Duelund conversion to DIY Helix Geometry Cabling

@lemonhaze - having a slightly smaller neutral will not impact performance singificantly.

You could add a second 18 gauge Neutral which would make it larger than the revised signal conductor, but I would wait until you’ve listened to it and then if you feel there is some shorcomings then perhaps tackcle a second neutral OR even replace it with a 16 gauge neutral

I might opt for a 16 gauge neutral, as it might provide a slight advantage over a 2 x 18 gauge neutral.

I tried a dual wire neutral and for me it did not provide enough of an advantage considering the addition effort it took to build. But others swear by the dual neutral build.

My build was using bare wire inside teflon tube for the neutral, while it is a very nice cable

• I did not find using a dual neutral was significantly better
• I did not find using bare wire inside a teflon tube to provide any noticeable benefit
• My other two cables use 16 guage wire with Teflon insulation

WRT the bare 14 gauge wire - I guess you would have to buy wire with teflon insulation and remvove the insulation. I did this before I found the bare wire

I think there is a version that has PVC insulation which is more affordable

Hope that helps

@pindac, yes the CCC wire is impressive as is the OCC Ag. As most of us realise systems differ and mine which is border line over-analytical requires, I think a mix of these two types.

I will modify the 'skinny' IC and allow many more hours play and then figure out what direction to go.

What I do know now is that the helix design is inherently superior to anything else I've tried. To this end my Van den Hul Orchid interconnect was my reference. It's basically a single stand of Ag. in VdH 'special' insulation with a coax style neutral and additional screen. He uses hybrid and various weird stuff in his cables. I used to refer to his cables as Van den Dull but the Orchid is an exception to this.

When I replaced the above with the CCC helix I was immediately thrilled with what I was hearing. This one pair of interconnects was not just different and a little better, it took my system to a higher level and my thinking changed!

This expensive exercise has possibly saved me money 🤔

I no longer feel that maybe it's time to upgrade my 30 year old Wadia 15 DAC. Plays redbook only and I do not feel this is a handicap. My DIY power amp is performing beautifully with explosive transients and dynamics. It can stay.

More experimentation with different concoctions will add to the Helix Cookbook recipes.

@lemonhaze Thank You for your continued description on the perception of the CCC Wire.

I have the perception that CCC Wire as a standard Cable configuration cleans up the presentation in a improved manner over a OCC Wire as standard cable configuration.

When compared as a DIN>RCA Phono Cable the CCC Wire Cable Superseded a OCC Silver Wire Cable, the CCC was perceived as the wire that offered a preferred balance across the frequencies, notes and vocals were delivered with a improved substance to their envelope and was certainly the least smearing of the Details/Micro Details.

I would suggest that the two cables can be compared at intervals, after experiencing extended use of the wire types being used.    

My HiFi System is nearly all in storage at present, which results in my delay to produce the Helix Cable Design.

I have now offered a friend a selection of collected Wire to build the Helix Design for themselves.

In my cache of Wire, there is a Stranded PC Triple C/EX which has a forged CCC Silver Coating on the Copper Core Wire. 

This is one I was going to strip down to the strands and attempt to make a Tonearm Internal Wand Wire.

@lemonhaze - I would NOT recomemnd mixing copper and silver wires for a single signal conductor - the speed of transmission of the two metals is different and the resolution/clarity will suffer

Adding the 20 gauge Ag to the 2 x 24 Ag wires is a much better idea provided the quality of silver of the three wires is identical

Regards - Steve

Yes, I agree. At the price of silver wire I will not be making premature decisions. The first helix I built was with PC Triple C Cu. which I left in its insulation and has had now about 220 hrs. It appears to have stabilised but will not disturb it for now. It will be relatively easy to remove the signal wire, remove its insulation and place each wire in a PTFE tube and listen again.

I have for some time suffered from an upper mid-range glare. Female vocals were mostly unlistenable. The CCC calmed that down to the point that we were able to listen to music that we once avoded.  As previously mentioned I can now listen to more of my files which IMO is a huge win.

