Looking for really fine cables at really low price

FWIW Jazz I bought 150' of the WE 14ga wire from soundofthetheater and it looks just like the 16ga I got from Jacobs except with more strands. Since my last post my wire has fully burned in and I love it. I prefer its sound over the Kimber and Groneberg I had.......for a fraction of the cost. 

So true, the journey is more interesting and never ending. After many years of chasing an audiophile sound of uber resolution, pin point imaging and chrystaline clarity I'm now enjoy real, musical sound so much more. Dynamics, tone and presence are my goal now. Thanks to Jim Smith and Jeff Day the WE and Belden cables came into my system and vintage tube amps and Altec speakers are next. Real sound at reasonable prices......I love it!

So no difference sonic wise re the vintage year? I noticed a range between 1940s (according to some, not verified) and 1999 in production years so the process for the core, the composition of and the process for the isolation could have changed. I am about to make a big buy so would appreciate more comments before I pull the trigger.

mac4805:  >>Does this audio journey ever end? 
I think this is a rhetorical question as the journey is more interesting than the destiny which is hard to define. Many have experiences close to "there", "here" but who knows it can even get better. A matrix like experience with signals fed directly to the brain maybe not fiction but science some day. Till then.... 

H/ear Here 

The We14ga Is excellent, period. So are all the other gauge wire, 10ga, 12ga, 14ga, depending on your use. I'm now using the WE10ga as power cord to amp and WE 14ga as power cord to DAC and Transport. Best, Rob

Theresa (or rather Wallace) Jacobs has no offering on long WE16ga runs but user "soundofthetheater" has 50ft runs of Western Electric 14 ga KS13385 cloth wire. Can I assume that this type, made by American Insulated Wire  (now Southwire?) is exactly the same as Jacobs' offering?

Thanks Rob, so far I'm really enjoying the "natural " sound of the WE 16ga speaker cables with the Belden 8402 interconnects. They have a long way to burn in yet, but so far they seem to be a good match for my system. One unexpected improvement upon changing to the Beldon interconnects is that my slight 60 cycle hum I was experiencing diminished quite a bit....maybe just a coincidence or I corrected a loose connection I had.

With the new DAC, speaker cables and interconnects  I'm enjoying my cd collection all over again........with streaming audio coming soon. Does this audio journey ever end? Let's hope not :)

/signature: strip the isolation further away and make a noose, be careful that the bare wires do not touch anything else or get some good Furutech spades, e.g FP 203(r). There are also rhodium plated OFC spade plugs on Ebay for less money.

I have some WE 10 gage wire, I read connecting it to binding posts without spades or banana connectors is best. Binding posts in my equipment does not have holes to push the wires; just wrapping wire and tightening the bolt does not seem to work; wire always wants to come out, is there some technique I am missing. Let me know please. Thanks.

P.S:  Also see the post by Mitch2 on page 11 of this thread, dated 9-15-2015, 7:15 p.m.

Regards,
-- Al

signature8  12-07-2015 2:55pmI am trying to make balanced XLR interconnects with WE 16 gage wire. Do I really need a shield like the real XLR cables have, the one you can buy from Take Five Audio, or I can use regular wire as third wire (shield). What is the purpose of the shield, does it carry any audio signal or it is like a ground connection on a power cable. Let me know please. Thanks.

If both components are designed in an ideal manner the shield will not carry signal current.  However that will often not be the case, as it depends on whether the components connect pin 1 of their XLR connectors to their circuit ground or to their chassis, and on the impedance through which the components connect their circuit grounds and chassis to each other.

Also, whether the pin 1's of the XLR connectors at each end of the cable are interconnected via a shield or a plain wire will affect noise pickup, susceptibility to ground loop issues, and the capacitance of the cable.

In general, constructing the cable in the conventional manner (a twisted pair of conductors surrounded by a shield) figures to stand the greatest chance of being optimal.

