Duelund Tinned Copper Speaker Cables

If you type Duelund speaker cable into the search function in Forums you will find a plethora of discussion.

Devoid of marketing.

@mdrone , I use a twisted pair of Duelund tinned cables in my home office system.  I believe that cables make a difference, but also don’t personally like the idea of spending a ton of money in that area, especially in a second system. The Duelund wire was an inexpensive gamble, and they’re working out just fine for me. Yes, they lack all of the hyperbole of more marketing-first brands, but that works in the consumer’s favor.

I see parts connexion is running a sale on both their single hookup wire and dual pair offerings. I’d say they’re worth a try at current prices. 

The Duelund tinned copper speaker cables were introduced as a result of the popularity of folks using NOS Western Electric tinned copper cables, which garnered a following after being written about by Jeff Day in his blog for Positive Feedback a few years ago.  Mr. Day interviewed Shirokazu Yazaki and others of the Japanese SPEC Corporation that used the WE wire, which they believed provided a desirable "natural sound."

Based on Mr. Day's emphatically positive response to using the WE wire, many started building interconnects, speaker cables, and power cords from the tinned copper WE wire.  Sweden's SUPRA Cables have been using tinned copper wire for years and TWL's American Series speaker cables and power cords are made from tinned copper WE wire, as were Mojo Audio's original power cords.  The tin coating was advertised to reduce the sonic effects of current jumping between wire strands in stranded copper wire, supposedly resulting in a smoother sound.  Of course, WE's purpose of using tin-coated wire was to reduce oxidation/corrosion.

Some would summarize the sound as being musical and a little midrange-concentric with smooth high frequencies and a full'ish rounded bass presentation.  You may also want to look at the tinned copper in cotton wire offered by Jupiter Condenser Company, which offers the wire as a twisted pair cable in either 16 or 12 gauge.  Yazaki-san of SPEC Corportion has endorsed the Jupiter wire.   Many also like the sound of SUPRA Cables, for the same reasons.

Lots of choices and a lot of discussion on line as posted by @lak. 

PS  I forgot to mention that I rewired my speakers entirely with this wire.  My speaker cables are stil woven kimber style but might make some from duelund soon.

Jerry

So, how do these cables sound?

Are they truly mid-range centric with a more golden tone ( as suggested by some)?

No cable will totally transform the sound of a system, IMO. I have made quite a few cables with both the WE wire and with the Duelund wire, and a few with the Jupiter wire, and IME they are similar to what people post - sweet but not super-extended highs, full, rich-sounding mids, and rounded yet full bass. They are overall coherent but are not always my favorite type of cable for every application. I still like multiple, small gauge, OCC solid core copper wire slightly better for speaker cables, and I use factory made (bulk) OCC stranded wire cables for ICs. I do like the WE wire for large gauge power cords and I made a couple at 7awg to feed my high powered mono amps. Careful here as the WE wire has a plastic liner inside of the cotton and are suitable for power cables while the Duelund copper in cotton would not be. I also believe the WE or Duelund wire sounds pretty good as speaker cables but I am not as positive about how they sound as ICs. That’s the best I can do to describe what I hear. Good luck.

BTW, typo below, which you caught - mid-centric not mid-concentric 😑

Given all the variables, it’s not really possible to say what a pair of speaker cables will do in your system, in your room. In my opinion, gear and tube swaps would have greater impact as tone controls than speaker wire.

In the case of this tinned wire, it’s a cheap experiment if the rest of your system is nearly “there”. 

I’ve run a set of 10 gauge Duelund in my system, and my experience with them is similar to Mitch2’s. They have a tendency to run on the warmer end of the sound spectrum, but they’re not at all muddy or tubby assuming you pair them with the right connectors. I’ve had better results with rhodium plating rather than gold here.

I recently made a set for someone, and I think their comment sums up the Duelund cables rather nicely:

“People say tinned copper cables aren't the last word in detail, which may be true, but I think these could be a contender as the last word in musicality, for sure.”