The extra sparkle from the OCC Ag. is attractive and for my system may require  combining a strand of CCC which is 19AWG Cu. with the 2 x 24AWG Ag. though I don't know yet how Cu. and Ag. in parallel will behave.

I would wait after the 400 hours burn-in mark before making any fine tuning to the design.

Hi guys, I have just received an email back from Stephanie at Parts Connexion that the 14AWG bare Connex solid Cu. wire is out of stock and that the business that supplies it has closed down !&^%#

Any ideas for a substitute?

I have 70 hrs play time on the 2 x 24AWG Ag / SOCT-18 interconnect which has amazing high frequency detail and brilliance (it's not really bright)  but it just sounds lightweight so I am considering adding a single 20AWG solid Ag to each, resulting in about 17.5AWG   Any thoughts?

The earlier made CCC interconnect by comparison sounds weightier and easier to listen to but seems to lack the inner glow of the Silver.

@williewonka Hi Steve

Thank You for your support.

@tecknik - I've found shileding on cables impacts the openess, so I never use it.

Also the Helix coil acts like a faraday cage, which makes the need for a shield redundant.

I've clenched a Helix power cable next to a Helix interconnect in my fist with the volume at full volume (no music playing) and the resulting hum was barely audible

I did have one instance where a friends very old tube system created a hum with a Helix Interconenct connecting the turntable to the amp's internal phono stage. So he had to use a conventional shieided cables for that duty..

But I have also had reports from many others that there was no hum present in that situation on their more modern systems.

Personally, I have never had a hum issue due to the helix interconnects, so I have never pursued using a screen on them

Hope that helps - Steve

No problem williewonka,

Have you tried wrapping the live wire in copper mesh before winding the neutral and ground around it with the male side grounded?
 

would this increase capacitance or resistance effecting the dynamics.

The thought of wrapping the live with a copper wire mesh popped in my head but given the amount of work it will take I wanted some thoughts before I proceeded.

thanks ,

steven 

@tecknik - apologies for the delay in answering the following

Williewonka@ what’s the influence of sound by the twisted neutral and ground”does a tighter twist over the live wires increase focus, air or timber of the ac cable.Williewonka@ what’s the influence of sound by the twisted neutral and ground”does a tighter twist over the live wires increase focus, air or timber of the ac cable.

I have not observed any changes in perofrmance when altering the diameter of the helix coil.

I intially believed there may be some benefit to having a larger coil, especially WRT speaker cables, which carry a higher voltage than interconencts, but subsequent work with power cables proved this supposition to be incorrect.

I do still believe that increasing the ratio of the Helix neutral to the signal wire, i.e. resulting is more turns, on those cables used between the turntable and the phono stage, could help reduce the amount of noise present on SOME OLDER systems.

• But I have learned there are many systems that experience no noise at all using the more conventional 3:1 ratio.

Hope than answers your question

Regards - Steve

@pindac - apologies in the delay of my reply.

Regarding...

The Power Amp’ EE has asked for all devices to be in use, to be made available for the final testing to take place, as well as be supplied XLR Cables that can have a Earth Shield detached at One Connector.

The query is, does the Helix Design lend itself to this request from the EE.

I was not quite onboard with the EE’s inquiry, when questioning me about the Cables to be built, I am interested in meeting the request from the EE, and to have a Cable available with this as a option, which will be able to have a shield detached.

Unfortunately my practical experience is limited to single ended designs, because I have no components that share the balanced XLR architecture.

However I have some limited experience with XLR connectors and cables.

What the EE appears to be referring to is a floating shield approach.

For this to be effective there must be at least two llayers of seperate shielding

• Where the inner layer of shield is connected to the ground pin of the XLR plugs at both ends
• and only one end of the outer layer of shielding is connceted to the ground pind of the connector,
• and the other end is not connected.
• the thought is any airborn RFI is wicked away to the ground of the component where the shield is connected
• this supposedly prevents the noise from entering the signal path and being amplified by the following "stages" of amplification
• the connected plug must always be inserted into the "Source" component

The main issue these days is that many source components are of an insulated design (i.e. they have a two pin plug, so they are NOT grounded, which means this approach will be of little use because the noise is not wicked away.

