Hookup wire upgrade while im in there. Yay or Nay?

[porschedpm]

Nice pre-amp, Ian. I'm anxious to hear your impressions.

-Ed

[Ian Mackenzie]

Hi Ed,

I am still getting the feel of it.

The thing to remember is to ground (pin 1) with pin 3 (negative -) for the unbalanced inputs with those links. It works better when you remember.

Using input 4 in passive bypass mode then passing back to active mode I could not detect the X2.5 with the Lavry DAC playing Kind of Blue. The software and the loudspeakers appear the weakest link. Their next.

[spwal]

Um....

I have my impressions, hot out the of box.. finally had a night off to get this done.

I used ZMC in my 1978 Klipsch Heresys. I used the short runs to replace my existing hook-up wire in the mid range and the tweeter.

All i can say is, and i know you will still need a more venerable/accurate description, this cable lived up to its name sake.

I want to say that i am still running the speakers from my crap Home theater reciever, using crap old zipcord that i took from my computer satellite speakers, and i still have the crap binding posts -- yup the tin/steel bolt or whatever it is.

As of now, i want desperately to have some ZMC-equivalent run directly from the crossover to my reciever and just bluetack-up the holes for the binding posts. The reason Zilch didnt give me a run for the Woofer is because he said there are cables better suited for that application.

Zilch: What if, for the speaker wire, i use a whole cablefor the positive, and a whole cable for the negative?

I digress... here is what happened... immediate and noticable lifting of at least one dusty old veil. Immediate increase in clarity, sparkle and luster in the highs without glare or harshness. My soldering skills are improving by the joint and i was totally confident i could do this. Dude, my gf who has been forced to listen to this whole project including doing some heavy lifting godbless her, even remarked that they sounded much more clear and in focus.

I thought the heresys did a great job imaging before, even with the stock cable, the ZMC did a good job of centering that up even more. Alot more treble energy i want to say... I wonder if this will mellow as the cable "breaks-in". cymbals are more cymbal like and i feel that i am hearing the limitations of my reciever more now. This is probably a sign that i need to focus on the woofer now... i am convinced that i need to update the hookup wire there as well, and also get some thicker speaker wire as per the discussion on the cable thread....

To be fair and objective ( beyond my enthusiasm for my new toy and my first self-satisfying foray into DIY) I wonder if ANY new hookup wire would have had a positive effect.... i dont even think that the Klipsch hookup wire in there was copper...

Regardless, I think that the ZMC is great, and given that i only used a tad bit of it in the mid and tweeter and everything else stayed the same, i can definitely say that it was the ZMCs that were having this positive effect.

If your speakers are old and dusty... try some new modern hookup wire, and help realize the full potential of your vintage speakers.

Nice discovery Zilch, please keep the innovations coming.

[Zilch]

Zilch: What if, for the speaker wire, i use a whole cablefor the positive, and a whole cable for the negative?

Reread this post:

http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/s...997#post143997

Edit: Yes, available in 8-pair:

http://bwccat.belden.com/ecat/jsp/In...d&P6=undefined

#1702A

#1703A (Plenum version, FEP insulation)

Next size up is 24 pair.

[Select "Category,5" to see all 96 flavors.... ]

My soldering skills are improving by the joint....

It's not recommended practice to smoke while soldering, but this IS DIY....

[Ian Mackenzie]

Um....

I have my impressions, hot out the of box.. finally had a night off to get this done.

Immediate increase in clarity, sparkle and luster in the highs without glare or harshness. My soldering skills are improving by the joint and i was totally confident i could do this. Dude, my gf who has been forced to listen to this whole project including doing some heavy lifting godbless her, even remarked that they sounded much more clear and in focus.

""cymbals are more cymbal like and i feel that i am hearing the limitations of my reciever more now. Regardless, I think that the ZMC is great, and given that i only used a tad bit of it in the mid and tweeter and everything else stayed the same, i can definitely say that it was the ZMCs that were having this positive effect.""

