In Reply to: My Imprssions of Duelund DCA16GA for Speaker Wire and Belden 8402 for Interconnects posted by jnr on August 26, 2016 at 14:43:54:
I have followed Jack Roberts' writings at Dagogo for some time and I have a genuine respect for his opinions. His priorities in sound reproduction seem to match mine pretty consistently. However, I reached different conclusions about the Duelund DCA16GA wire.
First of all, my Duelund wires are 2M long, lightly twisted, with bare ends, i.e. no spades or other terminations, and have over 100 hours of use. I tried them with two sets of speakers---high efficiency Jensen/Altecs (98db, 16 ohms) and Spendor SP-100 speakers (90db, 8 ohms)---and with two sets of push-pull tube amps. The Duelunds replaced my usual Wireworld Eclipse speaker cables. Interconnects were both my usual Wireworld Eclipse II and Belden 8402. [Details at end.]
The Wireworld Eclipse combination sounds much better, to my ears, than the Duelund/8402 combo. The Eclipse is not only more detailed, more truthful in tonal colors, and more dynamic, but it also conveys more of the emotion in my favorite recordings which makes the Eclipse more interesting and more fun to listen to. By contrast the Duelund (with either the 8402 or the Eclipse interconnects) has a homogenizing effect; it obscures subtle differences in tonal color and dynamics. The Duelund does not sound bad but when it is connected instruments such as trombone, tenor sax and piano do not have as natural and realistic timbre as when the Eclipse cables are connected.
The Duelund wire does sound better than the Western Electric 16g being more neutral in tonal balance and more detailed, but the two wires suffer from the same types of problems.
Of course, this is just one person's opinion. And given Jack's favorable reactions, I would not discourage anyone from trying the Duelund wires. They are so reasonably priced that it isn't much of a risk. But please don't dispose of your regular cables. Keep them so you can try them again after you are thoroughly used to the Duelunds. You may just find that you like the old ones better.
***My Wireworld speaker cables are the original copper Eclipse, back before there was a Series #, purchased new in the mid-1990s. I have tried a number of other speaker cables over the years and haven't found anything I like better. My interconnects are copper Eclipse Series II which I found to be slightly better sounding than the original model. Since buying them I have tried many other interconnects including more recent Wireworlds but I still like the copper Eclipse II the best.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- Another perspective - Salectric 10:57:44 08/29/16 (12)
- RE: Another perspective - Mick Wolfe 14:47:31 08/29/16 (11)
- I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - jnr 17:26:31 08/29/16 (10)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - Mick Wolfe 08:51:20 08/30/16 (9)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - pc123v 11:13:57 08/30/16 (8)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - Mick Wolfe 13:08:02 08/30/16 (0)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - mitch2 12:13:22 08/30/16 (6)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - ahendler 15:35:20 08/30/16 (5)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - pixelphoto 17:28:33 08/31/16 (4)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - pc123v 12:12:07 09/02/16 (2)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - pixelphoto 13:58:02 09/02/16 (1)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - pc123v 12:37:42 09/03/16 (0)
- RE: I want to make it perfectly clear that there are cables . . . - ahendler 20:34:10 08/31/16 (0)