With the design of the Helix, the helix coil "interupts" any external RFI

• preventing noise from entering the signal wires, much like a faraday cage
  • making a seperate shield unessesary.
• the Helix even works with connecting between a turntable and a phono stage on many systems
  • but I am aware of a couple of systems where noise was still an issue for some reason
  • these had to have a heavily shielded convetional cable

This link may help your understanding of where the "EE" is coming from 

XLR Conections

Hope that helps - Steve

@toolbox149, I am hearing what you described and believe it or not, after last nights  session, considered adding a third 24AWG AG strand which would end up about 19AWG and easy enough to do.

Steve has tried, I think, 4 strands in parallel and claims no improvement heard, which gives me reason to be cautious.

However looking at what Kimber has done they seem to be successful with their Varistrand cable using multiple different gauges. I am now considering paralleling 26, 22 and 18AWG all in individual tubes together giving 1.28sq. mm, close to 16AWG overall.

Any brave souls out there willing to buy all that silver and experiment?

@williewonka, Some kit arrived earlier than expected, for a change, so I made up an IC using 2 x 24AWG solid AG in separate ptfe tubes with SOCT-18 for a 3.5:1 neutral with KLE Absolutes.

My previous build used the twin 19AWG CCC that pindac introduced. I now have about 105 hrs play time and they sound really very good. A huge upgrade which left my wife and me with big smiles. 

I removed the CCC pair and replaced them with the 'recipe' above. Straight from my grubby hands and into the system so no run time at all. We heard a cleanly detailed, open sounding, leading edge/transient monster. I heard percussion coming from places not aware of before. It was providing more important information than the CCC.

We both felt that we heard more upper register detail with the overall gestalt a little on the lighter side, which did not surprise me. After some time I left the 24AWG Ag in place between the Oppo and line-stage and then connected the CCC's between the line-stage and amp. Hellooo, head and foot-stomps.

I understand that the pair of AG IC's will change with more play time but the sound right now has improved to the point where before, one of us would dive for the volume control with screwed up face because of screechy female vocals. Not so much now. Some tracks, previously unlistenable became tolerable. Large orchestral works, normally congested and brash on my system were now better rendered and instead of skipping allowed us to hear the musical intent, and if still not pristine was at least listenable.

Prior to these helix delights I could listen only to about 20% of my files, now I think it's closer to 50%. This alone to me is worth the cost of entry 😎

Next build will be 'standard recipe' : 2 x 20AWG bare AG in tubes with 3.5:1 SOCT-16 neutral.

NOW for the biggest 👍 My wife, always supportive, is now actively encouraging me. This morning I got the " building any more?" glint.

Thanks Steve,

I gotta say, of all the things/tweaks I have ever tried, these cables, run shotgun style with another cable, have surpassed everything else I’ve done; including upgrades to some of my components.  I didn’t think my setup had enough quality to sound this good, but your cables elevated my system from “very, very good” to “ holy crap”.

The overall improvement in SQ was easily more than I would ever hope for when upgrading a component.

Thanks

Tim

@toolbox149 - I only ever use Solid silver for the Signal wires, because as you said, it becomes very expensive if using solid silver for the Helix as well.

My apologies if I did not really make that point clear in previous posts

RE:

What do you think of making making interconnects with two OOC5N solid silver, bare wires for the live side, with a OOC 6N PTFE solid copper wire for the neutral?

Perfect! - also I DO NOT use the "AIR" adaption for the neutral - I just use OCC wire with Teflon insulaton.

I did try using the air adaption, but it made no difference to sound quality

Regards - Steve

Steve,

One question.  When I was almost finished with my solid copper interconnect project (I have 9 interconnect pairs), you tried OOC5N silver wire and pronounced the results as even better than the copper.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 😀

So, I made one set and I also was very pleased with the results.  I have two, maybe four more locations where I could replace the copper interconnects with silver. Even though these would be 1 meter long, the cost could end up being prohibitive.