All depends on what you’re looking to get out of your system.

I've made speaker cables from Duelund Tinned Copper. The speaker cables sound very good, with good tone and timbre and a sense of realism, I used a larger gauge of Duelund Tinned Copper for the bass run with very good results.  There is always going to be a product that sounds better, it's just a matter of how happy and content you can be.

@mdrone - The main feature of the Duelund wire is their insulation, which gives them their clarity. The combination of the stranded wire with tinned coating and the nice copper they use gives them their more mellow musical sound.

They are good as speaker cables because OCC copper can be a little too analytical.

I’ve used Duelund for power cables and interconncts and I prefer the sound of OCC copper or OCC sillver (for interconnects) for their superior details and dynamic performance.

Insulation and geometry are important as well

Take a look at this thread

What makes a good cable

It explains the merits of the different variables in cable design

Regards - Steve

Below are the tinned copper options I am aware of.  They are all constructed a little different and are available in different gauges.  I was not previously aware of Luna.

Luna Cables (tinned copper in waxed cotton)

Duelund Tinned Copper Speaker Cable (tinned copper in oiled cotton)

Jupiter Condenser Wire (tinned copper in lacquered cotton)

SUPRA Ply 3.4 Speaker Cable (tinned copper in pvc)

Western Electric Copper Wire (tinned copper in plastic then covered with cotton, available new or NOS) 

willywonka,

I've never heard anyone ever comment and say that OCC single Crystal was too analytical sounding, I use the rectangular OCC single crystal copper and it's even better than the round OCC, that analytical sound could be coming from the equipment.

@magnumn - My speaker cables use 2 x 14 gauge solid OCC copper for the Signal wires and 1 x 10 gauge silver plated stranded Milspec for the neural wire

When I tried the 2 x 14 gauge solid OCC wire for the neutral, the warmth and musicality that had been there with the 1 x 10 gague Mil-spec had gone, so I went back to the milspec

Maybe its the insulation? - OCC with a different insulaton would sound very different from my own cables. The cables as they are have a very low noise floor and are very dynamic and detailed.sound with the warmth often associated to Tube gear

BTW I’m using a Bryston B125 Integrated amp with Gershman Sonogram Speakers, which for me, is a very nice combination

My IC’s use OCC Silver for the signal wires and OCC solid copper for the Neutral. But there are some menbers that have tried building my IC’s and preferred using the Duelund tinned copper wire with cotten insulation because they preferred its musicality.

Regards - Steve

I used 16g twin unterminated for a while and didn't think anything of them until I tried some Kimber 8PR and the word 'dark' came to mind when comparing the two.

Maybe dark is wrong; they just weren't bright enough for me.

Has anyone had the opportunity to do a comparison of the Duelund  cables and the Jupiter product?

Are there sonic differences?

@williewonka Bryston is overall bright gear, it’s not the cables it’s the Integrated.

@mdrone - I have compared the Jupiter tinned copper wire against the same from Duelund as ICs and couldn’t really hear a difference. I have not compared them as speaker cables.

Last week, I re-installed my 7awg tinned copper Western Electric peaked cables and they sounded quite good, smooth and full sounding. I then changed to a pair of speaker cables I made a few years ago from Jupiter’s un-tinned, solid core copper in cotton wire, where I twisted 8 wires per run, both HF and LF, for 16 wires/side using slightly larger (I believe 16 awg) wires for the LF run (i.e., 10 awg aggregate per pole) and smaller (I believe 20 awg) wires for the HF (i.e., 14 awg per pole). I really like the sound of the solid core copper as speaker cables. They sound very real/natural and I have not changed those out yet.

I still have two styles of Supra speaker cables and mitch2 pretty much summed up the sound of them. A very pleasant cable to listen to but not the last word in detail, airiness and separation with a full sounding midrange and a somewhat fat and tubby bass. 

Awhile back some speaker makes used Supra for their internal wiring. 

All the best,
Nonoise