belden 1505A coax

Manek schrieb:

hey guys i have been messing around with the belden 1505A coax cable for a while now. it definately gives good video for which it is manufactured. the spec sheet also mentioned audio so i took a shot at it. what amazed me was its ability to do analogue audio as an interconnect. Wow ! solid core copper, PE foam di-electric, tinned screen(should not put the finiky guys off) with a very dense coverage. try it folks ! thats all I can say. it sure gives the known "audiophile" brands a run for the money. Am currently using it with virens preamp. Viren, you should try this cable. My sylvanias have never sounded better. I also wanted to use belden 1695A but couldnt find it. It has a teflon di-electric. manek

I've tried both these Belden couple of years ago....did not like it though.

Yesterday i received a bunch of mogami cables (both IC and speaker cable .... professioanl audio products). The IC compares very well with my Au24. Yet to try the speaker cable...but looks very promising. Try them...instead of Belden.

interesting you should mention mogami,

a friend used to use one of the IC's and he gave up on it after a while...but he said something about a coax speaker cable that they make which was supposed to be good...u got the coax verion ?

Would definately try them if I knew where to get them in Mumbai :-)

manek.

Further messing around with another coax(military grade I am told but don't believe) with a single solid core center strand of 28awg.

There is something about small guage solid core copper wire. Midbass muddyness tends to clear up so well. The guitars of kenny burrel sound so much cleaner. Fleshes out the differences between tubes even more than before.
More instrument separation in orchestral pieces. I thought it wouldn't do well with instrument timber like violins, horns and cymbals but it did.

Then I removed the center core with its insulation and made a twisted pair version of the same without the shield. Worked very well too. Going to listen to it for 25 hrs to finally come to a conclusion.

It does take time to find such stuff but its very rewarding. Makes one wonder if "OFC" is absolutely necessary for good entry level cables.

And......This is not the ultra pure wire extruded by snow white, then transported by the seven dwarfs to king midas to touch and turn into gold, then brought all the way to india where it is dipped in snake oil extracted by a certain snake charmer from his pet snake for ultra flexibility, post which it is taken to the north pole to be "natuarally" cryogenically treated beneath pure snow mountains, then taken to the depths of the earth to be heated by the fires of hell, then packed by santa claus and his elves, only to be delivered by rudolf in a sleigh to us once a year .

Its just a normal coax cable with pvc insulation and nickel plated mx rca plugs.
Macro dynamics seem a bit supressed at the moment but will wait for a few hous to confirm.

Manek

Manek,

A popular thought is that the Dielectric is the most significant destroyer of sound quality. PVC is the WORST.

Also Nickel plating the WORST... they say it gives the sound a hard edge ( on short term listning, this can be confused as greater detail and resolution )

Try:

1. Stripping off the PVC.

2. Sand paper Off the Nickel Coating.....

If you DO get down to doing the above, do post ... :-)

Yes ampnut

I am very aware of that and that is the reason why I mentioned it, pvc insulation and nickle plated rca. And I forgot to mention tinned copper shield to boot !
Inspite of all such impurities, it does have some good properties.

I will give them 25 hrs atleast and then see. I shall solder gold plated rca's and then check again. The idea is to compare between stranded and solid core and especially thinner guage solid core. I actually wanted a belden cable thinner than the 1505a from the same family but couldn't find it.

There is a line of thought held by a few on the internet that for interconnects, 28-30 awg works very well especially solid core. That's why I started off with very basic wire I could find. If I see merit after 25+ hrs will increase the percieved quality of materials used.

Viren too favours solid core over stranded and he favours twisted pair over coaxial. Sometimes when one goes against the grain one gets an insight into the hocus pocus out there. For eg. There is crap floating about japanese tubes and I found one of my best tube pairs to be japanese ! Hitachi. So much for popular opinion.

Will get to measurements later.

Manek

Viren too favours solid core over stranded

There is a Strong Scientific basis to this.

A single conductor of X diameter will have a gentler surfacecurvature than a bunch of thin wires, bundled to the same diameter.

The gentler curvature yields more uniform current density on the conductor(s), better utilising the Cross section of the wire.

Current density is inversely proportional to the radius of curvature of the conductor. Vey sharp curvatures such as cable kinks and sharp points have very high current density and "Current Crowding." ( While this knowledge is considered very new, its been detailed - with equations on 'Skin Effect' in text books circa 1920 ! )

That is why, usually RF and Microwave cables have a single ( not multi-strand) centre conductor...

Yes sir.

Those are precisely the arguments put forth for a single conductor preference By many.

Now how much better is a standard quality single copper conductor cable over the ofc quality multi stranded entry leve cable is what I want to known will surface uniformity or copper purity dominate the quality of sound and after that to see if thinner single conductors have the mentioed benifits over thicker single conductors. That old argument with thicker conductors of high freq's travelling on the surface whilst the other towards the center which further cuases timing problems which are supposed to be very easily heard.........all of that if I can experience would be nice.

Manek