Regards,
-- Al
 

HI mac48025,
Welcome to the WE club. I would not underestimate the capability of your system. I bet it bests many more expensive rigs. I think you have discovered musicality and are going to like it better than musical artifacts. "Real Music" as espoused by Yazaki-san and Jeff Day is the real ticket for many folks to enjoy the music. Music should have a Soul and tick your emotional strings, goose bump territory. Best, Rob

I'll second the Amadi Maddie Signature silver wires and Darwin Silver, the Darwin Ascension or Ascension Plus silver wires.  They are considerably better sounding than the Morrow Ma-3,4 or 5, the Crimson cable, DNM, Speltz, and some Audioquest (don't remember the model #), Magnan Type 2, Synergistic Research--have had them all.  Excellent clarity, bass with great ability to distinguish instrumental texture, and transparent highs without any tendency to etch.  Between the two, I'm not sure I have a preference. The Darwins get better from Silver to Ascension Plus. The Amadi Maddie Signature speaker cable is a phenominal buy.

What great read this thread has been.......plenty of experimentation, information, science and artistic reviews.......without any juvenile bickering that plagues so many forums. Sooooo refreshing!

After reading Jim Smiths newsletter, Jeff Days blog and this thread I just had to join the fray! After so many years pursuing that perfectly detailed audiophile sound, I found myself spending more time straining to hear every audiophile sound effect I was told was sonic utopia instead of actually enjoying music. While my system is resolving, I'm sure it's pretty pedestrian compared to many hear.......Tekton Enzo's, two Vandersteen 2w's, Odyssey Kismet Monoblocks & Candela preamp, Oppo 105d, Schiit Yggdrasil and Wywires Power Broker. So far I'm very happy with the dynamics, tonality and musicality of its sound which made trying out the WE speaker cables and Belden 8402 interconnects irresistible. Until recently I was using all Groneberg cables, interconnects and PC's. I changed to WE 14ga speaker wire today and I'm already liking the results. I can't wait for them to burn in. I have some Belden 8402 and switchcraft RCA connectors arriving in two days. I ordered solder connectors, would compression fittings be better? Not sure if soldering will negatively effect the sound. 

Thanks for all the great information, commentary, insight .......and hopefully some advice into my first foray in making my own interconnects.

I am trying to make balanced XLR interconnects with WE 16 gage wire. Do I really need a shield like the real XLR cables have, the one you can buy from Take Five Audio, or I can use regular wire as third wire (shield). What is the purpose of the shield, does it carry any audio signal or it is like a ground connection on a power cable. Let me know please. Thanks.

Mitch2: You said you are not using WE speaker cables anymore, what are you using now? What you did not like about WE? Thanks.

I bought another set of Canare F10 rca plugs and am going to put them on my Belden cable and see how they sound

I might be interested in the cable cooker. Is there another thread for that?

Anyone interested in a group buy from Alan (Audiodharma Cable Cooker)?

And has anyone tried the single core WE 16ga? 

+1 curious about the journey of the V-Twist. Chris is usually right. 

Signature8. I say break them in on music. Even better, your favorite music! I just have a cheapo second system in my work room that I use to run in cables. $20 set of speakers from Goodwill, $25 Sony CD player, and an old receiver!

Signature8, the short answer to your question is, yes it is.

If you want to learn more,
1.go to the audioexcellenceaz website or Google search under "audiodharma Cable Cooker"
2. go to Audio Asylum and search for "Cable Cooker" then add the additional parameters,
a. Authored by: alan m. kafton
b. from Forum: All Forums

I am waiting to receive 14 gage WE cable, and I read that cable burn-in really changes sound for the better. I do not have any cable cooker, but was thinking of running 12v DC through the cable for as long as it needs (I am thinking of cutting an older laptop battery charger and connecting this wire(s) in between and let it run with some 12v load on the other end). Is that any different than $1,000 cable cooker? Thanks.

Volley, very slight difference in my rig. Not a big difference. Just a tad more scale and increased stage size. Tad more fullness in the bass. That's really it.