 
What do you think of making making interconnects with two OOC5N solid silver, bare wires for the live side, with  a OOC 6N PTFE solid copper wire for the neutral?

Lemonhaze,

Sorry to take this long to post. I haven’t been back to this thread in a while.
I experimented with different size solid wire for the live wires of my interconnects. When I first made my wires with two solid 18g wires in separate tubes I was amazed at how much more impactful the music was, as opposed to my old interconnects. Everything sounded great, but as we always do, I wondered if it could be improved. The bass was robust but I thought if I could get a little more in the high frequency range the sound might be even better.

So, I built a set of wires with different gauges. I originally wanted an 18g matched with a 22g set, but I couldn’t find any OOC6N solid copper wire in that gauge, so I tried 24g instead. I was correct in thinking the higher frequencies would be improved. The highs were simply shimmering. Unfortunately, the 18g/24g setup somehow robbed my impact and my bass response. The shimmering highs were not anywhere near enough of an improvement to offset the losses in the lower ranges.

So, I made a pair with an 18g matched with a 20g. This proved to be a nice combination for me, so now, all of my interconnects have an 18g/20g combination for the live wires. I notice a little bit more in the higher frequencies but any diminishing of the bass and overall impact aren’t really noticeable.

I hope this can help.

Tim

@lemonhaze I was quite taken with the PC Triple C wire.

Others I have introduced it to have given it a very good appraisal, and I have been demonstrated some of the designs been put in place for it.

As a Wand Wire and Internal Phonostage Hook Up Wire, it has left me very impressed.

I felt confident there was a place for it with the Helix Designs and am glad to have bought into this idea and the CCC Wire to produce these Cables.

@lemonhaze - glad you finally had a positive experience with the Helix 🖕

WRT:

I now have about 40hrs play time and yesterday I found a little of the magic missing.

That will correct itself at about the 60 hour mark.

But... they keep getting better until around 200-300 hour mark, where they finally settle down.

If you have to remove them for any reason you may notice it takes 10-20 hours for the cables to reseat, before they sound their best again.

Keep the thread posted with the results of your upcoming solid silver IC’s

• Is it OCC or CCC silver?
  • if YES - you should notice better dynamics, details and an even more spacious image.
  • if NO - you might find it a little less exciting

Welcome to the Helix!

Regards - Steve

@pindac, thanks for bringing the CCC cable to our attention. It's the best IC in my collection by far.  Will be able to compare it to the proven IC recipe in about 10 days or so.

@williewonka, many obstacles and delay when ordering from UK or Europe. Strikes and protests severely disrupting my cable building exercise. A word of caution against using dienadel.de for components. Fighting to get a refund after returning some connectors. Also www.acoustic-dimension.com totally useless. They lure you onto their site with cheapest prices but do not keep any Neotech in stock. Basically drop-shipping. Waiting time - several weeks

While waiting for kit to arrive I made up a pair of interconnects using the CCC, the first wire I received. I debated using as is or stripping the insulation for the bare Cu. With no PTFE tubing yet delivered I went with the cable as supplied. The solid Cu. twin wire is 19AWG and measures 5.9mm in width which I tried to fit into a coil of Neotech 16AWG wound on a 5mm fibreglass rod. I had to separate the conductors to get them to lie a little closer together.  I shrunk some heat-shrink tubing over the rod to increase its diameter should I make another.

I inserted these between my Oppo and amp because Spotify runs all day so quickest run-in time. Initial listening was using redbook files from an external HD

I can state that I do not like what I heard, my wife and I simply love them! Whatever we played we heard details that we had not heard before or had not noticed because they were buried or obscured, but detail is only part of it. It was a more immersive experience with the leading edges of notes easily noticed, making percussive sounds exciting and more real. Darbuka, djembe, tablas and congos sounded excellent, better than I've heard before. Piano sounds wonderful with the player's left hand more obvious. There was a fullness in the portrayal now and that was first listen.

