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Hello all!!!
I am just positing here. I am building a modified Bottlehead Foreplay III pre- and have questions regarding the hook-up wire. The kit comes with solid-core, twisted pair wire, teflon coated with drain wire. I have pretty much upgraded all the caps (obbligato and black gate), rca jacks (WBT), many resistors (vishay), IEC inlet (Furutech rhodium), fuse and holder (ACME silver cryo holder and Hifi tuning fuse) and am now looking at the hook-up wire. I was wondering if using DH Labs BL-1 could work. It is interconnect wire, but has nearly all the same specs. It is shielded, silver-coated OFC copper with a drain wire. The only thing is that it is not twisted pair (I don't think it is twisted, anyway). The other option I was looking at was making my own, but would surely rather use an off-the-shelf option.
Any ideas or suggestions out there? Do you think that the hook-up wiring is even that important? (I surely do, but that's me).
Please advise
Follow Ups:
...that some very highly regarded amps like the Shindos and Yamamotos may contain Dale resistors and Illinois Capacitor caps? Or that the rave-reviewed Leben amps (pictured above) have some pretty ordinary-looking RCA jacks (Not even individually chassis-mounted!). As a matter of fact, the only audiophile-approved part that I recognize inside that Leben amp are what appear to be Elna Silmic capacitors, the small brown ones with gold lettering. At most, they might cost a bucks apiece.
So don't automatically poo-poo a 10-cent part just because it doesn't have a pedigree!
Mine are barely viewable and yours is sublime. I could diagram it from this! ;-) Nice build quality too.
My experience is that an improved design is worth a whole lot more than improved parts. So maybe they just don't feel the urge or they think that these ARE the better parts from their experience.
> > what appear to be Elna Silmic capacitors < < <
Hi,
This is a bit OT, but I got some 25V Elna Silmic II's from digikey that have white labeling instead of the gold labeling pictured above. Hmm, I hope Elna just changed their labeling a bit as I don't think digikey would ever mistakenly source caps that are knock-offs.
FWIW, apart from the Rikens already mentioned below there are those small Oscons in there too, and some polyprop couplers tweaked with some sort of shielding wrap.
fred
Those resistors with gold leads look like Riken's to me. By the way, great photo!
Wish I could take credit for the photo (wish I could try a Leben!), but I simply linked to Leben's web site.
those blue cylinders with gold plated leads are Riken resistors( maybe they lost their 'phile star-status? )
cheers,
Douglas
Friend, I would not hurt thee for the world...but thou art standing where I am about to shoot.
I have a friend who swears by the rikens. I'm too cheap to try them. I didn't care for the kiwame when I tried them. Huntington are worth a try. The 5 watters are mills under another name if you ask me. But what do I know, I think the rat shack carbon films are okay:)
Better layout than most on the above pictured amp.
Russ
Yup, and get em while there still around.
I would not use them everywhere, especially where there's any sort of loading. The carbon does break down and becomes unstable. (don't recall the exact phrase or concept it's been a long time).
Grid',s grid stopper, cathode in phono and line stage,series/shunted volume pots.... That's the picture. I also tried Kiwame and yanked them after a fair breakin time. Mills,Shinkoh and Tant's are the other two that I use exclusively. Heck they're not all that expensive in the bigger picture, compared to a hunk of iron.:-)As indicated, the other's aren't bad, but an A/B test leaves no doubt except of course, the back pocket speaks out at some point.:-)
I've found a greater sonic signature to be had from resistor swaps than caps. IMHE.
hey-Hey!!!,
The RS carbon's are pretty nice. I've also gotten good results with Kwamee's, and also the 1W Xicon. I also like the pale green enameled WW stuff I've pulled from old equipment. I also liked the Dale WW, as well as the super-spensive 2W Mills.
cheers,
Douglas
Friend, I would not hurt thee for the world...but thou art standing where I am about to shoot.
It looks like you got mugged.
What exactly is the deal with pimping your gear like that? And what do you expect from a piece of wire, that at worst still is million times better than any capacitor?
I have used the DH Labs BL-1 in several projects. It is very easy to use, flexible, great construction and sounds fantastic. I have used it for interconnects as well as chassis wiring.
The Belden 8450 wire family supplied by Bottlehead has been around for at least 40 years. Trillions of feet have been used in recording studios, radio stations, TV facilities, audio visual systems, and countless other non audio applications.Being that it is the defacto wire for balanced analog audio any CD,DVD, and most certianly LP you listen too has gone through at least a thousand feet of the stuff.
What do you hope to change by upgrading the last foot of it in your preamp? This is the analog wire of choice for multi million dollar studio systems. Don't you think that engineering group would use something else if there were a difference in performance?