My rig is very resolving and a little more weight or bass body was good for my system.

Grannyring can you describe the difference from WE16 and WE10?

I am using WE10 gauge stranded cable now for speaker cable. I like it a tad more than the WE16. I use the WE16 for ICs, but for best results they should be shielded. I liked the shielded WE16 quite a bit more than the Belden. The Belden is very good in my system however.

Salectric
Terrific report. I'll be staying with the Belden. In my set-up fabulous top to bottom and not soft. I'm going to go ahead and make the WE16ga power cords. I'm going to experiment a little, terminate with Furutech on one pair, Marinco on another pair. Then I'm going to do a pair with WE10ga. Maybe WE14ga as well. Best, Rob

This is a progress report on the V-Twist wire. The V-Twist is a new DIY interconnect cable designed and distributed by Chris VenHaus of VH Audio. It is a twin lead cable where each conductor is a high purity 24 gauge solid copper wire with Teflon insulation. There is no shielding. A full description is at the link below. The cable presently sells for $15 per foot or $30 per foot for a stereo pair.

http://www.vhaudio.com/v-twist-cu24.html

The V-Twist and Belden 8402 share the same basic cable geometry in that they are both twin lead designs, but whereas the Belden uses old school materials the V-Twist is modern all the way. One consequence of this is an extremely long break in time. Chris says 400 to 600 hours is required---the cable reaches about 90% of its potential in 400 hours and the remaining finishing touches fall into place during the next couple hundred.

I initially wired the V-Twist with Switchcraft 3502AAU RCA plugs so I could do a fair comparison with my Belden 8402 cables that use the same plugs. Chris recommends WBT 0102 Cu plugs for best performance.

My V-Twist cables now have 440 hours so they are over the 90% mark. I will spare you the details of how the sound changed during this time. Suffice it to say the sound changes rather significantly so hold off on making any judgments until they have at least the 400 minimum.

I compared my 1M V-Twist cables to several other interconnects as the link between my phono preamp and linestage. The other cables on hand for a direct comparison were: Belden with Switchcraft plugs, Belden with WBT 0102Ag plugs, Ocellia Silver Reference and Wireworld Eclipse II.

In a nutshell, the V-Twist wire has excellent inner detail, a smooth extended tonal balance, excellent dynamics, and a neutral perspective in terms of soundstaging. The specific qualities are affected quite a bit by the RCA plugs used. For example, the Switchcraft 3502AAU plugs have an inherently warm tonal balance, slightly rolled off treble, soft leading edges on transients, pretty good detail, and a somewhat upfront perspective. With the Switchcraft plugs, that is how the V-Twist sounds. Unfortunately the softness annoys me so I moved the WBT 0102Ag plugs from one pair of my Belden cables to the V-Twist. This made for some very interesting changes. Basically the V-Twist with silver WBTs is fast, clean and detailed, with full extension in the treble, and the softness is gone, but the V-Twist now sounds somewhat lightweight; the bass is not as weighty as it was with the Switchcrafts and there is a hint of "plastic" colorations in the midrange especially. Perhaps I need to use the copper WBT plugs as Chris recommends, or perhaps both the V-Twist and WBT plugs need more hours. (The WBTs have about 150 hours on them.) I plan to run the V-Twist/WBTs for another week or so with signal 24/7 and see how it sounds then. If it still has some issues, I will consider getting a set of copper WBTs.

From what I have heard so far, the V-Twist clearly has much potential. To my ears it is in a very different league than the Belden 8402.

Thanks Mitch2,
I suspected TWL was using WE. Best, Rob

Not yet, but I suspect TWL may be using the WE10 ga in their Seven Plus and 10 Plus — American Series power cables. They advertise 525 conductors in the Seven Plus and 315 conductors in the Ten Plus. If they are using WE10ga wire, that has about 104-105 conductors per wire (30ga per conductor like the other gauges of WE wire), so one wire each for neutral and hot, plus one for ground, would be three wires with 105 conductors each or 315 conductors. Likewise, if they are using four runs of the 10ga in a star-quad configuration for the Seven Plus, and one additional run of 10ga for ground, that would be 5 wires at 105 conductors per wire or 525 conductors. Coincidence?

