Sakura Systems OTA Cable Kit

"Has anyone tried this "minimalist" cable kit? After receiving a recommendation from someone with similar musical values to myself, and whose ears I trust, I could not resist ordering one. I will report on how they sound in a few weeks, but am interested in others' opinions too."
by Redkiwi on 05-21-01
I have followed this thread for several months now. As someone who greatly believes in the influence of cables, hence my interest in this site and continual efforts at upgrading, I am not at all convinced by the exchanges, or the experiences, shared. Why haven't more people tried this cable? Can we get back to Redkiwi's original question?

Gray: The only way to be "convinced" is to actually try and/or listen to this product (the design of which goes against the grain of what most people assume is needed for quality sound). Because of these assumptions many feel that it is not worth $600 for a roll of 26 gage solid core copper/Teflon cable and a few plastic RCA's. Having tried other 26 gage Teflon coated cable I do not assume, but know that they are not the same (the last being XLO's product). What exactly are you looking for - a new slew of product owner's of which you will believe their observations? LOL.

I take your point - it is a bit of a "cart and horse" situation, where many people, like me, are waiting for others to commit "the act of faith". However, having said that, silver cables were in the same boat at one time. But there are now many, relatively cheap, "copycat" manufacturers for these cables today, reflecting the intrinsic value of this type of cable and rewarding those who were prepared to commit this act of faith.

Gray,
The first 2/3rds of this thread chronicalled very closely several AG members making this "act of faith" and detailed quite eloquently their findings on the 47Labs OTA cables/IC kit.
I've been using the 47 OTA's in Roksan and Rega systems for over 1-1/2 yrs now and continue to be impressed and satisfied.
My own positive experience has resulted in a number of friends switching away from their former cable faves to the OTA in systems as diverse as Audiomat,VTL and CJ valves to Exposure and Rowland systems with equally fine results.
Considering that 47Labs does not promote the OTA other than as an recommended adjunct to their own electronics with no advertising of the cables at all,I'd say that the number of non-47 Lab users here at AG exceeds what would be expected for such a product and that they also appear to be exceptionally enthusiastic and pleased.

Gray: I don't know if this is true, but once read that the OTA is a type of cable which is used for telecommunications in Japan, which has received some type of additional treatment. The only thing that I know is that I have been unable to locate a ready made cable that has the extremely thick Teflon insulation that the OTA uses and to purchase such insulation separately is not an inexpensive undertaking, plus I would have no way to properly run a six nines copper wire through this insulation without leaving a major air gap (which the OTA does not have). I have already tried "beefing up" the thin Teflon insulation on the XLO cable with a reverse wrap of Teflon plumbers tape without much success. My advice is that if you are not ready to spring $600 then try out the inexpensive Radio Shack solid core copper magnet wire in order to get a "taste" of what the OTA will sound like. The spool runs $3.99 and it contains three different gages (30,26 and I forget the lower gage). I prefer the 26 gage, but some also like the lower gage (so try both). Carefully remove the laquer from the ends of the wire with fine steel wool and then hook it up as speaker cable. It will take it 100 hours or so for the sound to stabilize. Since the laquer coating is questionable, IMO, I did make certain to separate the (+ & -) runs from each other when installing it to avoid the possibility of a short taking place. This is a single run cable and two runs will be required for each speaker (that is not bi-wired). If your cable runs are 10' of so there should be enough wire (of each gage) on a single spool. I used the RS cable in an inexpensive SS system with very good results (a bit of the OTA sound), but to be honest will not hesitate to rewire this setup with the OTA once I can afford another kit.