jafant - I suppose my experience might have some instructive value. Note that my approach is not that of a hobbyist, but that of an experimental observer. My choices must approach the ideal, including the assumptions, general practice and choices of producers upstream. I recognize that is an impossible task, but within my constraints I try. For example, I chose Sennheiser 800S headphones, not only because they are very good, but because many high-end producers (mastering engineers, etc.) use them; so my potential personal preference for some other audiophile darling cans becomes functionally irrelevant. This is squishy territory which can cause a strict, skeptical engineer to abort - to conclude none of it matters, because it is a functionally unsolvable problem. I conclude that I must make my most balanced evaluations and choices toward this ephemeral ideal.
Let’s go to wire. I am lucky to have a personal beacon experience. Without an illuminating experience I can see being lost in the wilderness forever. You may remember cousin Ted, the aerospace physicist who suggested wire as a wild-card solution from GE’s deep space communications problems. I spent the summer of 1978 investigating, experimenting and choosing wire which became Thiel’s standard, and an early milestone for wire’s importance in audio. Over the years, Thiel compared various wire geometries, etc. and stayed with the 18-2 solid CDA101 in teflon for internal wiring. I am presently expanding that solution which we’ll address another time.
Interconnects and speaker cable are more complex, since we can’t predict the particulars of length, environment, and source and load characteristics, especially with speaker cable. Let’s stick to speaker cable. Before wire was a known thing in audio, Thiel started with homespun, getting pretty quickly to 00 welding cable, and around 1980 had our ears knocked off by Ray Kimber’s prototype braided wire at $1K/ pair foot. Someone here might remember the model name. I remember the radical improvement and that we beta tested further improvements of that flagship cable over the years. Astonishingly good both technically and to the ear. Jim developed a test bed to read various reactances in frequency, distortion and phase /time domains. I hear knowledgeable people claiming there are no meaningful measured differences - I say emphatically that is not true. I rather think that opening Pandora’s Wire Box simply raises more questions and considerations than they want to address.
Back to cable. There was a stream of Kimber. Also there is Straightwire who was a close ally with Thiel from their beginning. Steven Hill is an engineer and has developed and explicated a significant knowledge base over the decades. At present I have some early Straightwire (model unknown) that I’ve lived with since the 1980s. One of my studio workhorses is Straightwire Octave II @ 4 runs in 12’ lengths, star quad with individual terminations that I can mix and match for mono and/or bi-wire or bi-amp. I am not in the listen and choose my favorite game myself, lacking the time, access or budget to do so, and eschewing my personal preference, while valuing "rightness" and "standardness" in my decision matrix. So my process goes like this: discuss with Steven what I want, weigh his solutions and technologies toward those goals and accept his recommendation as to where to land, which is generally the performance sweet spot of the brand. In this Case the Octave II is suitable for my purposes - I use it every day.
Let’s jump to preference. I prefer the Morrow SP-4, which I chose by a similar process, but in 12’ lengths it lacks some beef on the bottom. I have 4 runs which I can double and get the solidity I want. I could get it by running 6’ lengths (which I have demonstrated), but for my purposes, such non-standard runs defeats some of my reference purposes. Awhile back we explored here (or possibly behind the curtain with some of you, pardon my spotty memory) the pros and cons of parallel vs twisted runs. I agreed with those who preferred the parallel runs which produced an ephemeral, liquid-like presentation. But, my measurements and further listening led me to conclude that those pleasant effects were artifacts of delicious problematic behavior. Nix. So, I twist my double runs.
In addition to those brands, I have and use some old Audioquest, model unknown as well as Benchmark’s Canare, Bluejeans Belden, ProCo (professional) 12’ gauge star quad and OCOS (Dynaudio’s coax), as well as various Audioquest, MIT and who knows what that are occasionally borrowed for comparison. I use many of these wires in live recording and off-site playback duties, and can identify their sonic fingerprints. I know some folks here just don’t buy the wire thing, and you among others are committed to pursuing those nuances as a serious undertaking. I don’t claim to understand much of what goes on in wire, but do know that some serious stuff is going on. Part of the mix includes dielectric considerations and many manufacturers just don’t go there. Of the thermoplastics, the Teflon family wins, both in listening and measuring. The hierarchy is known and agreed, and, who would guess, more expensive performs better. As an anecdote, I quizzed John Siau of Benchmark about such dielectric considerations, to which he had no response, side-stepping to star-quad geometry’s cancellation of distortion mechanisms as the important factor. I bought his wire. It’s good, one up from ProCo, similar to Belden, but lacks the higher order performance of audiophile cable. I don’t think he could be convinced of such further considerations, but then that’s not my job.
I overlooked AntiCables. I like Paul’s approach and the product, and he seems now to be addressing directionality. I know that directionality matters, but I also know how wire is drawn and how little I could trust the process to yield consistent draw-down monitoring to guarantee which direction the crystals lie. Anyhow, directionality can be heard, so therefore probably tested via some method beyond my scope. In the ’no insulation is the best insulation’ stream, Morrow is on to a big deal. Grown cellulitic fibers are better dialectics than thermoplastics. Morrow uses cotton fiber, which is excellent. (Ever notice how great those paper capacitors can sound?)
I’ll mention a recent lesson from my internal wiring quest. Dialectic matters, and two or more different dialectics in the bundle is better than one - to spread out the anomalies. If we assume CDA101 (best) copper and great insulations, geometry is a really big deal. The cost and consistency of braiding are unfeasible to me. Small irregularities in braid more than undoes the advantages. Same-direction twist wins as an implementable solution well grounded in known physics and within reach of conscientious manufacturing processes. My proprietary configuration may end up being patented or proprietary to Straightwire, so I’ll not go further. And, believe it or not, craftsmanship is a far bigger issue than I assumed. Small physical / mechanical variations in my hand-laid samples create audible and measurable differences, which go way down with optimized mechanical lay-up.
I note that Jim ended up with Goertz flat wire and the Absolute Sound or Stereophile reviews of the 3.7 noted its superiority for that speaker. I have read about flat wire, but never heard any. And I wouldn’t go there myself because its market marginality would buck my practice of swimming mid-stream. So, that’s a look at my little corner of the world of wire. It’s a fascinating world, and one who’s dismissal would leave many delights unsavored. This post scratches the surface - there’s always more. I enjoy hearing your perspectives - I don’t get out much - and I should get back to work now.
Cheers