If your speakers are old and dusty... try some new modern hookup wire, and help realize the full potential of your vintage speakers.

Nice discovery Zilch, please keep the innovations coming.

I tend to agree in that it does not sound hard, yet nuances the fine details in such as way as to be life like.

Ian

[Ian Mackenzie]

Lord Zilch von Cablemaker "ZMC"

Sorry for a delay on my report..a week late.

Over the weekend I arranged a series of evaluations comparing the ZMC cable with the Supra Rondo as detailed above. Some of these evaluations are still in progress.

It is conclusive at this point that the ZMC does makes a difference in comparison to the reference cable (Supra Rondo).


What is the difference?

Initially I was sceptical and wired the horn and slot only (JBL 4345)

I would summmarise my impressions as one of finesse and smoothness without sounding hardened, glarey or having overly detached detail. A certain bloom in the midrange taken to be the norm remained.

See below for more on this.

Then this afternoon I re-wired the mid cone (2122H) via the ZMC cable from the amp. The cabinets were carefully re positioned in the same exact location following these changes and all wiring was doubled checked.

Wow. The bloom and what I would refer to as a superimposed harmonic fuzz is completely gone. All this has been replaced by sheer clarity, purity and a coherent presentation.


Some background.

I have been using this particular speaker setup for some time (3 years) and about 6 months ago I changed everthing around when I bought a equipment cabinet to hold a new amp. I decided it was time to tidy everything up and I re wired the speakers... why not.

Prior to this I was using a single run old flat ribbon made of copper standed wire from the amp to the crossovers. I had been using this cable for years.

I decided to bi wire. Its supposed to work so I shopped around for a neat solution and bought the Supra Rondo stuff which has 4 tinned stranded cores red & black, grey & blue) in a heavy pvc sheath. I would describe this cable as heavy duty.

Anyways, I got it all going and I could not put put my finger on it but something was up. It sounded great but something was odd, it bloomed on the mids in a really odd way. Like a resonant grating character. I managed to tame this to a degree with some Lpad adjustment and some other mods but the effect remained. I wrote off the cause as a resonance from the new equipment cabinet which is between the speakers..a large wooden affair.....bummer.

True biamping eradicated the issue largely....but it has been bugging me for some time to get back the really awesome sound I previously had from the full passive system.

************************************************** *******


As to the reasons for the about face in the results with the different cable arrangement well my thoughts at the moment are that the 4 cores in the Supra Rondo somehow mutually couple and induce modulation from the woofer into the midrange and HF signals. This is just a theory but the subjective thing is for real. Its just chalk and cheese.

While perhaps other cables may provide similar results in this configuration (competely seperate low and HF cables) the results with the ZMC are very impressive and it won't cost you an arm and a leg.

Ian

[Zilch]

Thank you, Ian. That was a lot of effort you put in to achieve controlled conditions, and I'm pleased it resulted in such improvements for you!

I make no claims about ZMC other than the measureable difference in impedance above 400 Hz I have documented here:

http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/s...173#post144173

and that the configuration makes logical sense. As you say, anyone who wants to can easily try it after an inexpensive run to Home Depot.

I do have some thoughts about biwiring and biamping with this, which I'll post here shortly.

I believe you are correct about inductive coupling in bundled cables. More on that then....

[Ian Mackenzie]

Thanks Zilch,

I make no assumptions in this business and today was quantum leap forward in terms of getting the best out of my system. Now that new gear's really got the jump on the road to audio nirvana.

The improvement just reinforces my belief that JBL is the only choice and it deserves everything you can throw at it.

Ian

[spwal]

I concur... it was a huge improvement over the hookup wire that was previously in my Klipsch. I need to re-throw-in the disclaimer that I did not A/B it against an "aftermarket" hookup wire. I do want to stress however that it really was a delightful improvement, and a great saturday afternoon project for anyone interested in trying it! I can confirm that they have plenty of cat5 cable down at the depot as i was there yesterday.

thanks again,

sean

[Hoerninger]

... I do have some thoughts about biwiring and biamping with this, which I'll post here shortly.
I believe you are correct about inductive coupling in bundled cables. More on that then....