Mojo Audio had good success using some type of WE wire for PCs early on but I believe they ran out of the WE stuff and are using different wire now.

I quit using the WE wire for speaker cable so I purchased several Furutech copper plugs/iecs and plan to start by making a pair of unshielded star-quad 10ga (7ga per pole) PCs for my monoblocks. If that goes well, I will try using the 14 or 16 ga wire I have here with a shield for front end gear. I have a bunch of the wire here that I bought before deciding to use other speaker cables so I need to do something with it.

Grannyring, Jetrexpro, all
I noticed on the Jeff Day Blog and elsewhere that a bunch of fellas are building Power Cables out of the Western Electric WE16ga. It seems like most are having good success. It appears that Day will be installing the WE16ga PC on his McIntosh MC30s.

Have any of you done this? Results? Best, Rob

Thanks for responding. Better to realize their full potential.

Maxima, I haven't forgotten! I was away for a while so the V-Twist cables are still a way from being fully broken in. I now have a little over 250 hours on them but Chris VH says they need 400 to 500 hours before settling down. Apparently this is due to the Teflon spacer tubes in the cable. I now have them running 24/7 and I plan to continue this until they are at least over 400.

For now I will say they certainly have a lot of potential. They have excellent speed, detail and soundstaging. I had some quibbles about the midrange but I am optimistic that will fall in line especially in light of how things have improved over the lsst 100 hours or so.

I am still using the Switchcraft RCA plugs so I can do a fair apples-to-apples comparison to my Beldens. Assuming that comparison works out in favor of the V-Twist (which I am pretty sure will be the case), I will then try the WBT 0102 copper plugs recommended by Chris VH.

I will report back in another 10 days or so. I promise!

Salectric - You can't say that I'm not persistent. I am looking forward to your findings on the V-Twist/Switchcraft 3502AAU RCA's and the 8402/WBT 0102 Ag RCA's (or whatever combination you care to post on).

An update on Western Electric 22Ga solid core interconnects. After 300-400hrs I ended up not liking them. They sound monochromatic. They lack texture and color. I built them with Switchcraft RCA plugs and two runs each for the positive and negative poles. Regards jet

09-24-15: Mitch2
With the Dark Matter Cardas ICs, is the shield in each individual cable jacket not connected to anything at either end?

I've shielded them source end Mitch. I haven't tried them unshielded.

They've also been left loose,ie.untwisted.

With the Dark Matter Cardas ICs, is the shield in each individual cable jacket not connected to anything at either end?

Jetrexpro
Leggoslave, The Cardas 33Ga IC's look very interesting. Thanks for posting. A project for later on this year when the weather gets cooooold here in NYC.

Jet, you're welcome. Yeah the 'Dark Matter' Cardas ICs are a worthwhile project especially considering their compatibility with the WE Speaker wire.

They've got an open, warm sound with a slightly recessed mid-range and nice extension both ends.

Salectric - Thank you for the information.

Maxima95, the V-Twist only has 60 hours so it's too early to draw conclusions, but so far I like it. A lot! I will report back in another week or two.

Leggoslave, The Cardas 33Ga IC's look very interesting. Thanks for posting. A project for later on this year when the weather gets cooooold here in NYC.

Grannyring I'll update once the braided shield arrives - Jet

Salectric - Looking forward to your findings re: the V-Twist/Switchcraft 3502AAU RCA's and the 8402/WBT 0102 Ag RCA's.

The Belden ICs have been turfed here as well..just too closed in and really rough up top.

I've gone back to Jeff Day's DIY ICs made from Cardas 33Ga Shielded Tonearm wire and the synergy with the WE speaker wire is outstanding.

I did use WBT NextGen plugs instead of the Switchcraft ones Jeff went with though.

