Bill, thanks for your tip, I ordered a while ago the same stuff through PartsConnexion as the Neotech were also discounted there as I stocked up on my favorite Furutech F11 during PC annual 25% end of year discount. I will also have the cheap SonicCraft rhodium and red copper plugs to compare.
Just used the downtime during these days to replace my HT surround and back speaker cables with the WE14ga and they made a positive difference compared to the Audioquest FLX14/4 in-wall speaker cables, even w/o burn in. The most difficult part was not threading the new wire but to twist them (reducing inductance, less prone to EMI); it is super easy for a 10ft length -using the drill- but requires a different approach doing a 60ft stretch.
As for interconnects, I haven’t heard any decent one that is not shielded. I guess those at Jeff Day’s forum tend to cling nostalgically to the "vintage" sound and gear. Nothing wrong as such, some vintage gear still sound great. I remembered when I built my first tube amp some forty years ago, I wasn’t sure if it included a tiny radio that remained invisible in the schematics...
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My findings are the very same as yours Jet. Shielded with Canare connectors is best. |
You're welcome. Glad to share my observations. One more thing I am noticing about the WE16g shielded interconnects is that the sound seems more pure, less noise, Quieter background. I guess all of this makes sense since the shield must make this happen. I am thinking that which version of this interconnect one would prefer, shielded vs unshielded would be system and ear dependent.
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Thank you for the information. Now I don't have to find out the hard way (as I usually do). |
Maxima95 I have some 1/4" braid and it was too small to thread two runs of WE16g. I am using 1/2" braid. The F10 RCA opening was just large enough to shove the 1/2" braid thru. It's a tight fit and actually works pretty well. |
"Maxima95 and Grannyring- after several days with about 100 hours ... "
Jetrexpro - Thank you for your efforts and this report. I presume you used a 1/4" shield, as the opening on the F10 appears to be barely that size.
Happy New Year to you as well. Take care.
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Maxima95 and Grannyring- after several days with about 100 hours of burn in and listening time on the WE16ga interconnects with Canare f 10 RCA plugs and shielding that is terminated at both ends its time for a report.
At this point in the burn in process I am hearing what Grannyring hears. They are smoother and less forward than my WE16ga interconnects that are unshielded. The unshielded version has always sounded a bit rough around the edges but I didn’t care since I felt they were so good at conveying a sort of unbridled musicality. The shielded versions sound very musical at this point and add a refinement and smoothness that I like so far. The mids are smooth and beautiful. I am with Grannyring- Jeff Day missed out by not trying the shield although threading the cables through the shield and then the heat shrink was a major pain.
I don’t know how long it takes for the shielding to burn in. Since the cables and RCA plugs are fully burned in the only variable is the shield. Regards and happy new year! Jet
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Glad to hear of your results with the Canare f10 RCA plugs Grannyring. As I mentioned above Belden IC users should also experience the same result if they try the Canare in place of the Switchcraft RCA. In a few days I'll install your shielding on one set of my western electric ICs and see how they sound in my system. Jet. |
Jazz, I am using Neotech NC 311 ac connectors on closeout at Sonic Craft at great prices.....over 50% off. |
Jet, thanks so much for your suggestion of the Canare RCA connectors. They are just wonderful filling my room with beautiful and enveloping mids. I do prefer them to the Switchcraft to be sure. They are so very inexpensive also! Just a nice upgrade to an already fantastic cable. I find the highs and upper mids are smoother with absolutely no loss in detail. Fills my space with more layers of mids as if the stage is now some 25% larger. Most interesting. These connectors are under $4 each! |
Bill, happy to hear that!
Which connectors did you use?
Many manufacturers braid the power cords like LossLess and I find this, so far, better than the non or twisted versions. I will stick to WE10ga for power, although the version 4 I made with 16ga and a double run of just the hot in a thin plastic tube (it should be called version 4a) sounds nice with my DAC. I can well image if the WE16ga is stripped and put in the tube with cotton it will even sound nicer.
A 1,000ft roll of WE 14ga (late vintage 1999) is heading my place -
Ho ho ho! - for my home theater, nice project replacing the very long runs of in-wall speaker wires during the break. |
Jet, thanks for the tip! Now I won't be discouraged on first listen. |
Jazz, I made three sets of your 3a version and love them! I used the 10ga also. I also,p use the 10ga for speaker cables. I find them better than the 16ga doubled up. |
Bill I forgot to mention that the Canare F10 sound awful before they are burned in so give them 10 days of burn in time. Also I wanted to answer your question - on both the Belden and WE wire I think the Canere plugs added layering and depth to the mid ranges of both cables. But at least for me it doesn't transform either cable into something they are not. Jet |
For my home theater, like Brownsfan, I need long, continuous runs and TeresaJacobs on Ebay has sold out all the long runs. I would like to hear comments regarding the manufacturing year of the WE cables. Some sellers, like “soundofthetheater” on Ebay have WE14ga made in 1999, a couple years before American Insulated Wire went out of business. Is this kind of “late vintage” wire as good as the older ones? They should be at least similar based on specs but maybe not sonic wise.
