A contrarian's view of inductance in SCs

Hiya Lloyd,

I had to go to the top of the page to see who started this stuff. Damn, the wordy guy was me!!

I am so happy you finally got the Fire. I know you are blown away with it's dynamics and clarity.

You having Von Schweikerts I don't know how much they will be influenced the way I have gone. I just know it will be obvious.

You have the stereo amplifier. I have monos. As I was saying above, I made my own independent .003" thick 12 gauge copper ribbon SCs. I used good old aluminum wrap for the return. On my speakers the first five feet of return is made of aluminum foil. The reason for this is the current returning to the amp is dumped. It doesn't need a royal coach ride to the grave.

The sound I got shocked me. I did not expect it to revolutionize my sound. Upon the first note of the CD, I nearly jumped out of my skin. The detail, depth, and mostly dynamic range and contrast has brought my Scintillas to fruition.

It wouldn't hurt for you to try longer lengths. They are easy to make. I can tell you how if you want.

I look at your Santori SCs and I know for a fact they produce a background haze. Your speaker's Scan-Speak tweeters should bare this out, even if you have to put your ear to the tweeter. My Scintillas scream it out. The thicker the SC's insulation, the louder the fizzy background. You should have been here when I hooked up Cardas Golden Reference in front the sales rep.

Try this for me, Lloyd, if you please. Buy the very cheap Speltz Anti-Cables. Have a good listen with your Santori SCS, then switch them with the confounding ACs. If that works, make the ribbons. Or, just make the ribbons.

You will hear a difference. I just wonder if you rid the tweeter of the fizz. If the tweeter competes with my ribbons for agility, the difference should be apparent.

Getting the Fire opens the door to lots of interesting discoveries.

I am just as preachy about the sins of oversampling. The Cary you are looking at is an oversampler. I can't tell you how many times folks bring over their top flight SACD players, and digital filter CD players only to be crushed by my non-oversampler DAC. Your new preamp will necessitate the change.

I would strongly suggest you buy a very good transport, and a modern NOS DAC. Kees has written me about a killer NOS DAC created by an ex Audio Note worker in Europe. Now that the dollar is finally making some way against the Euro.... I believe he sells this DAC for around 3k Euro.

I use the Speltz interconnect, the cheaper one. I can't see the return being carried by silver, when the hot wire is copper. That is backward thinking. His ACs have been compared favorably to some silver ribbon ICs in Europe.

What I am saying is now you have such squeaky clear amp and preamp the above lectures are very pertinent. Sorry about the bad news over your wires and CD player. You will thank me in the end.

Vince

Vince,

How you doin? It's been a long time since we last traded emails. I finally received my Fire preamp from Henry. Can you give me any suggestions on what interconnects you'd suggest between it and my S250 amplifier? I'm running Acoustic Zen Santori speaker cables to my Von Schweikert VR4 HSE box speakers. I've not yet decided on what CDP to buy, but I'm strongly considering the Cary 306 SACD player. Your opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Again, Lloyd Birmingham, AL.

Yes, I am with you. For me, the cables must carry the signal faithfully. For some others, they want to change what they hear with cables. That is all possible. Look at the really expensive cable manufacturers who go to great length to change the signal by adding boxes filled with capacitors and resistors.

Not heresy at all! I do believe that there is a theoretical advantage of separate ribbon wires, vs solid core wires. I have not heard them side by side. I still believe that solid copper wire is good, especially considering that there are terminals and internal speaker wire that are often inferior to the expensive wire we purchase. Although silver wire and silver coated copper wire may sound different in different systems, it is the synergy of the amplifier-wire-speaker that is important. I don't believe that wire can transform a system, only make it worse. The better the connectors and the more pure the wire, the less the signal from amplifier to speaker changes. Just a belief on my part, not fact.

Tgrisham,

That is the philosophical line of discussion I was hoping for. For me, knowing that adjacent magnetic forces do indeed excite each other's voltage, I can only assume the HF is altered.

My speakers actually have gained in HF strength using independent plus and minus cables. I must add that these cables are ribbons, and are very short.

I actually replaced Anti-Cables with virtually naked ribbons. They are similar in that regard.

I know this is heresy.

I can't speak to whether or not the anti-cables are diminished , because I don't perceive that in my system. Because most all other wires are in close proximity to each other, wouldn't most speaker wires be perceived as exciting the HF? Could it be that designers of speakers and electronics voice their equipment with standard parallel speaker wires? Could it be that separate wires actually are slightly rolled off, thus compensating for brighter electronics? Of course, I am just posing questions for fun. After all is said, its only what sounds good to you. Who knows, I may go downstairs, untwist the wires and listen again. There are so many factors involved, and so few absolutes.

What I am curious is how important is weather speaker wire is highly-stranded or not?

Tgrisham, thanks for joining in. I would like you to think this through a bit. You hear a heightened HF with twisted ACs. We could agree that bringing the return wire closer to the signal wire made that difference. According to the paper I am referring to you are hearing an excitation of the voltage in the signal wire's skin.

The AC is a mid band magic wire. It's HF and bass is relatively diminished. I have heard much better highs and lows some innovative designs, some cheap and some very expensive.

The ribbon SCs I use prove you just don't need that external to the signal boost. The highs are all there, without need of artificiality.

I understand little about the electrical properties of wire. These wires are difficult to make contact throughout their entire length. It is easiest when they are new. It seems even their close proximity to each other makes a difference in sound. As I understand fields, the fields generated are a function of their distance apart. Whatver the reason, it seems to make a difference, at least it did at the time. Although it could have been the atmospheric hiss from the Van Allen Belts. Who knows?

I have those wires. They would be next to impossible to twist to contact. They have a lot of residual spring.

Considering the inductance is imposing itself into the music signal, I would not argue that the resulting disturbance of the HF riding on the skin could not be excited so as to give a heightened HF response. Brightness is often mistaken for higher HF, and detail. I am not saying you are hearing brightness, but there has to be a reason why you are perceiving a music signal.

I twisted the positive and the negative together, approximately 4 twists per foot.

Did you twist the negative, and positive wires together? And if so, is there any gap between the two?

The pieces I quoted are from science papers. They make common sense as well. Close paired current carrying wires will induce magnetic forces on each other.

I have only a small example. I have run my Speltz anti-cable speaker wires both separated and twisted. There is an audible difference, subtle but unmistakeable. In my rig and in my room I preferred the twisted for the upper frequency module and separated for the bass module. In essence, there is something to the effect one cable has on the other. It's all about what sounds best to you.