DIY Helix Geometry Cabling

@total111 , paper is better from a dielectric perspective.

But that  tape should be OK 

.

One thing I forgot to mention - the Audiogon Private Messaging feature...

• for some reason, when I try to use this feature the following message is displayed
  • You must have a verified phone number and payment method to send messages.
• Since I am extremely guarded in my use of my "payment informtation", this is not going to happen
• so for the time being please DO NOT use private messaging to contact me
• I will monitor this thread for any questions

Many Thanks - Steve

@noromance - the purpose of the helix neutral is two fold

#1...

• to stop the alternating voltage in the signal wire from inducing "noise" into the neutral wire, which utlimately is fed back into the neutral side of the circuits of the connected components.
• Noise on the neutral side of the circuit impacts the ability of the circuit to perform as designed
• When used on all cables in a system noise is elimanated throughout the system.

Some say this is negligable, but at each "stage" that noise is amplified and as such creates a significant problem by the time it reaches the speakers.

The speakers have the highest voltages, so they make the biggest impact to the neutral side of the amplifier

On the power cable side of things - any noise on the neutral permates through the entire system via the attached components and contributes greatly to system wide noise issues

#2...

• The helix spiral acts like a faraday cage around the signal wire
• it minimizes the impact of "external noise" on the signal wire(s) by disrupting the "Space" around them
  • a bit like a screen

Yes - Noise rejection is very good, both from external sources and internal cable  signal induced noise

• e.g. I once held a standard turntable cable (i.e. from the MC cartridge to the phono) tightly n my fist, against a Helix power cable
• to even my surprise, whilst there was a very small amount of hum coming from the speakers is was only audible when the amp was turned to very high levels

Hope that helps - Steve

@zlib - the answer to your questions are ...

• it depends how sensitive your ears are
• in general, using regular wire for the DC power circuit should not degrade performance of the circuit that is using the 5v supply too much
• insulaton is not as much of a factor with DC power
• If you are using the cable to connect to a computer I would recommend using a seperate power supply
  • computer USB power is very noisy compared to a dedicated 5v supply
  • this entails seperating the power lead from the signal wires at the source end and attaching a seperate USB plug for power only
  • This would improve performance of the connected component significantly.

In reality, the signal passing through the signal wires causes a connected component to vary the current drawn in the 5V supply line - this in turn cause very small fluctuations in voltage and the combintion can cause very small degradation of the signal passing through the signal wires. IF your ears are extremely sensitive, then you may hear a difference between using OFC for the 5v line and one using OCC copper for the 5V line.

Hope that helps - Steve

@mpower1001 - seems our PM thread has been locked

Take a look at this thread for details on the DIY Helix Cables - see the first post for links to PDF files containing construction details

Regards - Steve

@nightlyfly - sorry not to reply to your PM, but that feature requires a credit card number and I do not enter that into any app, so I have to respond via this thread.

Your question...

Hi Steve
I am preparing the Helix cables, I use copper / teflon, do you want to describe the differences using the bare cable vs the teflon coated cable, I am using Neotech cables.

Without getting into the technical aspects, I noticed a significant improvement in clarity, articulation & dexterity, very fine details, like the echoes and reverberation of the venue and a new, larger 3D image . Live albums exhibit a more realistic reproduction beyond anything I had heard. It puts you in the venue

It’s difficult to attribute which cables provide those benefits because all of my cables were Helix, and as I developed a new approach I changed all of the cables to that approach.

I guess the big difference with the power cables was the 3D nature of the image

Hope that helps, steve

@raf90 - apologies for my delay in answering your posts.

Unfortunately, I have taken the web site down due to the expense of hosting.

But the first post of this thread contains new links to pdf files that shows how to build them.

Regards

@nogaps , the first post of this thread contains links to the construction details..

Regards, steve 

@total111 - the answers to your question...

• i preferred the sound of the silver plated stranded copper for speaker cables. Using OCC as the neutral sounded too clinical
• 20 and 14 ft is too long for the Helix design. I did make a 12ft cable once
• You can run the conductors in parallel, but keep them spaced about 10mm apart. To accomplish that you could sandwich the two wires between two pièces of brown paper parcel tape.

Using cables of different length normally impacts image and clarity.

• This is generally due to the impact of the capacitance of the insulation.
• If you adopt the "AIR" design of placing à bare solid  wire inside the teflon tube, for both signal and neutral, then because the wire has very little contact with the tube, there is very little capacitance, so the two cables should produce very good results

Hope that helps

@total111 , i use a twisted pair of wires for the signal and a larger gauge for the neutral e.g.

• 2 x 17 gauge solid wire for the signal = 14 gauge
• 1 x 12 gauge solid wire for the neutral OR
• 1 x 10 gauge stranded wire for the neutral

Regards

@total111 - gave your cables some thought an came up with this...

1. Get some wood strip approximately 3mm x 10mm
2. Cut small pièces approximately 20cm long
3. Use a piece as a spacer to hold the wires apart
4. Secure it in place using heat shrink (with adhesive)
5. Space them about 6 inches apart

The finished cable will look like a long ladder

You can cover it with expandable sleeving if you like

That should provide the best performance

Regards

@gregm , never tried it

Any differences would probably be due to

1. Increased cross sectional area
2. Increased dielectric impact of the larger surface area  of square wire

• I would not use it because of this

Regards

@pindac , you are welcome.

I hope more DIYers get to know the benefits of the Heilx geometry.

Its not perfect, but it's a lot better than most others

Thanks for your support :-)

@total111 , that should work with minimal induced noise.

Let us know how it works out.

I have to ask, can the amps be positioned closer to the speakers?

Might be easier to make longer helix interconnects and keep the speaker cables to a minimum length

Regards

@total1, do the amps have xlr inputs, that would make life simpler e.g. using standard xlr cables from Zavfino perhaps

Something to think about

Regards

@total111 , you can go up to 30ft with a single ended RCA cable.

The Helix would work well up to 30ft, but challenging to build

Again,  i would recommend Zafino

regards

@total111 - the parallel conductors were the first design I tried, but the helix sounded more open and spacious. But I did not try it with bare wire inside teflon tube. It would probably make some difference.

Amps that employ a balanced output stage will not sound their best with a helix speaker cable, so parallel conductors is the only wat to go in that case.

Regards

Here's another related thread that may be of interest

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/what-i-have-found-makes-a-good-cable