Charles1Dad...all
Prior to the mods, after break-in the Dynamo was slightly less sweet than the original, Tim Smith, does an excellent review once again on 6moons.com outlining the differences. With mods the Dynamo keeps all the plus quality of larger transformers and power supply with a more organic and natural sound. With the DeVore great tone, texture, bass for me is exactly as I like/want it. Transparency, resolution is there in spades, yet presented in a "real sound" musical manner. Another tip of the hat to Yazaki-san for all his valuable input. Best, Rob
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Jetrexpro, all...
I'm still using the WE16ga as speaker cables, WE10ga power on everything except DAC which is WE14ga. I bought additional WE10ga and will in near term test them out ala grannyring.
I also want you to let you know that the owner of Dueland, after conversations with Jeff Day has been convinced to manufacture a near duplicate of WE tinned copper wire in various gage, 10, 14, 16. Minor mod eliminating the plastic on the inner sleeve, you can read about it on Day's blog, jeffsplace.me.com. Price slightly higher than from Jacobs, but still extremely reasonable. Coming to market through Parts Connection soon. Best, Rob |
Rob - I am loving to hear about the amp upgrades and how much you are enjoying the sound of your system. I've heard the 0/96s several times and was amazed by the texture of the music coming from them. I always felt like they need a a large room to breathe and for the sound to come together and I am guessing in your large listening room they would make addicting music. What kind of speaker cables are you using? WE16 or WE 10 gauge? |
Hi Rob,
Congratulations on getting the Dynamo MK II and upgrading it further with your modifications. I have no doubt that this amplifier driving the Devore O /96 is fabulous! The bigger and better output transformers of the Mark II surely improved an already very good amplifier.
Charles, |
Rob, love your post and am happy for you! Nice mod choices for sure. Yes, I use the WE 10g for my speaker cables and power cords. Best I have heard in my system.
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I believe grannyring is using WE10ga as speaker cable and loves them best of all...perhaps he will see this post and respond. Best, Rob
Charles1Dad, Jetrexpro,
I bought the upgraded Coincident Dynamo Mark II, replaced the capacitors with Arizona Green, Ohmite Brown Devils, and some internal Western Electric 16ga. I also substituted the stock rectifier for ancient Mullard CV378, NOS GEC tubes...with the DeVore 0/96, mind blowing excellent in my 18x24x10 new listening room. Best, Rob |
anyone try the WE 10 GA for speaker cables? I might experiment with it on my brothers stereo. |
Now running dual pairs (in bi-wire) of WE 10awg for an aggregate of 7 awg to each speaker. The resulting sound is excellent. My next project is going to be a star-quad twist of WE 10awg, with two runs in bi-wire to each speaker for 7awg to both HF/MF and LF, or an aggregate of 4awg per speaker! The main problem is terminating four runs together per pole at the amp end. I may need to use to separate runs one with spades plus the other with bananas so I can easily terminate them at a single pair of binding posts. This stuff is really good and, for the price, almost unbelievable. |
Jet, I added one silver plated 7N copper to the positive. The mid shifted just a bit up and the bass was more extended so overall IME a net positive result. mitch2, thanks for the additional info. Indeed any reference to theater amps 300B and Altec rings a very familiar bell. After looking more closely at the pictures, yes, they seem to be Litz braided (one image I had showed a relatively long segment of the hot wire, leading me to question it in the first place). I guess one need to buy one to know more about the passive ground plane. The strip-tease of the AQ Vodka Cat7 cable http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/gallery-we-tear-apart-a-340-audiophile-ethernet-cable-and-loo...showed the use of a combination of copper strands in the middle and the full outer shield. His Statement series PC (Furutech FI-50 plugs) have "20% overall larger diameter conductors than the High Power “Digital American” and the “Seven Plus” series." I guess he founded spools of WE 9ga (I spotted them on Ebay Hong Kong a couple months ago). Nonoise, great that Pete added another one in the "reasonably priced cable" category which will hopefully benefit many. Now there’s little excuse to try cables out w/o taking out a second mortgage. My DIY IC, SC and PC are install and forget in my home theater system, lest something dramatically better shows up just for a couple Benjamins. |
If you can DIY, for $90 you get a least 85% of the sound folks. These 10ga DIY Western Electric power cords are just fantastic. |
Not being as handy as everyone here I got two of Pete's Digital-American series PCs and I must say, these TWL PCs are simply amazing.