Jeff's Cardas ICs can be found here:

http://jeffsplace.me/wordpress/?p=1490

Waiting on your comparison Jet. I like the WE IC's and the Belden is now back up. I use a nude set with a shielded set also. Perfect combo!

Built my second pair of WE16ga interconnects tonight with Canare F10 RCA plugs. The braided shield I ordered has not come in yet so these are burning unshielded for now. My first set naked WE ICs have well over 400 hours and I am still liking how open and free they sound. They are brightly lit so it will be very interesting to install the shield and see what changes it brings. Regards-Jet

I gotta agree with Steakster, I like the WE speaker cables but I am not thrilled with the Belden 8402 ICs so will be trying to sell mine. I found the Belden ICs to be a bit raggedy in the upper frequencies and dark/dull overall.

The WE speaker cables are a different story. I am currently running two pairs of 10awg WE speaker cables (1M long) directly from the amplifier board of each of my Acoustic Imagery Atsah monoblocks (so, no binding posts at the amp end) and they sound outstanding. There is clarity overall, smooth highs, and a perfect balance of depth, drive, fullness and control in the bass. The wire has excellent tonal qualities and the midrange has a nice touch of projection and warmth. There don't seem to be any issues that detract from the musicality of these cables but, if pressed, I would say the high frequencies are slightly less excellent than the remaining aspects of the WE wire...and that's the worst I can say. Overall, they come closer to my ideal than anything I have tried.

After trying the 16, 14 and 10 gauge WE wires, it is my opinion they are cut from the same sonic cloth, as I would expect since they are made from the very same 30awg tinned copper strands encased in thermoplastic then covered with cloth. The only difference is the number of strands used to make the various gauge wires. I suspect the 16awg is plenty big when used with low-powered tube amplifiers while my 400 wpc SS amps really benefit from 2-runs of 10awg wire (7 awg aggregate per amp). I am glad to have stocked up on this wire so I can try some future projects.

Rbrowne,

I'm also interested in WE16GA vs Belden 9497.

Dr. John at CheapTubeAudio has some short articles about the Belden speaker wire:

http://cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com/2009/08/review-belden-9497.html
http://cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com/2012/02/pic-from-second-japanese-article.html
http://cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com/2014/04/l-497mkii-r-9497-click-pic-to-enlarge.html

Has anyone compared the WE 16 ga wire with the Belden 9497 wire as speaker cable? Apparently the Belden is used by Shindo as internal speaker wire. Like Western Electric wire it has a cult following in Japan. The Belden is a tightly twisted 16 ga stranded (19x29) tinned copper conductors with PVC insulation. Curious as there are similarities regarding wire gauge, stranded tinned copper, etc. with the difference being the insulation and twist construction.

Rob,
Have you formed any listening impressions with your modified Dynamo amplifier as of yet? How much of a difference have you heard with the Arizona capacitors?
Charles,

Hours are piling on and the gap is closing with the Duelund 2.0.

WE is an interesting product.

Mitch

Not to worry on what you hear.

I have not heard Belden IC.

I am trying the WE wire in two systems. Oddly to me it sounds as you describe the Belden IC's?

In my main system all Duelund parts and Duelund wire the WE is clear, ragged and my guess is high resonance part with a midrange centric sound.

The upside to the WE wire if you midrange is not quite right this wire brings life to a system.

I hope I can use it for the office system?

Thanks Jetrexpro, it was tough to report that since so many here like the Belden 8402 wire. I will burn them in a bit more on the cooker and try them again once more to make sure of what I am hearing.

In the meantime, I still like the WE speaker cables in all three gauges I have here, 16, 14 and 10 awg. Maybe I should make some ICs from the extra 16awg I have. I think I would try two wires per leg wrapped around a core with a shield connected only at the source end and a separate ground wire spiraled outside the shield. Unfortunately, because I am so happy with the ICs I have, making WE16 ICs is pretty far down on my project list.