost copper. Everything is more relaxed and mellow and listenable, whilst retaining the detail and musicality. It's got rid of that slight fatigue element that CD systems always seem to have, even when you've spent thousands of pounds on boxes and isolation and mains conditioning.
I've just taken deliver of some Grover Huffman cables fromn California, which I'm testing now - but at this early stage, the £2 home made anti cables are still the stars of all my trials so far.
Anyway - for £9 a big roll, you can't really go wrong, so try it and be prepared to be shocked.
In my fairly high end system, I'm more than happy (although worried about how much money I've wasted on branded cables over the years)
WIRE, COPPER ENAMELLED, 16SWG; Area, conductor CSA:2mm²; Conductor make-up:1/1.5mm; Current rating:2.74A; Colour, primary insulation:Transparent; Material, primary insulationolyurethane; Diameter, External:1.5mm;