What is your favourite Inter-connect?

[Greg.]

My other thread on the CVH fine silver wire I/C's got me thinking a little. I had settled on an I/C recipe that I was happy with and forgot about it. In the meantime I made a number of changes to the system. On revisiting the influence to sound an I/C can bring, I made a change which sounded better to me. The moral being that if your system is continuously evolving, returning to reconsider other links in the system change may well bring benefits to the sound. Having said that, I know some members swear by their choice of connectors and stick with them, having found nothing better. My main interest is in DIY cables, but some alternatively prefer ready made jobs. In light of what I've just said, What are your favourite I/C's and why?

Best wishes,

Greg

[Paul Welsby]

After reading your other post i got thinking too.

Im currently bidding on some Nordost Blue Heaven which Ive heard some good results about.

Will report back if i win.

Paul

[Gerry]

Paul

I use the Nordost....it is excellent. Good luck.

Regards
Gerry

[Rob042]

at the mo - my fav is a diy silver cable .
0.3mm silver in a 1mm teflon tube. same for signal and return. The pair are then platted about a 2mm copper earth wire which is connected to the return side at the source end.

used to use Heaven too - the dawn is even better .

Rob

[Greg.]

Hi Rob,

Interesting. The CVH design uses just 0.2mm and is built differently being a spiraled pair of wires around Teflon tube. Apart from that and of course the sheilding type properties of your dummy earth wire, there's not alot of difference conductor wise. If I'm going to experiment again, I think I'll be more inclined to use your design but with some solid silver core a fair bit thicker. have you tried different wire guages?

Best wishes,

Greg

[Rob042]

Greg
I did try to get down to sub 0.2mm - but had a real pain threading and breaking.
found sub 0.3mm to become over trebly on some recordings.
did try 0.5mm and 1mm but to my ears things seemed sluggish/muddy.

dont have any rf noises with the metre length from dac to amp. But from the phono stage to amp I thought I heard some ( this is 2.5m) so used some silver screen/braid (which so happened to be at work ) connected at the source end. The resultant cable does {to my lug'oles } sound 'cleaner'

Rob

[IslandPink]

It's what I currently use -

Copper litz ( 140 strands of 40 gauge ) in cotton braid outer .
Supplied by Bud Purvine of O-Netics (transformers ) in the US .

Most transparent I've heard, only one that beat the CVH so far, though I haven't heard any of the Nordost ones which get good press . Can't afford that sort of stuff though . The one I use is chosen for technical reasons - fine strands , so impedance is flat to 100kHz , and no unpleasant plastic insulation materials with surface charges to overcome .

I think the whole interconnect business and which is 'best' can get confused though . What's most transparent may not be best , unless you are prepared ( as I am ) to tune the system elsewhere ( with caps or phono RIAA ) to adjust the tone . Having a system that's got maximum transparency all the way through , caps , wires etc, will usually set your teeth on edge ( at least ) in my experience . I was talking to Nick G about this the other evening . I reckon nearly every system needs 'softening' somewhere along the line , otherwise it sounds too harsh and top-endish . Whether this basic sound comes from the front end is a good question - I think a lot does . Almost any distortion, mechanical and from electronics, will tend to add to the upper frequencies and over-emphasise them . Tonearms are an obvious problem when you consider the ringing tendencies of a metal tube, and the concentration of energy in the upper frequency on the record groove . I think some of what we have to do to get a system to sound right is in fighting this problem - interconnects are often chosen as a handy tuning device .

Mark

[IslandPink]

God , that just about killed the discussion, didn't it ?

Mark

[dave dove]

didn't like to say

dave

[Richard]

A cable is just a passive device reducing some frequencies more than others.

If a group of vinyl users all like a particular cable does that have a significance?

Vinyl has a different sound balance to CD. Systems set up to balance vinyl's upper bass/mid warmth and falling treble sound harsh with CD. It's obvious if you lower upper bass/mid and increase treble then when CD is used it will sound too thin and bright.

Mark faces the demons of vinyl. It's a black art source. There are so many variables, no definitive way, and the deck will even sound different in different rooms. Due to it being such a mechanical system everything from the support to the drive, platter, matt, arm mount, arm, counterweights, suspensions, even the age of the rubber in the stylus cantilever, not to mention the condition of the stylus and vinyl grooves themselves.

Rich