How about silver plated teflon copper cables for everything?

[prem]

My guess is Hari is probably looking at using it as a power cable too.

 

[keith_correa]

My guess is Hari is probably looking at using it as a power cable too.

Ah, OK!

 

[sunder]

Teflon as a dielectric adds a bit of brightness to the top end which works well in some systems. PVC, rubber, ployeurethane foam, cotton all sound different as dielectrics

How many wonders are hidden under the Physics & Science ! But, 'taking minimum from that' is harmless .

 

[Hari Iyer]

You are talking about IC's between the DAC and the amp, right? Why are you taking these parameters of the amp into the equation for the cable between the DAC and the amp? Maybe I'm missing something here or I don't understand fully. Can you please clarify?

I think my post was confusing as i mixed 3 things in it.
1 - Interconnects between DAC & power amp (No i am not using any preamp now) which is the 26swg single core conductor.
2 - speaker cables between power amp and speakers - 18swg single core conductor.
3- AC input cable from wall outlet to power amp AC inlet (this is still pending and will follow the Keith method).

 

[keith_correa]

One more thing to try is to size the return wire according to the Golden Ratio.

 

[Hari Iyer]

One more thing to try is to size the return wire according to the Golden Ratio.

Whats this? Can you elaborate further.

 

[Hari Iyer]

I presume its the size of the wire keith is talking about. If line and neutral is 2.5 sqmm, then earth should be 4 sqmm size. This gives a golden ratio of 0.625.

Keith - correct me if i am wrong.

 

[keith_correa]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

Yes, I'm referring to the size of the wire. Specifically, return wire for the IC.
In this case I'm not referring to earth in a power cable though it should work there too for the neutral wire.

 

[prem]

Keith, I have not had a great experience using the return wire in a golden ratio. Tried this several years back. You get a sense of more speed. That’s nice. But somewhere I felt the tonality got affected. What’s been your experience?

Also tried copper for signal and silver for return. I guess, in one you are lowering resistance, in the other you are improving conductivity. Kind of similar results.

 

[keith_correa]

Keith, I have not had a great experience using the return wire in a golden ratio. Tried this several years back. You get a sense of more speed. That’s nice. But somewhere I felt the tonality got affected. What’s been your experience?

Also tried copper for signal and silver for return. I guess, in one you are lowering resistance, in the other you are improving conductivity. Kind of similar results.

I have not tried the exact golden ratio [or even close] but a long time ago I used a 28 AWG wire as the signal wire and a 24 AWG as the return wire [both single solid core] and remember that there was a difference - everything just seemed right. Of course, things being equipment spec. specific - YMMV.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Will try with 28 for signal and 18 for return and check if it matters for me. Very close to golden ratio also. Difficult to twist the 18 over 28. Reverse could have been easy.

 

[jls001]

BTW, 18 gauge is very thick. And if it's solid core, very rigid. I know because I still have the 18 gauge enamelled transformer wire I experimented with for some time as speaker cables. They have a beautiful tonality but were a bit rounded off in the highs and lows, and were not particularly resolving.

An interesting variety of wire we ought to be experimenting and discussing is solid core RF cables. The finest sounding speaker cable I've heard in my setup was an RF cable based one which a fellow forumer from Bangalore kindly lent me. May be Prem would like to take the discussion on RF cable forward?

 

[Hari Iyer]

BTW, 18 gauge is very thick. And if it's solid core, very rigid. I know because I still have the 18 gauge enamelled transformer wire I experimented with for some time as speaker cables. They have a beautiful tonality but were a bit rounded off in the highs and lows, and were not particularly resolving.

An interesting variety of wire we ought to be experimenting and discussing is solid core RF cables. The finest sounding speaker cable I've heard in my setup was an RF cable based one which a fellow forumer from Bangalore kindly lent me. May be Prem would like to take the discussion on RF cable forward?

Yesterday rebuild my speaker cables using 18SWG wires and found the same. The tonal balance between lows, mids and highs is great. The speed, transient attack is also great. The highs are more rounded off and i would say more relaxed. But i like it that way. It gives me less listening fatigue for long hours of music sessions. The airiness in the music is still there if its in the recording.

Further to the above, i can say that the vocals sound more like real. Meaning like there are noextra chest and extra tone in the vocal - like in a real conversation. When we speak with each other most frequency are in the midrange without any lows and highs(Harmonics still exist). Such is this feeling with the cable change. As most people are tuned to listen to coloured sound, at first instance they might feel the sound stage a bit relaxing and i would say boring as the sibilance, extra airiness is not there. Only after they get accustomed to the setup and compare it with un-amplified real time performance they can begin to appreciate the setup. Thats to say the setup will not appeal for a casual listner but can be appreciated by a well trained ears who are used to listening various setups.

 

[keith_correa]

Will try with 28 for signal and 18 for return and check if it matters for me. Very close to golden ratio also. Difficult to twist the 18 over 28. Reverse could have been easy.

Make 3 bundles of cables:
Bundle 1. Two strands of CAT5 Teflon coated solid core wires
Bundle 2. Two strands of CAT5 Teflon coated solid core wires
Bundle 3. One strand of your 28 solid core wire
Try a simple 3 way braid.

Bundles 1 + 2 will give you an aggregate of 18.