Hello, I just joined, primarily for the audiophile products. Looking at purchasing the NHT C3 speakers for our new living room. Space is about 15 feet wide by 33 long and they will fire long ways. Space is just for general listening, music room with all equipment is downstairs, so hoping they will fill it with sound nicely. Cheers.
Mar 18, 2024
This may help: http://www.diyaudioblog.com/2011/09/building-sennheiser-headphone-cable.html
OCC(Ohno Continuous Cast) Silver Plated copper wire does sound better and it is the best bang for the buck wire you can use for headphone cables and unshielded(or you could make a shield with spaghetti tubing aluminum powder and some other outer tubing like primoflex advanced lrt(expensive option but it shouldnt yellow as much over the years) yes this will make a very heavy and expensive interconnect but it will also have god shielding and is a near foolproof homebrew method which doesnt require expensive equipment. I've also been looking for aluminum flake like glitter but with no adulterants just pure aluminum flake like used in fireworks but this firework market also makes it more expensive looking for a cheap aluminum firework flake source or aluminum direct manufacturer contact but its not one of the easiest things to find on the internet for the same price you can buy aluminum powder(which is boring looking) on ebay.
Pure Silver OCC is even better but its prohibitively expensive(even when purchased directly from china) and unless its for a very short cable or internal component wiring the price will probably be too rich for your blood if you dont know this already and are a noob audiophile and flat wire is better than round wire and welding is better than tin solder even if its 5% silver solder but 5% silver solder is better than regular solder by a longshot tho hydraulic crimps and either sonic welding or microwelding are better still assuming you weld with copper or silver or the copper or silver wire directly to the connector. Silver is really amazing when it comes to audio people say its too bright but this is because they have listened to copper their entire lives. I find it just transmits more audio data(quantum level?) and is far more clear. I have also learned repairing things that often headphone manfacturer will pick a set of very bright drivers and then tone down the highs with some kind of low grade or resistive solder and this solder may even be tuned for a specific resistivity or frequency limitation like a bandpass filter because when I resolder these headphones cables back on the drivers with silver solder 5% they become way brighter at first you think its too much but even if you are forced to EQ the highs down the EQd down highs will sound better than the resistive solder they put on there and the bass will also have more punch and clarity not just in the highs but in the entire frequency range. So look out for that.
Oh yeah I might as well add this little bit of info as well there is also Gold and OCC Gold but these wires are super expensive and while Im sure they transmit less data(quantum analysis) it does impart a honeyed sound and also gold is the most corrosion proof metal known to man. Ive seen OCC pure silver wires(not just plated copper) with 1% or a few % of gold these are some of the most expensive OCC wires I have seen stratospheric prices even directly from china the 1% probably tones down the silver a little or just provides resistance to tarnish but even oxidized silver is a better conductor than oxidized copper. Remember always seal the end of a nice coated wire with some glue so that air and moisture dont travel inside the often teflon sheath. Mundorf probably considered the top component manufacturer on earth puts 1% gold in their silver wires as well... dont remember if they are OCC tho thats mostly from asian manufacturers. I think the asians are right about OCC and their wire is now superior. I can hear a difference and I think there is also a speed difference ontop of the clarity but I have no way to measure it its just a feeling I have(that ive never taken the time to break down and substantiate exactly why I think this what aspect what stimuli of the resulting system which makes me say this).
I also buy cheap trs jack splitters from china off ebay and tin all the internal brass vias inside with 5% silver solder and it makes them sound a million times better. I would love to read a study testing various levels of silver solder or brazing with silver rod or welding and various concentrations to see where the most performance occurs because if just 5% in solder does so much I think just a small amount of silver atoms greatly increases some aspect of the entire piece. Just like a power cable will make gear sound better you have to remember ac the electrons just go back and forth and electrons travel like 8cm per hour give or take so its just the wave transmitting the data then why does a well constructed power cable make the piece of gear sound better? Better geometry of the wires and more uniformity of electron flow? Pools of electrons? the real audiophile gurus already know allot of these things but the noobs just blow off what they dont understand because its not taught in school but when you play with things in the real world you find these things do work and so there has to be an explanation you are not taught and also basic electricity does not teach you every aspect of a circuit(and all the resulting attributes and specs and readings when you make adjustments). They still discover new things about electricity all the time especially as they shrink electronics smaller and smaller and I'm sorry audiophile gear always sounds far better its easy to hear the difference the first time you listen to it. The devil is always in the details and audiophiles and equipment manufacturers are just people who study these tricks and details and the result is clearer and more engaging sound.