Jacob Gurevitsch's guitar sounds gorgeous. Knopfler's guitar on 'you and your friend' pops out. Listening to very well produced Christina Pluhar's -- Los Impossibles recorded in Chapelle de l'Hopital Notre Dame du Bon Secours, the sense of space in the large hall could be heard even before the music started, not ever noticed that before. My system is border-line on the bright side of neutral and was apprehensive about excessive detail but need not have been concerned, the IC provided a fuller sound and with more detail that was welcome.

Steve, perhaps consider changing your handle to willieWOWwonka  😁

I now have about 40hrs play time and yesterday I found a little of the magic missing. More stuff should arrive in a week and I intend to build another IC with twin bare 20AWG AG to compare directly with the Cu CCC.

Let me finish by stating that anyone sitting on the fence should jump straight in.

When the System is reassembled, the intension is to be using this design of  Cable.

In the interim, I am having a few changes put in place.

The Power Amp's are to being returned to the Designer/Builder to be converted to work as Balanced and Single End.

Another EE Friend is now commenced with building a Balanced/Single End design of Pass Korg Nutube B1 Design Pre-Amp is being produced.  

The Power Amp' EE has asked for all devices to be in use, to be made available for the final testing to take place, as well as be supplied XLR Cables that can have a Earth Shield detached at One Connector.

The query is, does the Helix Design lend itself to this request from the EE.

I was not quite onboard with the EE's inquiry, when questioning me about the Cables to be built, I am interested in meeting the request from the EE, and to have a Cable available with this as a option, which will be able to have a shield detached.     

Williewonka@ what’s the influence of sound by the twisted neutral and ground”does a tighter twist over the live wires increase focus, air or timber of the ac cable.

Regards

Steve

Whilst reading another Threads Post on this forum, I discovered the following that has a range of Connectors.

I have carried out many searches for Copper RCA and XLR Connectors and this site is a new discovery.

I hope it helps with a plan another may be putting in place.

 bocchino audio retail products access index

Oooops - in my post above I wrote

with the KLE Innovations spades you get almost 1 sq cm of contact area

That should have been...

with the KLE Innovations BANANAS you get almost 1 sq cm of contact area

Apologies - Steve 😏

The bass came back after I ran the cables in overnight. Can't wait to upgrade the rest. Thanks again. 

@donnylovely - Glad you are enjoying the Helix Speaker Cables

RE:...

I think I need to move my speakers to get the bass back in the new sound stage.

I know what you mean - I had a similar experience.

HOWEVER - before you go around moving your speakers too much, I would recommend playing a wide variety of music to see if the bass has infact diminihsed

• we get conditioned to certain levels of different frequencies, bass being the most noticeable
• when we change cables and components we attribute the new sound to that change - but could it be the new sound is just how the track was recorded?
• I have a few audition tracks, many of which which I first thought sounded a little too different, so I listened to several other tracks and found that the bass was not lacking, it was just never too prominent on those audition tracks - it was my old configuration that was in fact enhancing(colouring) the level of the bass

Also, give the cables about 200 hours break in before making any other changes.

Nice to hear you plan on making the other Helix Cables - I posted very early on in this thread, the more helix cables you introduce into your system the better it sounds 😀

You might just find that the bass returns when you install the "Coax’ cable 😎

Once you have the cables sorted, then try moving the speakers

Regards - Steve

I just made the helix image air speaker cables with 2 14ga in Teflon tube and 12 gauge in Teflon tube. I just hooked them up and Holy sound stage! Instruments are more separated and everything got bigger. I think I need to move my speakers to get the bass back in the new sound stage. Thanks Steve. Going to make a coax next with silver and then power cables. 

Williewonka got it, thank you.

@tecknik - see below

For the live wire you’re stating live wire 2 x 14 solid and neutral wire 1 x 12 stranded. Why not 2 x 14 solid and 4 x the length rather then 2.5 don’t you want more coverage of the live wire. Shouldn’t live and neutral wires be the same size 2 x 14 yields a 11 g. Vs 1 x 12 g. 