8450 - solid core drain and foil shield
8451 - stranded core drain and foil shield
9450 - solid core with bonded foil shield (the foil breaks away with the jacket allowing faster termination)
9451 - samew as above in stranded
Edits: 10/20/08 10/20/08 10/20/08
If you're running balanced all the way from phono cart or D/A converter into your amps, then you can easily get away with this wire. Studios do it as it saves money and works well enough for balanced topology. Not excellent, well enough.
If you're running Single-Ended into S.E. amplifiers, you need something that is far better.
A good example is the Lynx L-22 studio sound card. Designed primarily for balanced application, it comes equipped with studio-style "breakout" cables. You can run the card in Single-Ended mode if you do it right, but the sound is lackluster-- about the same as a common CD player-- with the supplied "studio" wiring.
But WAIT! That card is capable of really superior sound-- even in S.E. mode, which I now prefer. But NOT through the supplied studio wiring. Simply make up some output interconnects from Kimber or Siltech multistrand silver, and watch the card outperform the competition.
Incidentally, while you're at it, you can install some jelled "dots"-- Marigo, etc., on the tiny capacitors and small-signal solid-state devices on this board, and observe better performance yet. In fact, even with the stock (oops- "multimillion dollar" studio) parts-- it can be very good.
Of course, if all you want is ordinary "studio" CD sound, you can get that by running the card as it comes, with its "studio" wiring. Trouble is-- what a comedown THAT is!
---Dennis---
And just what are these supposed to do stuck on top of solid state components on a PC board? That is other than being a nice warm blanket to retard convection cooling. How exactly do they improve sonic performance?Lets also not forget most surface mount components have exposed solder tags on their ends. What is the capacitance of the Marigo dot adhesive? What does that do stuck across a 20pf cap in the PLL circuit of an digital audio circuit? Yeah, I'll bet that does change the sonics but is hardly an improvement!
I looked at that site. What a bunch of quackery.
Edits: 10/21/08 10/21/08 10/21/08
I see what you mean. I don't think recommendations for silly things like like that belong on this forum. We're too down-to-earth to fall for that sort of thing but some of the other forums in AA might prove more fertile ground, from what I've seen.
For the critical type of work we do with our gear I would be more inclined use a Lynx card by taking the digital stream via the AES/EBU output and running it into a higher quality DAC like a Pacific Microsonics Model 2. Only after I had taken care of issues of this level of significance with respect to the sonic quality would I play with cables. But then I drink gin that I make myself, not someone else's Kool-aid.
The D/A on that LYNX L-22 card is better than we thought-- if it's run and terminated properly-- it can really be a pleasant surprise. You do need a superior power supply in your computer to get it to work right, and load ternimation is critical as one would expect..
Of course, one can go MAC, and use Firewire also. Good software for MAC-Apple computers is certainly out there, so you don't have to use a PC unless you want to..
I have run the cards digital-out into a Mytek Stereo 96 outboard converter-- in Myteks "Superlock" mode. It is musical, friendly, clean, dynamic. It lacks that LAST BIT of musical layering that spells "you are there". I can get that out of the Lynx on-board D/A when everything is right.
I don't pretend that this is the ultimate in digital. Buy me an Antelope clock, and the really big $ stuff and we can go further....
But this is very practical. It's affordable and usable. It beats all but the very best in L.P., which is still-- but only slightly-- the best. That takes $ also, and at a show, can give variable performance-- especially if someone other than yourself handles a tonearm and stylus!.
Then, too, MOST L.P.s are real junk! Just like today-- a lot of the best music was poorly recorded... We all have our well-recorded vinyls. Too bad it's not practical to use it much. That will change as we record vinyl at 192KHZ/64 bits. It will probably play back at 32 bits.
I like to play ordinary CDs at shows (from a hard-drive)... The object is not to show off, it is to enjoy music that people can actually buy at their record store, or online, and show that it can really be pretty darn good if approached properly with good speakers and amplifiers.
The best advantage of all is that it is music that you can buy right now-- and most of it is being produced right now.
To me, that beats playing antiques all the time. I play both, but I never quit enjoying the latest and best musicians.
The best bands, orchestras and singers are still using mostly common record labels, and are still in your common record stores-- on CDs. When GOOD music starts appearing on audiophile labels, I'll pay some attention to it, but not until I really see it happen. It hasn't yet.
That leaves us with common CDs, and online downloads.
The Lynx card I am using has its outputs via a "D" connector, so I would place high priority on whatever digital cable one uses to get into the Pacific D/A, or other converter.
Pacific Microsonics is also a fave of mine-- glad to hear you like them, as I do.
---Dennis---
Nope, not even the grape Kool-aid.