It is a good idea to make some comparable investigations, I would like to follow. Some thoughts ahead:

Although cables seem to be a myth, for ingenieurs they are not. There are cables from DC up to some THz (Tera) and they may be quite lengthy. But the electroacoustic coupling of speakers and the deviding network make things complicated sometimes.

Two wires forming a closed circuit make an inductor, its inductivity can be kept at minimum if the wires are close together. Two wires in parallel form a capacitor, the capacitance can be kept lower if the wires are at a greater distance. - The demands are contradictory.
The lower the dielectric coefficient the lower the capacity. I have seen a cable which seemed to consist of three wires. But the middle was only filled with air to keep the dielectric coefficient low. I don't know whether it is worth the effort. Some amplifiers have an inductor in the output made of ca. 20 cm copper wire with 0,3 mm diameter to overcome a capacitative load.

A cable can be simulated by chaining a network of inductors, capacitors and resistors. In a general view all parts are frequency dependend (consider in series skineffect, in parallel dielectric). Take the circuit of the picture several times in series ... and then follows the deviding network.

To make things even worse, a complex load can have a significant influence on the frequency dedendend gain of an amplifying stage, which effects the the overload behaviour, sometimes even feedback stability.

Nevertheless the choice of cables is made simple for me: Short. thick, cheap. The WAF for place and size of a speaker has a far more important influence on sound (for me). To be serious, I should concider overhauling my deviding networks and turn over to biwiring, if my writing here has any sense. I'm interested in the following here.
___________
Peter

[Zilch]

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but In virtually all of my DIY crossovers, I install four input terminals, two each for LF and HF (MF/HF), allowing separate connections to those sections. This may seem pointless, since I do not also provide means to bypass the filters themselves for true biamping. Indeed, they generally run jumpered here, somewhat of an inconvenience in connecting systems. The reason? Aside from allowing easy independent access to each section for test and measurement purposes, this configuration permits biwiring.

In it's simplest form, i.e., separate cables for LF vs. HF running from a single amp to speakers, biwiring accrues little respect from the audio community. However, if we accept the premise that different cable types may be better suited to carrying different frequencies, then there is clearly merit in designing accordingly. Several higher-end JBL systems incorporate this feature.

ZMC, actually Cat5e cable reconfigured as described above, seems to be a suitable choice for HF. Equivalent to 18 awg, it can carry the requisite current over reasonable lengths. I recently read in a reference 100 ft maximum for that wire size; it's certainly good for 1/10 that.

I think we've gone stupid with rope-sized LF cables. From the numbers and the measurements, 16 awg is adequate for LF in the lengths commonly used for home systems, and I have suggested a doubled-up configuration of 4-pair Cat5e as an option, and referenced an 8-pair version, as well. These would be more appropriate for a single cable running full range to each speaker, though. I don't see any major advantage in using ZMC just for LF when the HF is blocked by the filter.

So, now we've got at least two cables running from the amp to each speaker. Is it O.K. to bundle them? I haven't confirmed with testing, but the twisted-pair of ZMC should confer considerable immunity to coupling between the LF and HF cables, but that needs to be verified. Ian has documented the perils of bundling conventional cable, above.

I also find an interesting composite cable among the Belden offerings, product 5288US (FEP-insulated plenum version 6288US,) which may be worth a try. It's 4-pair Cat5e plus a pair of 16 awg conductors separately run (not co-mingled) and bonded.

Biwiring is not restricted to using a single amp. Some prefer running different amps, indeed, different amp types (tube or chip vs. solid state,) for HF vs LF, as distinct from true biamping including an active crossover before the amps. In this case, both amps are driven by the same full-range signal, but the passive filters at the speaker only draw current at the appropriate frequencies through the cables, and the cabling schemes described above may be appropriately applied....