The effect of cables - A sane debate

Some years ago I built the DCB1 buffer for myself. Some time later I built another one for a friend from the same kit that sachu888 made available. The difference in the later build was I used a balanced cable made of tinned copper as internal signal wiring because that cable was what I had at the time. It sounded very different from my DCB1. It had a sense of air around the instruments and voices, especially percussion, making the highs more delicate and open. I rewired my DCB1 buffer and reproduced exactly what I heard in the DCB1 built for my friend. All my buffer, phono preamp and power amp builds from that day uses this particular balanced cable. For those interested this balanced cable is Helusound AES DMX cable, a 110 Ohm AES/EBU digital cable. Some may scream, "Sacrilege!" but it sounds what it sounds.

It has never occurred to me that tinned copper wire could possibly sound good as internal power cabling inside an amp until recently when a new amp I built sounded hard edged across the entire sound spectrum despite many hours of burn in. I had used silver plated copper wires, 1.5 sqmm cross section for all internal power and speaker wiring in this amp. Especially irritating to my ears was the midbass bump. So I decided to change the internal wiring to tinned copper. First I changed all the wirings related to the speaker output (amp boards to amp binding posts) and speaker cabling inside. The new sound that the amp produced was much more agreeable to my ears. There was no more midbass bump. In its place was a deeper bass (of course limited to what my small speakers can reproduce). The mids sounded good like before (the silver plated wires didn't harm the mids). The highs had good extension but it lacked sweetness and can sometimes sound etched. In fact I heard many new nuances and details in familiar music, but it always had a sense of being in a hurry. The tinned copper wire changed the character of the highs the most, making the sound unforced, effortless and airy. Hearing the positive changes I changed all the power wirings inside the amp to tinned copper. With this the entire wiring inside the new amp is now tinned copper.

To extend things further, I thought if tinned copper sounds good inside the amp, how would it sound as speaker cable? The problem is the tinned copper wire I got is fairly thin, and I couldn't find anything thicker in the local market. The shop said it is "23/36" wire. I haven't figured out the equivalent in AWG but by the looks of it, it seems to be about 20 AWG. Since the silver plated copper wire I had used is 18 gauge, I had to double every run to make it 18 gauge. This turned out to be a lot of work because the tinned copper wire has soft PVC insulation that immediately unravels after a pair is twisted together to double it. My solution was to twist together tightly, stretch it tightly and use a heatgun to heat up the PVC insulation uniformly and then allow it to cool down while being tightly stretched. I wanted the speaker cable to be at least 16 gauge (though I have successfully used 18 gauge transformer wire as speaker cable in the past). Twisting a pair 18 gauge to get 16 gauge was too much work so my plan got stalled till I decided to ask Prem for advice. He asked me to consider Belden 9497 which has a bit of a cult following among a section of audiophiles (especially Japanese audiophiles). I had read about this cable and filed it away in my mental storage as yet another exotica like the Western Electric WE16 cable. On a lark I called Kiran Sales in Lamington Road and asked for any Belden speaker cable made of tinned copper. Luckily they had Belden 8471 which is 16 gauge. I plugged this cable into my chain this evening and it is already sounding very promising, especially the bass weight and texture.

The point of this long-winded post is to consider tinned copper as internal and external wiring instead of chasing the purest copper that we can get. They are cheap (Belden 8471 is just Rs 90 per meter, and the 23/36 patch wire I bought is just Rs 15/m), they won't oxidise --- tinned copper wires are usually used in applications where copper oxidation can be catastrophic (like electrical wirings on boats), and they sound damned good (at least they do my ears!).
 
Some years ago I built the DCB1 buffer for myself. Some time later I built another one for a friend from the same kit that sachu888 made available. The difference in the later build was I used a balanced cable made of tinned copper as internal signal wiring because that cable was what I had at the time. It sounded very different from my DCB1. It had a sense of air around the instruments and voices, especially percussion, making the highs more delicate and open. I rewired my DCB1 buffer and reproduced exactly what I heard in the DCB1 built for my friend. All my buffer, phono preamp and power amp builds from that day uses this particular balanced cable. For those interested this balanced cable is Helusound AES DMX cable, a 110 Ohm AES/EBU digital cable. Some may scream, "Sacrilege!" but it sounds what it sounds.

It has never occurred to me that tinned copper wire could possibly sound good as internal power cabling inside an amp until recently when a new amp I built sounded hard edged across the entire sound spectrum despite many hours of burn in. I had used silver plated copper wires, 1.5 sqmm cross section for all internal power and speaker wiring in this amp. Especially irritating to my ears was the midbass bump. So I decided to change the internal wiring to tinned copper. First I changed all the wirings related to the speaker output (amp boards to amp binding posts) and speaker cabling inside. The new sound that the amp produced was much more agreeable to my ears. There was no more midbass bump. In its place was a deeper bass (of course limited to what my small speakers can reproduce). The mids sounded good like before (the silver plated wires didn't harm the mids). The highs had good extension but it lacked sweetness and can sometimes sound etched. In fact I heard many new nuances and details in familiar music, but it always had a sense of being in a hurry. The tinned copper wire changed the character of the highs the most, making the sound unforced, effortless and airy. Hearing the positive changes I changed all the power wirings inside the amp to tinned copper. With this the entire wiring inside the new amp is now tinned copper.

