Anybody here terminate DH Labs BL-1 cable?

@williewonka
I finished the cables and they sound great from the start. Though I think a lot may be attributed to the silver plug and IEC connectors. I have a DIY power box wired with 10awg silver plated copper straight through a DIY power cord like the VH audio cords. No IEC connector, just outlets to plug, which I upgraded to a silver Sonarquest during this project. My outlets (wall and box) are all Hubbel 5362 and I have a dedicated 20 amp line to the two outlets in my room, though i only use one. Unless I’m vacuuming.

I made 2 10awg cords.
I ended up using the innards from a power cable I found through your power strip post. It’s the place you purchased your chassis from: vt4c.com. I bought GY-PW8000, which only has two conductors and a smaller gauge ground, but the conductors are teflon insulated, monocrystal (whatever..) rectangular, multigauge copper. And they’re fat. My contact there said they were approx 11awg, but I found them to be fatter than 10awg, maybe not quite 9awg.

I bought the silver sonarquest connectors. It’s funny, my previous DIY cords also had sonarquest, but I hadn’t noticed the silver before.

The cables are for a dared MC-7P tube preamp and a crown xls-1500 amp. I’ll make one for my CD player next. I’ll probably give interconnects a try too, though just in copper so i can compare the sound difference to my current copper cardas cable DIY ICs. I’m a bit limited in budget, as you can tell by my meagre gear, but it’s capable enough for me to be able to notice differences in cables, especially now that i’m beginning to sort out room acoustics.

todd.... glad to hear the cables are working out for you

Your other power upgrades provide a very solid foundation for your system, great choices.

The power cables do sound good from the start, but they do get better with time :-)

The IC's also sound good, but after about 20 hours they start to sound a little harsh. By about 60 hours they start to smooth out and just get better from there.

As for your so called "meagre gear" - your setup is more than capable of highlighting the improvement these cables are capable of conveying, as you will discover :-)

Your system would love the Helix Mark V IC's, but rather than opting for the design on my site, you can scale back to the Silver Harmony RCA's and use  a quality copper signal conductor in place of the silver and still get great performance. You can then "upgrade" as time and budget (and desire) allows.

what speaker cables are you using?

You are pretty much following the same route I took, in that first I selected some good components, then sorted the cables and finally sorted the room treatments,

keep me posted on your progress

Todd - something that came to mind -  with components that have higher quality power supplies -  improvements tend to be more "subtle" 

For example - for a component with a small power supply - you might hear an improvement in dynamic performance, bass depth and control etc..

Whereas for a component such as your pre-amp - you will probably find more subtle improvements in things like dynamic speed, clarity, resolution and a mode complete image with more subtle venue acoustics

Noticing the subtleties was something a I had to really listen for, but once you notice them they become something you easily find missing in other less adept systems.

Regards....

@williewonka , I just wrote you a novel, but it wasn't posted for some reason. 

I definitely noticed more of a difference when I put a power cable on the amp than when I put one on the pre.. But the amp has a switching power supply, so I think they are more susceptible to current restriction..

I'm waiting on a small inline component before I build any new ICs.. Then I'll start messing with building them, as the component well require different terminations.

My speaker cables are DIY, braided cat5 plenum cable. 7 lengths braided to form a 9awg cable, terminated with audioquest silver plated BFA bananas. I love their sound..

Thanks for all your posts, by the way. They've been a great source of info.

I think I will try the KLE connectors though. I'm curious how much better than the standard cardas silver plated copper they are.