There are many "permutations" that you can use

• my preferred wires are
  • 2 x 14 gauge for the live and
  • 1 x 10 gauge stranded silver plated mil-spec for the neutral
• I did try 2 x 14 gauge OCC solid wires for the neutral but it sounded way too analytical and harsh - they lost their musicality
• Live and neutral wires do not have to be the same size, but the neutral does have to be larger than the signal wires
  • so 2 x 16 gauge for the live and 1 x 12 gauge for the neutral - or
  • 2 x 14 guage live and 2 x 12 gauge for the neutral

As for coverage - these are NOT screened cables

• the Helix acts like a faraday cage, It disrupts the impact of airborn noise
• the amplitude of airborn noise is very small,
  • i.e. in comparison to the signal in the speaker wires,
  • so their impact is negligeable
  • But in a phono cable, any noise will be amplified over 100 times - a much greater impact to overall sound

I have not tried low mass spades

• with the KLE Innovations spades you get almost 1 sq cm of contact area 
• the contact area of spades tend to be a lot less

Can I cover the speaker cables in a designer sheath to look more professional or does this affect the sound quality.

Yes you can cover them - it will NOT impact sound quality

Regards - Steve

@ williewonka, 

Im now thinking of making a pair of speaker cables and have a few questions.

For the live wire you’re stating live wire 2 x 14 solid and neutral wire 1 x 12 stranded. Why not 2 x 14 solid and 4 x the length rather then 2.5 don’t you want more coverage of the live wire. Shouldn’t live and neutral wires be the same size 2 x 14 yields a 11 g. Vs 1 x 12 g. 

Have you tried low mass spades ? 

Can I cover the speaker cables in a designer sheath to look more professional or does this affect the sound quality.

You guys are right the cables take a dive around 20 hrs before opening up nicely around 50 hrs I was about to yank them out but something kept catching my attention in the presentation, a naturalness I guess you could say.

regards

steve

@lemonhaze I have been an advocate of PC Triple C for quite some time now, along with another Wire D.U.C.C.

The amount of individuals now turning to Triple C in my locality as a result of my loaning the Wire for demonstration has increased to quite a few converts.

It is even now in use as a Tonearm Wand Wire by a few of the converted.

@mbolek has now used PC Tripe C to produce Helix Cable and his comments are found in this thread.

The usage period is now quite extended, he might be able to update on his thoughts on the Wire in use.

I agree with Steve, there’s some noticeable degradation happening in SQ around the 25h mark that is slowly improving from H=45 to 100. From my experience on resoldering banana plugs on broken speaker cables, H=48 is usually how much time it takes to significantly break-in the solder and connector. I use Cardas gold/silver solder and rolled berylium/copper banana connectors.

I found out the Helix cables (interconnect and speakers) sound best after hundreds hours of playing and that would equal to a few months of music listening in my case. I read somewhere that it takes around 700h to break-in cryo parts which could also be an explanation about the long break-in time of these cable.

I have built most versions of these cables (Duelund Poly, Duelund Cotton, UPOCC Teflon and UPOCC Air/Teflon). One thing for sure, all of these cables sound extremely good.

One must remember that all of this is subjective and unless you have only changed one cable in your system, it would be hard to assess and measure the improvment over time. YMMV.

@williewonka, in your experience with crimping and soldering how much time does the soldering require to sound its best. I believe I read in one of the topics here someone mentioned 350 hr. In my experience it’s not quite that long but a couple hundred hr.
 

Regards

Steve

@tecknik (Steve) - glad to hear the Helix Power cable is proving to be beneficial.

You may hear some degraded quality around the 20 hour mark, but then it gets much better by around 50-60 hours

For my source components (a Bluesound Node 2i and a Simmaudio Moon LP5.3 RS phono stage) I now use a 1 meter PC with 2 x 18 gauge bare UP-OCC solid silver in Teflon tubes for the Live and 1 x 14 gauge solid neotech UP-OCC with Teflon insulation for the neutral.

It proved to be most beneficial and within my budget, but I use 2 x 14 gauge OCC copper (Live conductors) for the PC's on the amp, the Power distribution box and the 11 ft Extension cable to the distribution box.

Thanks for the update on the DC cables as well...