If you can build something like his cables, my hat's off to you but I'm sure there's more going on with his technique than what can be duplicated.
All the best,
Nonoise
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From what I can see of TWL 7+ pictures, the pairs seems just twisted.
Hi Jazz, If you read some of the reviews of the TWL 7+, they discuss how the 7+ PCs are Litz braided. I surmised they are using WE wire based on the comments about the wire in the reviews (see below) and reading the strand counts of their various products on their website. Their cords also have some other things going on such as deep cryo treatment and something they call " passive ground plane technology." I have no idea what that is but it could be as simple as a shield connected at one end and spiraling the ground wire outside the shield, or maybe something more innovative. Below is an excerpt from the PFO review of TWL PCs. Does the description of their wire source remind you of any companies being discussed in this thread?
Peter Grzybowski, President of Triode Wire Labs, found a highly annealed, durable wire that sounded extremely musical and better than anything they had experimented with prior. The wire happened to be designed by a corporation that was dedicated to the propagation of sound quality, at one time employing 10,000 scientists and engineers! This corporation held a tremendous amount of innovations in audio equipment and devices, such as triode tubes, recording, and acoustics, including the patent for Oxygen Free Copper. From further research, the wire used in Triode Wire Labs products was specified for use in the construction of theater amplifiers (including the 300B) as well as recording equipment (Westrex), with ties to Ampex and Altec as well.
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I'd love to hear your Dynamo and Orangutan O96 pairing, no doubt that it sounds wonderful.
Charles, |
Hi Rob,
In an ideal world I'd love to hear the W.E. Coincident Statement, Cerious Audio Graphene and the Synergistic Research Black power cables in my system. My belief is that all four of them would be very good.
Congratulations Rob, |
Hi Rob, how do you like the Devore 0/96? Must be very nice!
jazzonthehudson, very interesting idea. So you added a single strand of 16g copper and a single strand of 16g silver to the we16ga interconnects? You described it as faster and more open. Did anything change in the mid range and low end? Thanks jet.
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Anyone tried to insert a silver strand in the IC or SC ?
For fun and because all my systems are far from bright (tube mono blocks, NAD and Aragon amps), I added one 7N copper+pure silver 16ga in the signal path of an interconnect which is terminated with WBT Nextgen 110 cu. That IC yielded a more open, faster sound and, my goal, extended highs.
Thanks mitch2 for reminding me to make 7ga PC, so far, I contended with just one single twisted pair + ground counter spiraled or all braided. From what I can see of TWL 7+ pictures, the pairs seems just twisted.
Lastly, anyone A/B'ed the WE against the graphene variants (SR Black, Cerious Technology Graphene Extreme)? |
Hi Grannyring, Charles, Mitch2,
Charles, the several pair of WE10ga that Grannyring made for me are stellar. Also agree with Mitch2 perception. I've been listening with my Coincident Dynamo/DeVore Orangutan 0/96 (on loan from my brother while he is overseas for some months). Wow!!! Match made in Heaven. Best, Rob
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Hi Bill,
Can I ask did you use 2 or 4 of the WE10awg wires for your power cords? If you used 4 wires per cord (2 for pos and 2 for neg), did you twist or braid them?
TWL braids 4 of the WE10awg wires for their highly-thought-of
Seven Plus American Series power cable.
I went with the old VH Audio flavor-style of construction, by twisting four WE10awg wires and then cross-connecting two wires for positive and the other two for negative to reduce inductance (a good thing in speaker cables and in power cables). I then counter-spiraled a THHN ground wire outside of the four conductors. The total aggregate wire size per pole is 7awg. I used Furutech's
FI-11 (Cu) connectors, as does TWL, and I am quite happy with the result, particularly on my high-powered amplifiers.
If I were to make cords for my front-end components, I would probably start with a single twisted pair of the WE 10awg wires, include a tinned copper braid shield and then the ground wire counter-spiraled outside of the shield.
This wire is pretty good stuff both for power cables and speaker cables. For speaker cables, I have heard better in the high frequencies but it certainly nails the midrange and I also like the bass where there is detail, richness and depth but less tendency toward boominess than I hear with some cables. |
Hi Bill,
I appreciate your response. My Ocellia Silver Reference cables (IC&SC) are unshielded and use a natural material (paper )dielectric and I really like them. I suspect that your power cables are very good sounding. I'm using the original Coincident power cables not their latest Statement power cable.