To extend things further, I thought if tinned copper sounds good inside the amp, how would it sound as speaker cable? The problem is the tinned copper wire I got is fairly thin, and I couldn't find anything thicker in the local market. The shop said it is "23/36" wire. I haven't figured out the equivalent in AWG but by the looks of it, it seems to be about 20 AWG. Since the silver plated copper wire I had used is 18 gauge, I had to double every run to make it 18 gauge. This turned out to be a lot of work because the tinned copper wire has soft PVC insulation that immediately unravels after a pair is twisted together to double it. My solution was to twist together tightly, stretch it tightly and use a heatgun to heat up the PVC insulation uniformly and then allow it to cool down while being tightly stretched. I wanted the speaker cable to be at least 16 gauge (though I have successfully used 18 gauge transformer wire as speaker cable in the past). Twisting a pair 18 gauge to get 16 gauge was too much work so my plan got stalled till I decided to ask Prem for advice. He asked me to consider Belden 9497 which has a bit of a cult following among a section of audiophiles (especially Japanese audiophiles). I had read about this cable and filed it away in my mental storage as yet another exotica like the Western Electric WE16 cable. On a lark I called Kiran Sales in Lamington Road and asked for any Belden speaker cable made of tinned copper. Luckily they had Belden 8471 which is 16 gauge. I plugged this cable into my chain this evening and it is already sounding very promising, especially the bass weight and texture.

The point of this long-winded post is to consider tinned copper as internal and external wiring instead of chasing the purest copper that we can get. They are cheap (Belden 8471 is just Rs 90 per meter, and the 23/36 patch wire I bought is just Rs 15/m), they won't oxidise --- tinned copper wires are usually used in applications where copper oxidation can be catastrophic (like electrical wirings on boats), and they sound damned good (at least they do my ears!).
I had tried Belden 12awg tinned speaker cable but didnt like it.lt was digital sounding little clinical.Bass was good,but soundstage smaller.l heard that cable in 3 different setup and result more or less similar.
 
I have better experience using tin plated RCA male/ female cables over Gold plated connectors. Now all my RCA terminations are tin plated connectors.
 
I had tried Belden 12awg tinned speaker cable but didnt like it.lt was digital sounding little clinical.Bass was good,but soundstage smaller.l heard that cable in 3 different setup and result more or less similar.

Was the cable brand new ?
If yes I feel it should take some hours to properly burn in
 
I came across this write-up after I had bought the Belden 8451 but before I started using it:

https://cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com/2011/12/review-belden-8471.html?m=1

...they look shiny like silver instead of copper color. The best role Tin could be playing is just preventing oxidation of copper.

Does higher conductivity of silver play havoc with sound ? Has anyone compared solid silver IC cables with pure copper, for sound ?

BTW, tin plating does not look shiny like nickel plating. It's a dull grey colour.

Solid silver IC: I have mixed experience with solid silver used as IC. I have tried two different brands of costly ICs that use silver and both sounded very good in my setup. On the other hand a DIYed silver IC that used high purity (99.99%) soft annealed solid strand "floating" in a large teflon tube, terminated in Eichmann Bullets sounded terrible in my setup.
 
Currently I am using Belden 89182 for doubling the speaker cables , both for High frequency and MId-low frequency connections and results are awesome. I made XLR cable too from this and it is at par at Belden 8402 but lacks in Royal presentation of 8402, may be burn-in is required.
I am impressed by shielding of 89182- the description of wire -
Belden 89182 22/1P Premium Plenum-Rated Duofoil-Shielded FFEP-Insulated FEP-Jacketed Twinaxial Cable. It has a twisted pair of 22awg Teflon (FFEP or Foam Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene)-insulated color-coded stranded (19x34 stranding) tinned copper conductors - twisted with fillers for added durability/flexibility at min. 4 twists/ft - then wrapped in a Duofoil shield (100% coverage aluminum foil/polyester-backed tape/aluminum foil-2 layers of foil) with 22awg stranded tinned copper drain wire, with marker tape, all wrapped in a semi-translucent black Teflon (FEP or Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene) jacket
 
To continue the cable doubling story we started some time ago I have been trying on and off a Belden 1172A star quad balanced interconnect cable. Since there are four wires instead of the usual two, it automatically achieves the goal of doubling a link, and it actually sounds very good. Its sound signature is more akin to two other ICs that I like in my setup (Helusound AES DMX and Klotz MC 5000) than my current top IC Belden 8402, the 8402 being a bit richer and brings out harmonics better.
 
Braided power cable...what difference it makes...lookes interesting...by the way how did you get it braid and what is the wire ..lot of questions ...since you have only photo

See post # 238 and 240 here. The same wire has been used for this power cable. 3 wires of same colour are used for each pole (live, neutral and ground) to make the conductor (1 sqmm per wire) thicker since one wire is not thick enough to carry mains power.

Why braid? This is a simple 3-wire braid commonly used by the ladies to braid their hairs. I'm not aware if this particular braid has any desirable properties like some other braids like litz braids have. So in my case it is just to keep the nine wires tidy and manageable:)
 
Recently my efforts of reducing cable capacitance have given me positive improvement in both top and bottom end. In my quest to further reduce cable capacitance am exploring further.

Btw, have anyone tried using tungsten wire for interconnects? They are also available in gold plated but are a bit pricey.

I have read some articles about tungsten being the only IC material that can give you real holographic sound and give the presence of the performance in your room.

Tungsten is already been used as a filament for bulbs, tubes for component leads and nano electronics interconnects.

Will like to know responses before I purchase the wire.
 
No response to my above post - I think if I do it, I shall be the first person in the forum to do so.
 
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