• I no longer have any components that use DC power, so I am unable to try the Helix for that specific application

Please post again if the cables shows any further improvement

Cheers - Steve

@williwonka. Yesterday I made  a one meter power cable for my music server using 2x 14g solid core occ copper with each run in a Teflon tube slightly twisted. 1 x for each neutral and ground. Both 4 meter lengths of ground and neutral wrapped counter clockwise  together, pure copper plated gold spades were crimped and soldered. I used a well broken pair of furutech ncf plugs

With a little over 14 hrs on the cable I’m pleasantly surprised at the SQ. This was my first PC and it took a 3 hrs to complete. 
 

This cable replaced furutech sp 55 n cable and already shows better imaging and inner detail.

I have previously made a couple dc cables with your helix formula with good results.

Regards 

Steve

@lemonhaze - CCC copper is  preferred by some to OCC copper - I believe there is very little between them, so this wire should work well.

The dielectric constant of the Polyethylene insulation is comparable to Teflon

Keep us posted as to how they work out

Regards - Steve

@williewonka, I have abandoned the idea of using the Furutech cable for neutral. After stripping back enough of the two sheaths to expose the 3 inner wires I found that they would definitely not hold their shape 🙄

I am shopping for price which is taking time, especially when some emails go unanswered. There are many Neotech dealers in Europe but most carry limited stock and favour carrying the fast sellers only so I am forced to shop around. I am in Ireland and thought buying from some of the UK outlets would be sensible but for most components they are more expensive!

Previous purchases show that I pay UK tax and then I get taxed again when it reaches Ireland and sometimes, depending on the weather, I get charged import duties too.

I ordered a few meters of this for an IC to compare to Parts Connexion's bare solid AG :

@lemonhaze - The Furutech Alpha wire was one of the first wires I used as a Helix PC, because I had used the Furutech bulk cable for some earlier PC’s.

Having said that it was tragic to butcher such a great bulk cable, just for the conductors 😐

Whilst it is a pretty good wire to start with it’s main drawerbacks are

1. it is stranded, which is far less capable than solid wired, but more flexible
2. it is plated, which I have found to be less capable than unplated wires
3. the alpha copper is not as fast (i.e. dynamic) as UP-OCC copper

But it is a very good wire, compared to OFC copper used in many cables, and a great wire to start with

Good luck with your builds

@williewonka,   Thanks for the prompt reply. Yes this will be the start of my Helix journey.

Giving more thought to this I will now build 3 interconnects. One for digital as per your 'Ultimate' recipe and two for analogue, both using solid silver, one with 20AWG and the other using 22AWG.

It's the only way to truly know which is better for my system.

Regarding power cables, I will be able to experiment a bit more here due to cost. I have some Furutech cable which uses their Alfa 14AWG conductors which I will strip and use for light duty power-cables' neutral. These conductors are silver plated and are similar to the Mil-spec but I will also use the Neotech 14AWG OCC in PTFE for comparison.

@lemonhaze - I think you will be OK with the thinner wire

• assuming you are building the signal conductor using 2 x 22 gauge with each wire inside it’s own Teflon tube ?
• The 18 gauge neutral should also be OK with the 2 x 22 gauge signal conductor

RE: analytical sound

• If this is your first Helix Interconnect it will prpobably sound quite different from anything else you have tried and it will require about 200-300 hours break in before sounding it’s best
• you will hear more details, dynamics and clarity with the silver wire, but I’m not sure if I would consider this "analytical"
• small sounds like the reverberations of the venue stand out more
• details are "crisper"
• tsome people prefer the more mellow sound of duelund wire
• I’ve found that using UP-OCC copper for the neutral conductor of the speaker wire proved to be more analitical, so I went back to silver plated milspec for the neutral.
• Perhaps using milspec on the neutral of the interconnect might curb this problem ?
• I found using the silver wire with copper neutral resulted in what I thought was a more complete representation of the music across the audio spectrum.
• I think it’s one of those things you have to try in your system first

Hope that helps - Steve

@williewonka, Hi Steve,

I have some parts ordered and about to order the bare solid silver which is fairly pricey. Have you any experience using the next size thinner? I am considering using 22AWG instead of the 20AWG for signal that you recommend and also going to 18 AWG for the neutral rather than the 16AWG in your recipe.