Charles, |
Mikirob purchased some of these from me and knows how good they sound. |
Unshielded Charles using the NOS Western Electric 10 gauge stranded and tinned wire in cloth. I purchased some nice Neotech connectors on closeout at Sonic Craft and I am happy with the result. |
Hi Bill,
Are your PCs unshielded? Did you choose a synthetic (teflon) or a natural fiber material for your dielectric?
Thanks,
Charles, |
I use the 10ga WE for my power cords replacing $1200-$1500 PCs from Kimber. They will stay for good at the low price I paid to build them. Just fantastic.
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Any updates? Any comparison with mid level PCs?
Lately, I have A/B'ed my DIY PC (Type 3a: twisted, unshielded) with Furutech FI-28 plugs against a Synergistic Research Atmosphere Level 4 with the blue tuning module: there is some difference but not a great lot. The SR Atmosphere L4 has more air and space/better separation of instruments, better micro-dynamics,.. but in the midrange the SR was a lesser bethren compared to the WE 10GA DIY.
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Hi duvallite . Look There. |
Is the WE 14ga speaker wire still available, and if so, can someone post a link? Thanks. |
Grannyring,
I am very interested in your power cords. How do I contact you? My ignorance at navigating sites is showing!
I switched to WE14ga speaker wire and Belden interconnects and love them, but it looks like I need to try WE10ga IC's and PC's now. Gotta love such great options at such reasonable prices. Jeff's site has been very helpful and I love the further experimention occurring here even more.
On a side note, after switching to the WE and Belden cables I've subsequently switched from the Odyssey Kismet Monoblocks to a little vintage Magnavox 9304 tube amp and I'm loving it. I'm using NOS RCA, Amperex and Mullard tubes from Vintage Tube Services. I'm hearing details and air I've never heard before. I'll soon go to a vintage tube amp in the 40-60 WPC range, but I'm not in a rush as I'm thoroughly enjoying this little 10 WPC Magnavox. Anyone else using this little amp? Any suggestions for my future vintage tube amp?
thanks, tom |
Hi group. Seems I am moving and will have lost my dedicated music room. The new space requires our stereo to be in the living room. I cannot have all the rectangular boxes, as my wife says, in this room.
That said, I have made up some nice WE 10ga cords that I will no longer need. They are broken in a ready for prime time. Feel free to contact me to talk about it . |
slowikpl, building PC and speaker cables are well outlined on Chris VenHaus website, as well as on DIYaudio. Like Grannyring, my best experience is to twist all three wires together (LessLoss is one example of PC manufacturer that does it too) with no shielding for most applications.
Re ground wire, as a general rule, I always use the same type for all three.
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I have purchased WE10GA for the power cords. I saw on this forum somewhere building guide of the the power cables. Have someone a link for a good building guide of the cables?
And I have WE10GA in pair lengths , can I use for the ground wire normal copper AWG10-8 cord for the ground , or is there a advantage of using same WE10GA ? I have some WE14GA leftovers if its necessary.
I want to use this on my Pass XA160.5 , Pass XP20, DAC la Scala MKII |
Thanks Maxima95. Hope you do try the 10ga WE wire to see if you have the same results as I did. The 2a3 tube is less warm than the 300b so you might have different results. Guessing that your 2A3 amp sounds great with the Klipsch LaScalas. |
Jet - I am using slightly modified Klipsch LaScalas (aftermarket crossover and tweeter(s). I use WE 14ga to wire the midrange to the xover and WE 16ga for the tweeter. I have tried other wires but am liking the balance with the WE so far. I tried the WE 16 for the speaker wires (bare) and have had them in and out. I will try them again sometime. I have some Rhodium/copper spades and some gold/copper bananas I could try as well. I may not even bother with the WE 10ga for the 2A3s. I made a PC for the DAC with WE 14ga for the H/N and a piece of 8ga wire I had laying around for the ground. I used these connectors: http://www.sonarquest.net/carbon-edition/rhodium-plated/sonarquest-carbon-fiber-series-rhodium-plate... I take it out periodically to try something else; but I keep putting it back in! I have all of these projects in mind for the WE wire I have. The only stumbling block is the execution. |
Agreed Rob. Nice to hear that you are enjoying your 2nd system and its great to use DIY to upgrade caps and resistors to get to that place. Money savings for sure! |
Jetrexpro,