So far, the most impressive types has been the WE16ga for interconnect with Canara F10 and the WE10ga for power cords with Furutech FI-28. The Belden 8402 sounds good but IME is not on the same league as, e.g. Jupiter’s Cotton 6N Copper. Maybe I need more burn in with the 8402.
FYI I have the following power cords variants with WE10ga ready for testing which may take a very long time as I don’t have a cable cooker: 1a. Unshielded, dual wire twisted, no sleeve (like Jeff Day)
1b. Shielded dual wire twisted, no sleeve
2. Unshielded, twisted dual wire, sleeve, ground wire counter clock wise outer sleeve
3a. Unshielded, braided three wires, sleeve
3b. Shielded, braided three wires, sleeve
4. Unshielded, single hot wire in a tube for extra dampening, neutral spiraling clock wise and ground anti clock wise, sleeve All cords are 6ft long and terminated with Furutech FI-11 (cu) which is pretty good and affordable for such a test. Will report back after the long test.
mitch2: how does the double wired WE10ga power cord sound vs the single runs and how do you connect the culminated 7ga on an AC plug or IEC a they are made mostly up to 8ga max.
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Will be interested to see if you hear the additional mid range layering with the f10s. Congratulations on your pre amp build.
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Ok Jet, I ordered a set of the f10s to use on my WE ICs. I compared my WE ICs to an $800 set and the WEs won handily to my ears. Looking forward to midrange improvement of the F10. |
I finished my preamp and it is just wonderful sounding. It is clearly better than the LDR passive I am using as an attenuator in my tube preamp. I have compared the two and I can share the LDR on its own is missing the dynamics and scale of the active. The active gives nothing up in resolution....nothing at all. It simply improves the overall sound with a much bigger and robust presentation of the music.
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Do you mean WE16 with Canare? Are the Belden with Canare now as good as the WE16 with Canare? I would like to try the Canare on one set of ICs, either the WE or Belden. Thanks Jet. |
Heading out of town for a week but before I left want to give an update on Belden ICs terminated with Canare F10 RCA plugs. I think the mids open up and breathe a bit with the Canare. Bigger more spacious mids without losing the natural sound of the Belden /switchcraft combo. I won't characterize this as good or bad just food for thought. These things are system dependent but I do like the sound. Regards and happy holidays to all! Jet |
I tried 22g western electric solid core as interconnects. 2 runs per each pos and neg leg and Switchcraft RCA plugs. Didn't like them in my system. Monochromatic- instruments sounded same with no individual color or timbre. I didn't have an interest in tweeking them to see if they could sound better. Once I heard them after three weeks for burn in I pulled them apart and have saved the Switchcraft RCA for a later use. Perhaps I should have tried them with one run per leg. Jet |
Anyone tried the WE 16ga solid core (as IC, SC or PC)?
Thanks for the tip on SonarQuest,
excellent value/money on the Rhodium plated plugs. SQ have been around for a while, . I believe some smaller shops use their products. |
Just finished a power cord using double runs of WE 10awg twisted pair wire for an aggregate wire size of 7awg to each the positive and negative legs.
I retwisted the four 10awg wires in a star-quad configuration so the two positive wires are across from each other when looking at the four twisted wires.
The single ground wire is twisted in the opposite direction outside of the four current-carrying wires.
I used a Furutech FI-11 (Cu) plug and iec.
Since this is for a single large stereo power amplifier (300 wpc) I did not shield the cable since my experience is that, unless you have noisy conditions, power cords for power amplifiers sound better unshielded, although I do like to shield them for front-end and digital components.
The cord is on the cable cooker and will be tried out later tonight where it will replace a very nice-sounding Furutech
FP-Alpha 3
cord with Oyaide P79 connectors. |
maxima95, I have not tried it yet. Will try it pretty soon. |
jetrexpro - As I looked through some previous posts, I saw that you ordered some 1/4" braided shielding. Forgive me if I missed it, but I could not locate your findings on shielded vs. unshielded WE 16 GA ICs. Or whether the Canare F-10s sounded better to you on the shielded or unshielded version.
