Interconnects

[bikerhifinut]

There's a product on the market, comes in a spray can. Called DE-Oxit and its a heady £20 or so but a little goes a very long way. It seems to remove the oxidation from plugs and sockets very effectively and is great on potentiometer wipers and tracks too. Bobs comment made me remember this stuff, It looks expensive but it works and a bit better than traditional switch cleaner/isopropanol. And about the price of a workmanlike interconnect from the likes of QED.
yeah gold plated fuses............ what in swansea is that all about? if you are that convicnced that a fuse is so important why stop there? Gold plated 13 amp plug pins? Silver plated screened mains wire in an armoured sheath made out of organic Armadillo scales? replace the mains switch with a special gold plated one and every single bit of wire run in the amp? Oh I forgot it's already probably been done by somebody!
The point here is, no amount of fancy wire and other witchcraft is much cop if the hardware it serves isnt up to the mark in terms of circuit design and construction technique and layout, you can varnish a turd as much as you like but all you'll get is a shiny turd.
I also am not convinced about more esoteric wire and construction. Oh for sure the physics seems to stack up at face value but in practice I think the frequencies at which "Skin effects" and other properties attributed to insulation are really only relevant at RF in the regions of MHz and signal strengths where it could mean the difference between an intelligible signal and nothing at all.
I may not know how to listen to a system or piece of equipment properly or know what to listen for? But I am very sad to say I get distracted and end up listening to the music instead.
If you hear a difference I am not going to disbelieve you, your kit, your ears, your hard earned cash so forgive me for being an incurable cynic, I'm beyond help now.

(Andy with tongue ever so slightly in cheek)

[Black Stuart]

Expensive cables - who said anything about expensive cables Greg that's the argument regurgitated endlessly by the same few androids on diyaudio.

(1) - air is the best dialectric - fact or b/s? (2) Oliver Heaviside well before the end of the 19th century produced repeatable research about the conductance of electricity. So respected was and is this man that one of the earth's atmospheres is named after him but some of you talk about his work with derision - sad.

I put the science together to make i/cs that are not expensive and clearly hear the uplift in signal conduction aka way better than conventional i/cs that have been around for decades.

Furtutech will screw you for a lot of money making the same kind of i/cs - £1000 plus for a 1M set of phono i/cs perhaps that is what Greg is referring to.

Stay in the past, do not experiment, refuse to encounter change or accept that you may have been wrong for decades - your choice.

[bliza3017]

thanks for your info

[VantheMan]

I´ve only just noticed this thread. I have WD25TEx with external crossovers, originally placed just behind the boxes as many people do. Then I remembered a side comment I had read by Les Wolstenholme of Avondale years ago where he said that his ears always preferred crossovers placed as near as poss to the power amp driving the speakers. Not a great difference but well worth the effort. So I changed mine over thereby able to use a single run of Van Damme 4 core speaker cable into some Neutrik speakons fitted to the rear of each speaker. Very neat and I´d swear I noticed an improvement when I did it a couple of years ago.

[Greg.]

Good point raised and I have full respect for Les Wolstenholme who I have met and shared knowledge with. I could easily put my crossovers close to my amp and then run cables to the speakers, but with three drivers per speaker, I’d need to invest in 6 x 5 metres of twin cable. 30m in total. Regardless of the excessive cost implicated, there also is the space it takes up. Realistically, the best way with this would be burying the cables under (as in my case) a suspended floor, but of course, that’s not practice for the homeowner with solid floors who will struggle to hide cabling and inevitably upset the wife (if you have one).

All systems are different and only today I experimented with Van Damme 4mm fine multi-strand best quality audio cable and it made my system sound bass heavy and bass woolly after several hours of burn in. I went back to my Blue Jeans cable without hesitation.

Many things need to be considered before starting on what on the face of it is a simple upgrade. Simple it probably isn’t.

[VantheMan]

Hi Greg, that’s why I mentioned my use of single runs of 4 core van damme tour 2.5mm grade between xovers and boxes from Farnell. You can get it with 6 cores too, I seem to remember. Would be much cheaper but if it doesn’t work tonally for you ......