It is a wonderful happening when you get to your state of satisfaction with an audio system. I'm there with my second/office system. After changing out the stock capacitors for Arizona Green/NOS stock Mallory capacitors and select Ohmite Brown Devil resistors plus WE wire all suggested by Yazaki-san and replacing all the stock tubes, Oyaide wall outlets and plate I believe I am done, save for experimenting with the Synergistic Red or Black fuse. Then
the only other temptation is to up the ante and acquire new speakers? But that will require a much larger amount of cash to top what the Tekton's do. I find a lot of satisfaction in putting together killer second system that compares or beats much of the high price stuff. This particular set-up I have does that. Best, Rob |
Rob, Thanks for the update on the success of your WE power cables. If this 10ga doesn't work out as speaker cable I may build power cables with it. Maxima95, I have not tried 16ga on the tweeter and 10ga on the woofer. What kind of speakers are you using with your 2a3 amp? Are you using 16ga WE speaker cable with it? Mitch2, I was thinking about what I might be doing wrong that could be creating the bloated sound of the 10ga WE wire. One thought I had was to borrow my friend's solder pot and dip the amp end of the 10ga wire into it which would assure that my transformer wire is in good contact with the wire...although this might have the opposite affect. My Soldering gun is not hot enough to solder 10ga wire. A solder pot will definitely do the job. Another thought I had was to try a single run of 10ga instead of bi-wire. These are all food for thought and I have no idea how any of this will work and to tell the truth I am in love with the sound of my system and have little motivation to try new things these days. The C3m driver tubes and Audio Note Kaisei capacitors I am using in my 300b amp are singing and for my taste in sound, don't want to alter too much from what I have. But having said that I am curious about 10ga WE wire. Regards and thank you to all - Jet.
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Jet - That is disappointing re: the 10 ga. I bought some to try as SC and PC. Have not done so yet.
I use different systems at different times. I currently have 2A3s set up and single wire, but bi-wire using much more powerful amps (SS or Hybrid) with the rest.
Did you try 16 ga on the high end and 10 ga on the low?
Regards |
This may be why Jeff Day and others using lower powered amplifiers enjoy the 16awg wire while folks like me, with powerful SS amps, enjoy the larger gauge wires.
Those who believe in skin effect for speaker cables would say there is a higher likelihood of hearing it with 10awg wire than with 16awg wire, even though both are stranded.
Keep in mind, this wire is tinned, not discretely coated with epoxy, like Cardas wire. IOW, the strands in this WE wire are electrically connected unlike Cardas wire where each strand is discrete. Therefore, this wire is likely to behave more like a single large solid core wire than multiple 30awg wires.
I don't believe in skin effect for the short lengths of our speaker cables so IMO and FWIW, the difference is likely related to the amplifiers, power, and sonic characteristics of the speakers. The 16awg wire may sound a touch quicker and slightly more "lit-up" while the 10awg wire may sound a little richer and fuller sounding, especially when used with high powered amplifiers. An alternative is to braid or twist multiple 16awg and/or 14awg WE wires, which I have done with success in my system. |
Thanks Jet for that report. So far I'm using the WE10ga as power cord from wall with Oyaide R-1 and plate set-up to a Cable Pro power strip with no limiting factors. My Coincident Dynamo 34SE is Connected to the Cable Pro via WE10ga. The Transport and DAC are connected to the same strip via WE14ga. WowWowWow!!! Beautiful tone, texture, emotion, dynamics, soundstage wall to wall, great scale, deep, as well. Nicely layered. The harmonic rightness is spectacular. Male and female voices to die for. No hum, buzz, black background and much, much, more...Synergistic Red Fuses next... |
Guys, I spent 3 weeks burning in and five days listening to 10ft runs of WE10g stranded speaker wire. My speakers are Audio Note ANe's which are Bi Wired so I used four 10 ft. runs on each speaker. The speaker taps on my Audio Note output transformers are in direct contact with the bare 10g wire. After all of that burn in time and 5 days of listening, the 10gWE stranded wire sounded very thick, too rich and slow and it did not improve over the five days. After a few days of no improvement, I stripped off some more insulation from the AN output tranny's 8ohm taps and wrapped the additional tranny wire tightly and securely around the un-terminated 10g wire but still no improvment. Once I reinstalled the 16g WE stranded wire the balance and musicality returned. Not sure why the 10g wire sounded so bloated. Maybe the combination of warm sounding AN speakers and warm sounding 300b tubes and the 10g wire was just too much. I am not giving up on WE10g and have some additional ideas as to why they didn't sound good. But for now I am going to enjoy my great sounding 16gWE stranded speaker wire - Regards Jet. |