You report on Toddverrone using 24AWG for signal. This gauge would represent a significant saving but as my system is borderline entering into over analytical I would not want to push it any further in that direction.

Thanks.

@donnylovely - not to my knowledge.

Not sure there would be any advantage because...

• each twisted pair is a "ballanced architecture" i.e. 
  • one wire carries D+ve signal and one carries the  D-ve signal
  • there is no neutral wire to connect to the Helix coil
    •  CAT 7 does have a shield, but again, I do not think there is a drain pin on the plug for the shield to connect too,
    • so it is only a floating shield (i.e. not grounded)
    • whereas a USB cable does have a neutral pin on the plug, so the helix coil attaches to that

The wire quality in a good ethernet cable and the Ethernet architecture is capable of carrying todays fastest LAN traffic without losses, so I'm ont sure there is a need for a Helix version

Hoper that helps - Steve

Has anyone made an ethernet cable with this design? How would one go about doing so? 

@sasho - apologies for not answering sooner

WRT

have you tried 1 x solid core Neoteck Up OCC 12 AWG with original teflon or Cardas Chassis hook up 11.5 AWG wire Instead of 2 x 14 AWG bare OCC for signal In speaker cable

Unfortunately I have not compared these Gauge/wires in speaker cables

• I did try 1 x 12 gauge vs. 2 x 14 gauge Neotech wires in power cables and the 2 x 14 gauge perfromed better
• I did try 1 x 14 gauge Notech with teflon insulation and 1 x 14 gauge bare Neotech in Teflon tube and the bare wire in teflon tube performed better

From what I have read, the Cardas wire is stranded

• I have tried stranded Neotech wire and compared it to solid Neotech wire, both with Teflon insulation
• The bare wire provided the better performance

From what I have been able to discover...

• electrons generally like to stay within a strand of wire, but will "jump" between strands under certain conditions
• jumping strands takes more energy which results in micro distortions
• these distortions manifest as noise in the signal which impacts sound quality

For those reasons I use only bare wires,

I have also tried 3 and 4 wires in Teflon tubes and found no advantage over 2 wires, which is why I use 2 wires for all signal and live conductors

Seems that using two wires with each wire is inside a teflon tube is the optimum soluton, but I have not been able to ascertain why 3 or 4 wires do not sound better

Hope that helps - Steve

Exactly what I was looking for. 

Thanks

@escapevelocity - welcome !

#1 - I assume you mean insulating the two wires ?

• well I first tried two wires in one tube - then someone tried each wire in it’s own tube, so I tried it and it sounded better - improved clarity

#2 - I have tried several diameter helix coils and I have obsereved no difference

• but makeing the interconenct coil as small as possible allows for the RCA casing to move freely.
• for the speaker wire, you have to allow sufficient space for inserting the signal wires down the longer length of cable - it can bind on a tighter coil

#3 I have 9 ft cables and the spacing is about 1 cm

• stretching the coil to almost twice that for a 17 ft cable might not be wise
• i would aim for about 1.5 cm coil spacing at most
• the trick is to provide sufficient coverage to the signal wire and disrupt any external noise interference e.g. like a Faraday cage would

Hope that helps

If you have any more questions just ask - we’re here to help

Regards - Steve

New guy here. Wow, what an amazing thread. I interested in going down the rabbit hole, but I have a few really basic questions that I couldn't find an answer to.

#1  When assembling the dual signal wire interconnects,  what is the reason for shielding the two wires? Why couldn't the wires be touching each other when incorporating the light twist?

#2   Is there a reccomended inner diameter when determining the use? Interconnects or speaker.

#3  After you have made the coil, what is the maximum amount the coil could be stretched  and still function correctly? (Unfortunately,  I have a speaker cable that would need to be 17 feet, so finding a rod long enough could be a problem)

My apologies if I missed where this was covered. Thanks in advance for your help.

Cheers -- JB