That's the one.
Let us know how you like it. |
I use a cable cooker (2-3 days) so cannot say how long if just playing music. IME, 50-100 hrs should get you 80-90% there. |
Just finished a power cord using double runs of WE 10awg twisted pair wire for an aggregate wire size of 7awg to each the positive and negative legs.
I retwisted the four 10awg wires in a star-quad configuration so the two positive wires are across from each other when looking at the four twisted wires.
The single ground wire is twisted in the opposite direction outside of the four current-carrying wires.
I used a Furutech FI-11 (Cu) plug and iec.
Since this is for a single large stereo power amplifier (300 wpc) I did not shield the cable since my experience is that, unless you have noisy conditions, power cords for power amplifiers sound better unshielded, although I do like to shield them for front-end and digital components.
The cord is on the cable cooker and will be tried out later tonight where it will replace a very nice-sounding Furutech
FP-Alpha 3
cord with Oyaide P79 connectors. |
Playing with speaker cables and amplifiers this morning. Have four sets here I have been switching between;
-fine stranded OCC copper wire,
12awg/run-bi-wired;
-multi-strand, 24awg, OCC solid-core copper in PE @ 11awg
aggregate/run-bi-wired;
-multi-strand, braided, high-purity solid-core, copper in cotton@12awg/MF-HF and 10awg/LF;
-Star-quad twisted WE16 and WE14 with 13awg/MF-HF and 11awg/LF.
Surprised, I was (saw Star Wars yesterday) that I liked the WE wire best, at least today. There is just something about this wire that sounds real, fleshed out, and smooth all at the same time.
I am sure that a bi-wire set with 13/11 awg is large enough for a 2M run but I will probably try this in the 10awg wire, just because I have some. I think I will do the star-quad twist to provide 7awg to the low frequencies and simply use the already twisted pair at 10awg for the MF-HF. I could then switch and put the 7awg on the MF-HF just for fun and to hear how it sounds.
Anyway, just thought I would share how this stuff continues to amaze. |
This may be why Jeff Day and others using lower powered amplifiers enjoy the 16awg wire while folks like me, with powerful SS amps, enjoy the larger gauge wires.
Those who believe in skin effect for speaker cables would say there is a higher likelihood of hearing it with 10awg wire than with 16awg wire, even though both are stranded.
Keep in mind, this wire is tinned, not discretely coated with epoxy, like Cardas wire. IOW, the strands in this WE wire are electrically connected unlike Cardas wire where each strand is discrete. Therefore, this wire is likely to behave more like a single large solid core wire than multiple 30awg wires.
I don't believe in skin effect for the short lengths of our speaker cables so IMO and FWIW, the difference is likely related to the amplifiers, power, and sonic characteristics of the speakers. The 16awg wire may sound a touch quicker and slightly more "lit-up" while the 10awg wire may sound a little richer and fuller sounding, especially when used with high powered amplifiers. An alternative is to braid or twist multiple 16awg and/or 14awg WE wires, which I have done with success in my system. |
Hi Bill,
Can I ask did you use 2 or 4 of the WE10awg wires for your power cords? If you used 4 wires per cord (2 for pos and 2 for neg), did you twist or braid them?
TWL braids 4 of the WE10awg wires for their highly-thought-of
Seven Plus American Series power cable.
I went with the old VH Audio flavor-style of construction, by twisting four WE10awg wires and then cross-connecting two wires for positive and the other two for negative to reduce inductance (a good thing in speaker cables and in power cables). I then counter-spiraled a THHN ground wire outside of the four conductors. The total aggregate wire size per pole is 7awg. I used Furutech's
FI-11 (Cu) connectors, as does TWL, and I am quite happy with the result, particularly on my high-powered amplifiers.
If I were to make cords for my front-end components, I would probably start with a single twisted pair of the WE 10awg wires, include a tinned copper braid shield and then the ground wire counter-spiraled outside of the shield.
This wire is pretty good stuff both for power cables and speaker cables. For speaker cables, I have heard better in the high frequencies but it certainly nails the midrange and I also like the bass where there is detail, richness and depth but less tendency toward boominess than I hear with some cables. |
From what I can see of TWL 7+ pictures, the pairs seems just twisted.
Hi Jazz, If you read some of the reviews of the TWL 7+, they discuss how the 7+ PCs are Litz braided. I surmised they are using WE wire based on the comments about the wire in the reviews (see below) and reading the strand counts of their various products on their website. Their cords also have some other things going on such as deep cryo treatment and something they call " passive ground plane technology." I have no idea what that is but it could be as simple as a shield connected at one end and spiraling the ground wire outside the shield, or maybe something more innovative. Below is an excerpt from the PFO review of TWL PCs. Does the description of their wire source remind you of any companies being discussed in this thread?
Peter Grzybowski, President of Triode Wire Labs, found a highly annealed, durable wire that sounded extremely musical and better than anything they had experimented with prior. The wire happened to be designed by a corporation that was dedicated to the propagation of sound quality, at one time employing 10,000 scientists and engineers! This corporation held a tremendous amount of innovations in audio equipment and devices, such as triode tubes, recording, and acoustics, including the patent for Oxygen Free Copper. From further research, the wire used in Triode Wire Labs products was specified for use in the construction of theater amplifiers (including the 300B) as well as recording equipment (Westrex), with ties to Ampex and Altec as well.
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Now running dual pairs (in bi-wire) of WE 10awg for an aggregate of 7 awg to each speaker. The resulting sound is excellent. My next project is going to be a star-quad twist of WE 10awg, with two runs in bi-wire to each speaker for 7awg to both HF/MF and LF, or an aggregate of 4awg per speaker! The main problem is terminating four runs together per pole at the amp end. I may need to use to separate runs one with spades plus the other with bananas so I can easily terminate them at a single pair of binding posts. This stuff is really good and, for the price, almost unbelievable. |