we will ignore shielding for now as you could write a book on that alone
RANKED IN OVERALL ORDER OF IMPORTANCE TO IMPARTING CLEAN AUDIO ACTUALLY MATERIAL IS PROBABLY THE NUMBER ONE FACTOR BUT WE WILL ASSUME THAT WE ARE TALKING METALS ALUMINUM OR BETTER AND ONCE THIS IS ASSUMED THEN LENGTH OF RUN BECOMES THE LARGEST DECIDING FACTOR SO WHILE WITH HIGH CONDUCTANCE METAL WIRE MOST OF THEM WILL SOUND GOOD ESPECIALLY AT SHORT LENGHTHS OVERALL IT IS STILL THE PRIME FACTOR(ITS JUST BECAUSE WE ARE COMPARING THE BEST OF THE BEST OF CONDUCTANCE THAT IT THEN IS NOT THE MOST DECIDING FACTOR BUT COMPARED TO EVERY OTHER MATERIAL THAT WE KNOW OF IT WOULD BE THE NUMBER ONE OVERALL FACTOR BUT OF COURSE PRODUCTS IN THE MARKET ARE NOT MADE OF LOW CONDUCTANCE MATERIALS THUS THE FACTORS BELOW ARE IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE WHEN ALREADY COMPARING THE BEST OF THE BEST OR THE 1% OF THE 1% OF THE 1%(THERE ARE MORE MATERIALS THAN JUST ELEMENTS AND MANY OF THEM ARE POOR CONDUCTORS)
Factors to consider when purchasing wire for audio in the global market:
FACTOR #1 THE LONGER THE RUN OF WIRE THE MORE IT DEGRADES THE SIGNAL FACTOR #2 DIAMETER OF THE WIRE This affects different frequencies differently more cross section the better bass and low frenquency high power drivers are fed thinner cross section better highs down to a point where the driver itself is not getting enough power thicker cross sections shouldnt be used on tweeters cause they can blur the highs. FACTOR #3 MATERIALS OF THE WIRE (copper(never trust gauges given always take a sample of the wire and test it for resistance they did some tests of copper wire and Auvio(now discontinued from radio shack some of the more obscure radio shacks still have it and they have free store to store shIpping) was the best it beat monoprice(which was shist copper weight wise and you see every Digital Infallibilty Computer Weenie telling everyone that spending anymore than monoprice is a total waste of money) and every other brands 12 gauge wire because it had the most weight of copper per foot and thus was the better conductor it even beat out monsters top of the line wire(that whatever monster fancy looking black something speaker wire what monster sells is optical wire jacketing that makes the wire look fat then they put a fancy winding of copper wire inside that looks pretty and may have different coatings to make it contrasty and pretty) which is usually less than 12 guage now(12 awg is known to be a good balance of bass and highs for speakers without becoming more expensive 8 and 10 gauge are better for low frequency speaker power wire but they can muddy the upper frequencies), aluminum(this is only good for grounding and chasis sinks dont use it for audio wire) that cheap copper wire on amazon and ebay and invading car audio is cca copper clad aluminum never use this trash, silver, gold, carbon nano tube, carbon) I havent run into wires made of anything else a good guide for which material is best is a conductance chart on the internet. Obviously we are assuming aluminum or better (carbon is actually superior to aluminum despite its high resistance). Of course this is also where plating(and cladding) belongs remember the electrons repel each other and thus flow on the outside near the surface of the conductor. Avoid cladding it tends to be a sloppy cheap sweatshop technology cut a cladded wire and view the often malformed aluminum copper cladded cross section you will see the aluminum inside is distorted as well as the copper layer even tho it looks uniform on the exterior. FACTOR #4 UNIFORMITY OF THE WIRE( even Van den Hul carbon tube interconnects sound amazing despite high resistance of carbon thus geometry of the wire plays a very important role, OCC is better than OFC of every material and not only is cryotreatment used for audio equipment(contracting the metal and making it more uniform) and wire its also used to strengthen engine parts(contracting the metal improving the grain and strength) in highly boosted engines and racing so only morons scoff at cryotreatment which is a proven technology it does change metal structure on a very fine scale) FACTOR 5 #5 STRANDING OF THE WIRE OR SOLID CORE stranding from the manufacturer is often tuned for durability(more stands means more flexible and less likely to break if the cable if often worn or manipulated) and sound quality(but not always if they have negated certain technologies you can assume this laziness has poisoned their entire design approach) solid core is often considered more clean and less muddied thus stranding while increasing durability also can blur the sound if there are too many strands or the diameter of the strands is too small by the same token it also increases outer surface area for the same cross section which can have power benefits in certain power ranges but is not seen as increasing the max power handling because it is more likely one strand will become overloaded and melt and because the overall heat handling of standed wire is less than(because smaller wires melt far easier but audio is usually well below these levels) that of a solid core wire of the same cross section.
There are many more factors but these are the major ones and many more factors based on application.
Also the recording itself and bitrate matter have you listened to any DSD tracks? I gaurantee you even tho that dsd track was probably recorded on a copper wire xlr mic you will hear a difference between silver plated occ and ofc copper dsd is extremely detailed its what they master sacd from..........
So the way to look at wiring is that you have a source(whether its a recording or other source) and that longer runs of wire and the other factors can only degrade from that ideal that you lose signal and integrity due to physics and distortion(negating interference). And so you will always get more clarity with better wire and the shortest runs required(most people run too much wire cause they want to place a speaker somewhere less than ideal or just for modularity which becomes their deciding factor over "overall possible sound quality" that they could get from their system). Wires are what allow us to pass very clean signal over comparably long distances often much further than connections inside a chasis(not overall but point to point) and so its like throwing a long piece of metal resistor(or in your case an ofc resistor with sloppy grainstructure and tons of boundaries vs an OCC wire which is one single crystal of metal for 250 meters or more) inbetween you and your sound thats why you have to spend the money on wires(you can even upgrade chasis signal and power wires and upgrade the equipment on the inside there are many diy guys who started selling these services online and if you know what your doing and dont ____ up peoples stuff you can make allot of money doing that. Especially people with endgame equipment(the best speakers, sources, amps etc) cause there is nothing else better to purchase all you can do is mod and upgrade the top stuff to make it sound better or add better power cables(it has been stated by many that upgrading the power cord can be a bigger improvement than interconnects assuming you have decent interconnects already).