Any information on this would be appreciated. |
I terminated my Belden interconnect cable with Canare F10 RCA plugs last night. My experience with these RCA plugs is that they need 150 hours to break in. They are in my back room system breaking in for about the next week. I may have mentioned this already but after listening to WE16ga terminated with both Switchcraft and Canare F10 plugs I much preferred the Canare F10 plugs - In my system noticeably more expressive room filling mid range. Regards Jet |
Forgot to mention that I ordered SonarQuest (sp?) rhodium plated connectors for the next batch of power cables. The guys from Mad Scientist Audio posted their experience with these connectors on their blog. I didn't spring for the top of the line connectors they refer to in the post...yet. |
I'm one of the folks who stumbled upon Jeff's blog posts about WE16ga wire...and, after trying out the 16ga for speaker cables and power cords along with the Belden RCA cables I was ecstatic. Last night I finally got around to substituting some WE14ga for the speaker runs and was surprised with the improvements. I only purchased the 14ga after reading this forum...thanks guys! Next will be some larger ga wire for the power cables. |
As for ICs, I have using Mogami 2549 terminated with Canare F10 plugs for my Home Theater setup except the L / R channels, where the (too) expensive HFC CT1Us reside. Would be very grateful if anyone can share his/her experiments with magnets. Will report back if the Belden 8402 is a better fit than the Mogami 2549. |
Second that! I have learnt a ton from knowledgeable folks who don't mind to share their experience. The (high end) audio industry has been associated too long with snobs / old farts (which includes me) until the barrage of new headphones gave it some live back recently. Bringing down the entry level with this type of "game changer" cabling and great value for money devices such as the iFi microDSD could bring quality music back to the average Joe. |
Grannyring, Jetrexpro,
You guys need to start a blog as well...your experience and experiments are invaluable to folks like me, funny, been at it for a long time, but never a DIY until recently. I'm warming to it with my brother's help and Yazaki-san mentoring; and of course, your stellar suggestions. Best, Rob |
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Jeff Day does not experiment as much as some of us. He gave up on the WE16 as ICs before he shielded them. Big miss!
The WE16 is not the best choice for a power cord. He should have tried the 9-11 gauge WE options as they are wonderful.
I even found the WE10ga stranded to sound better in my system then the 16ga.
I understand this takes time and in return you learn much more.
I don't think there is any magic in the connectors he used on the power cords and the Neotech may sound better or worse with the WE wire. Mine sound wonderful with the Neotech parts.
Others have found the Canare RCA connectors to sound better than the Switchcraft. I will put those in next!
I love the fact that we experiment so much here! We have all learned a great deal for sure. |
Jazzonthehudson,
I used the Furutech, very happy. Made same as Jeff Day Blog. Best, Rob |
/Grannyring: thanks for the info. I tried the NC P311 before, prefer the more solid construction of the Furutech F11 but with the current P302/P311 RH variants discounted ($35 at PartsConnexion) it is hard to pass up on them. BTW the original purple P302/P311 run at about the same price at SonicCraft. |
Jazz, I used these on deep,discount at Sonic Craft......
2 x Neotech NC-P311 Male - 12.8mm (000060) = $59.90
2 x Neotech NC-P302 IEC (000055) = $79.90
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Thanks Rob! I assume you use a standard black 3/8" PET sleeve over the twisted WE 10ga / 14ga wires.
The Belden 8402 part is also on its way. Would you recommend any additional shielding (one end soldered to avoid ground loops)? |
Jazzonthehudson,
The Furutech F11and F28 work extremely well. I'd g with the WE 10 gauge for pc on power amp. WE 14 gauge for pre/cd/DAC, although I prefer the Beldem 8402 as interconnect. Best, Rob |
Just found out about the WE 16ga and ordered some from Teresa for SC but would love to try the thicker ones out for PC. Which plugs/IEC worked best for you so far? I have good experience with Furutech F11 and F28. And what about the sleeve to keep it nicely together? |
Grannyring,
I was just following your lead and as usual it turned out to be a stellar move. Have you read some of Jeff Day's latest blog posts? Some good info on his USB wire experiment. Plus he bought Maestro Leopold Stowkowski's Altec Voice Of The Theatre (VOTT). Wow! Great reads if you haven't done so already. Jeff Day has them wired to Yazaki-san SPEC Real Sound amps. Jim Smith of "Get Better Sound Fame" is also writing high praise about the Western Electric 16 gauge speaker wire and Belden 8402 interconnect; he too has replaced multi-thousand speaker and interconnect with the WE and Belden. I am kicking myself still, for not purchasing your Yamamoto DAC. It does not appear to come up for sale on the "used" market. I suppose l'll break down soon and buy one new. Best, Rob |
Rob, I made two power cords out of WE10ga and I love them also! |
Great to hear Bob,
My WE16ga speaker cables are the best I have ever owned. I sold all my speaker cables that cost from high hundreds to multiple thousand without regrets. I also made a power cord out of WE10ga and it sounds outstanding. Happy Thanksgiving all...Best, Rob |
Thanks guys. I might try some we 16g as i/c's next. |
One thing I should mention about my WE16g interconnects- I built several versions with different RCA plugs and I like the Canare f10 rca plugs the best and liked them better than the Switchcraft RCA plugs. In my system l hear a much richer and fully developed mid range with the Canare plugs. |
Great to hear Bob. I am using WE16g both as speaker cable and interconnects for several months now and it doesn't occur to me to try anything else even though I have several very good alternatives in house. Jet |
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Hi guys,
I wanted to give you a quick update on WE 16g wire in my system. I have at least 100 hours on them and they have continued to improve over the breakin period. I am using short double runs on my speakers and they are keepers. They have replaced a $2,000+ cable which I used for years and loved. The soundstage is huge and it presents the most incredible 3d sound I have gotten in my room. The music just flows and every album is like a new experience. No Hi Fi sound just natural flowing music. A special thanks for everyone bringing this magical wire to my attention. Happy Thankgiving to everyone. |
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I will update in a week or two. Already sounds very good.
Bob |
Enjoy the ride. Best, Rob |
