I've very much enjoyed the insight provided by these discussions, especially when they remain civil, as this thread has; and appreciate Sean and others who try to explain how different parameters influence sound without getting into "my way is better than your way" matches.
Now, I'm fairly new to this and am still trying to learn; but here is where I'm at along the DIY IC path:
My system tends to be bit too bright, probably due to the NHT 2.9's that I'm using (Rotel power, Chiro pre, Cambridge Audio CD500SE), and the tile floor that they're sitting on; so my objective is to bring in a little more bass and mid-warmth. Actually, achieving more bass and warmth is probably the result of reining in the highs, rather than an increase in the former.
1) I've become indoctrinated in the signal jumping problems of stranded wire theory, primarily from Greg Weaver's writings, so I've stuck to solid core wires. I realize that there's no consensus on this.
2) I'm using copper, again for warmth.
3) I often read that capacitance is bad for IC's, though some respected commercial cables have fairly high capacitance. I believe in another thread that Sean indicated more capacitance provides more warmth; so it seems that maybe some capacitance is OK for some situations. I've tried Weaver's RS wire and tape IC's, and Chris's recipe substituting copper for silver. Both approaches result in cables which are very low in capacitance; but they're both too bright in my system.
So, the geometry that I'm using now (not my idea, but I'm not sure who to credit) is cross-wrapping two 30 ga. teflon insulated copper wires on a 10 gauge teflon core, with about a thumbnail's spacing in between each coil. For now I'm just using the cheap plastic RS RCA's, figuring that once I get a geometry that works well in my system, I can upgrade the plugs. For me, this has helped the bass/mid-range without any noticeable detriment to detail. I'm thinking about adding two more runs of the 30 ga. along the same cores, offset 90ยบ from the existing two, to see how far I can go before capacitance, time smears, or whatever else might cause a problem, surfaces.
It's enjoyable to me anyway, and inexpensive, to try different geometries with essentially the same materials and achieve different results.
Now, I'm fairly new to this and am still trying to learn; but here is where I'm at along the DIY IC path:
My system tends to be bit too bright, probably due to the NHT 2.9's that I'm using (Rotel power, Chiro pre, Cambridge Audio CD500SE), and the tile floor that they're sitting on; so my objective is to bring in a little more bass and mid-warmth. Actually, achieving more bass and warmth is probably the result of reining in the highs, rather than an increase in the former.
1) I've become indoctrinated in the signal jumping problems of stranded wire theory, primarily from Greg Weaver's writings, so I've stuck to solid core wires. I realize that there's no consensus on this.
2) I'm using copper, again for warmth.
3) I often read that capacitance is bad for IC's, though some respected commercial cables have fairly high capacitance. I believe in another thread that Sean indicated more capacitance provides more warmth; so it seems that maybe some capacitance is OK for some situations. I've tried Weaver's RS wire and tape IC's, and Chris's recipe substituting copper for silver. Both approaches result in cables which are very low in capacitance; but they're both too bright in my system.
So, the geometry that I'm using now (not my idea, but I'm not sure who to credit) is cross-wrapping two 30 ga. teflon insulated copper wires on a 10 gauge teflon core, with about a thumbnail's spacing in between each coil. For now I'm just using the cheap plastic RS RCA's, figuring that once I get a geometry that works well in my system, I can upgrade the plugs. For me, this has helped the bass/mid-range without any noticeable detriment to detail. I'm thinking about adding two more runs of the 30 ga. along the same cores, offset 90ยบ from the existing two, to see how far I can go before capacitance, time smears, or whatever else might cause a problem, surfaces.
It's enjoyable to me anyway, and inexpensive, to try different geometries with essentially the same materials and achieve different results.