Duelund conversion to DIY Helix Geometry Cabling

@tecknik (Steve) - glad to hear the Helix Power cable is proving to be beneficial.

You may hear some degraded quality around the 20 hour mark, but then it gets much better by around 50-60 hours

For my source components (a Bluesound Node 2i and a Simmaudio Moon LP5.3 RS phono stage) I now use a 1 meter PC with 2 x 18 gauge bare UP-OCC solid silver in Teflon tubes for the Live and 1 x 14 gauge solid neotech UP-OCC with Teflon insulation for the neutral.

It proved to be most beneficial and within my budget, but I use 2 x 14 gauge OCC copper (Live conductors) for the PC's on the amp, the Power distribution box and the 11 ft Extension cable to the distribution box.

Thanks for the update on the DC cables as well...

• I no longer have any components that use DC power, so I am unable to try the Helix for that specific application

Please post again if the cables shows any further improvement

Cheers - Steve

@williewonka, in your experience with crimping and soldering how much time does the soldering require to sound its best. I believe I read in one of the topics here someone mentioned 350 hr. In my experience it’s not quite that long but a couple hundred hr.
 

Regards

Steve

I agree with Steve, there’s some noticeable degradation happening in SQ around the 25h mark that is slowly improving from H=45 to 100. From my experience on resoldering banana plugs on broken speaker cables, H=48 is usually how much time it takes to significantly break-in the solder and connector. I use Cardas gold/silver solder and rolled berylium/copper banana connectors.

I found out the Helix cables (interconnect and speakers) sound best after hundreds hours of playing and that would equal to a few months of music listening in my case. I read somewhere that it takes around 700h to break-in cryo parts which could also be an explanation about the long break-in time of these cable.

I have built most versions of these cables (Duelund Poly, Duelund Cotton, UPOCC Teflon and UPOCC Air/Teflon). One thing for sure, all of these cables sound extremely good.

One must remember that all of this is subjective and unless you have only changed one cable in your system, it would be hard to assess and measure the improvment over time. YMMV.

@lemonhaze I have been an advocate of PC Triple C for quite some time now, along with another Wire D.U.C.C.

The amount of individuals now turning to Triple C in my locality as a result of my loaning the Wire for demonstration has increased to quite a few converts.

It is even now in use as a Tonearm Wand Wire by a few of the converted.

@mbolek has now used PC Tripe C to produce Helix Cable and his comments are found in this thread.

The usage period is now quite extended, he might be able to update on his thoughts on the Wire in use.

@ williewonka, 

Im now thinking of making a pair of speaker cables and have a few questions.

For the live wire you’re stating live wire 2 x 14 solid and neutral wire 1 x 12 stranded. Why not 2 x 14 solid and 4 x the length rather then 2.5 don’t you want more coverage of the live wire. Shouldn’t live and neutral wires be the same size 2 x 14 yields a 11 g. Vs 1 x 12 g. 

Have you tried low mass spades ? 

Can I cover the speaker cables in a designer sheath to look more professional or does this affect the sound quality.

You guys are right the cables take a dive around 20 hrs before opening up nicely around 50 hrs I was about to yank them out but something kept catching my attention in the presentation, a naturalness I guess you could say.

regards

steve