Grannyring, Jet,
hear you. Likely Day spends some time here. I know he was impressed by your work; I'm positive he is also pressed for time and deadlines. Perhaps that is why Day can not experiment to umpteenth degree and sometimes misses out; but I for one have improved my musical pursuit by learning from Day, Yazaki-san, and you and Jet, Charles1Dad. I trust all your ears and skill, plus you are good folks willing to help others. Best, Rob
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Just no,time to post and update folks on various sites. Takes a lot of time and follow up as we all know. I suspect he is aware of these threads. I will stick to here and DIY forums when I need DIY guidance. |
A poster on Jeff Day Blog has apparently located a 1,000 foot reel of WE16ga wire. I believe he is going to sell some to folks who want/need more of the WE16ga. Best, Rob
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Hi Rob, I just haven't thought about posting anything on Jeffs site. Honestly I don't post much of anything on any site except this one and occasionally on the tube DIY AA when I have a question. Incidentally I bought 80ft of the 10g WE stranded from tajacobes a few weeks ago and they have been burning in my 2nd system. It's enough to make biwire runs for my ANe's. I'll report back over the weekend. This wire is huge! |
Grannyring, Jet, why not write Jeff Day about your new findings with the various different WE gauge, terminations such as Canare f10 and shielding, etc. I believe Jeff and many of his blog reader's including Shirokazu Yazaki-san would be immensely impressed and fascinated by what you have discovered. Jazz, you and Mitch2 as well. Best, your fanboy, Rob
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Thanks for the update Tim! I was planning to try the multi-stranded 24awg speaker cable but now can easily add the bi-wiring to my existing WE10 ones. Unfortunately, the HFC SC is still better in terms of speed, dynamics and detail.
As for PC, my test is still not over but so far I like my variant 3a (unshielded, 3 braided WE10ga) best, the variant 3b (same, but shielded) in one particular application (my CDP).
I haven't started testing variant 4 which is what manufacturers like Audience (only for the AU24 series) and probably Craig Hampel are deploying.
Just started putting different plugs on the variant 3a, I think I prefer the rhodium ones (Furutech FI28) over copper (FI11). Hopefully the SonarQuest rhodium version, that comes at a fraction of the FI28, would be a close one.
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Good idea on the 10ga star quad twist cables. They will really make you smile! You can sell the rest. I sold my set of WE16s very quickly. |
Playing with speaker cables and amplifiers this morning. Have four sets here I have been switching between;
-fine stranded OCC copper wire,
12awg/run-bi-wired;
-multi-strand, 24awg, OCC solid-core copper in PE @ 11awg
aggregate/run-bi-wired;
-multi-strand, braided, high-purity solid-core, copper in cotton@12awg/MF-HF and 10awg/LF;
-Star-quad twisted WE16 and WE14 with 13awg/MF-HF and 11awg/LF.
Surprised, I was (saw Star Wars yesterday) that I liked the WE wire best, at least today. There is just something about this wire that sounds real, fleshed out, and smooth all at the same time.
I am sure that a bi-wire set with 13/11 awg is large enough for a 2M run but I will probably try this in the 10awg wire, just because I have some. I think I will do the star-quad twist to provide 7awg to the low frequencies and simply use the already twisted pair at 10awg for the MF-HF. I could then switch and put the 7awg on the MF-HF just for fun and to hear how it sounds.
Anyway, just thought I would share how this stuff continues to amaze. |
Hi Grannyring,
thanks for the update. I'm going to do same, see how it does in my system. I really like the WE10ga as power cord. Also thanks for the Canare suggestion. Early on Yazaki-san also recommend the Canare. Recently my brother got to compare the WE16ga against his favorite speaker cables (will remain nameless, but very expensive) with his Leben/Devore 0/96/Harbeth SHL5s and was blown away by the WE/Belden combo (me too!). The Bro' is making the switch. Best, Rob
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Hi all. I now have 100% WE 10 ga wire power cords throughout my system and just love them. I simply used a 10 gauge run for ground, hot, and neutral. No shielding of any kind and a simple twisting of the three wires. Highly recommended. I also use this same gauge for speaker wire which I liked even more than the outstanding 16ga. |