Don't start the "which digital audio cable sounds best". This is not a cables forum. Here we stick to engineering theory.And explain to me what "superior" PC power supply you use? They are all switch mode technology and abide by none of your pet power supply theories. Why now is a crude switch mode supply OK for an AtoD or DtoA converter? At the bottom of this page you are saying how important the AC power quality is for the SOURCE components. How a few millivolts of variation can make vast differences in what is heard. But here you claim you get the absolute best performance from a switching power supply with 20mv of 120hz ripple and chock full of wide band noise to boot!
Oh and lets not forget a PC power is regulated. Beyond that there may be additional switch mode and linear regulators on that audio card. What happened to your "regulation sounds bad" idea?
Once again you are talking out both sides of your mouth!
Edits: 10/21/08 10/21/08
AES or any form of digital audio is not affected by the quality of the PC's power supply. Well it can affect the clock jitter spec but let's not go there as it's very easy to fix that.
But quality analog audio circuits inside a PC? No good! It's fine to play the noon news webcast through you PC speakers but that's about it.
Taking AES to an outboard DAC the way to go. Some outboard DACS also can stream in realtime audio over USB or even Ethernet. Some older units I have worked with use the parallel (printer) port. A standard serial port is not nearly fast enough to support quality digital audio.
So you are saying that by using your five feet magic wire you can undo the effetcs of hundreds of feet of plain old wire the mastering facility used? How can you make the playback media better than it was recorded in the first place?Next you tout some buss based sound card as the holy grail? This shows yet more of your lack of expereince. You can never get high quality analog audio form an internal computer card. The supply rails are far too noisey and the inside of the computer is saturated with EMI and RFI. High quality studo grade analog to PC interfaces always process the analog in a seperate box and send parallel, USB or Ethernet to the computer.
You crow on around here about your perfect power supplies then you think the rails of a PC are just fine to feed a analog audio circuit?
Edits: 10/21/08 10/21/08
I have one of these and the real-world performance (for measuring) is excellent. It has S/N ratio of over 110dB (actual performance, not just on paper), so no problem there.
We have a few at work too but they are running AES not analog but I am familier with the product.I'm sure the analog performance is very good. This is a solid product. My issue with the above posts is the tweaking of the device be installing expesive cables versus the factory supplied cables.
Personally and professionally think replacing the factory cables with esoteric cables is hogwash. But the irony here is someone is so worried about five feet of assumed bad wire yet the card sits inside a very hostile EMI/RFI enviornment and is further being fed power from a dirty switching supply in parallel with countless didgital logic gates switching at random intervals across the entire audio spectrum.
It's like "I don't understand that issue so therefore it doesn't exist". If you are after the absolute best analog performance you should not be using the on board DA converters in the first place.
Then we are advised to place some magic audiophile adhesive dots on the PC board components to fix all the ills. What's that crap?
Edits: 10/22/08
Now we're into computers! Read my reply to DOC B-- it will help you understand. Remember, the average guy has to BUY this stuff, and we are not going to do right by him if we saddle him with tons of computer gobbledy-gook.
People are far too smart-- and busy-- to spend their lives inside computers.
We are all aware that whatever we are using for music servers will be totally obsolete within a week or so. That is how computers evolve.
I mentioned that running a D/A converter inside a computer is an R.F. infested mess in earlier posts. You can run an outboard unit (which I have done), or you can run the in-board unit with careful attention being paid to wire routing, power supply quality, R.F. absorbing materials, and the liberal use of R.F. chokes in the right places. I do all of that also.
So what? Does that make you or myself a computer expert? I'm afraid not! We're merely users of a technology that's changing faster than we can buy the circuit cards.
I say, if it works well use it, if it doesn't, then don't be surprised.
That's an intelligent approach, and I will continue to use it.
---Dennis---
I work with advanced computer technology daily. I am in the video / film business. We have some pretty fancy computers. I hold a major in EE and a minor in Comp Sci. So yes I know a bit about computers and electrical engineering.
Edits: 10/21/08
Okay,
I really didn't mean to insult anyone (gusser) as to the quality of the wire. I just didn't know what it was. The Foreplay is a quality kit, just thought good results could be gained by "kickin it up a notch". Anyway, thanks for the info, I really appreciate seeing Doc B weighing in here. It would appear, then, that there is really no need to worry about the wiring, I'll just proceed with the work then.
I'm just trying to save you money by pointing out the supplied cable has been endorsed by industry professionals for the past 40 years. Not many products have a life span like that.
You have a choice here as does everyone. You can listen to the professional here that practice electronics for a living or you can listen to the hacks that propose putting jelly dot (or what ever it was) on your components.
Your choice!
Hack? "I resemble that remark." :> )) Still, I'm no stranger to Physics.
40 years for the Belden cable is quite good. However, it pales when compared with the 6L6. The 6L6 has been produced continually since RCA introduced it.
Eli D.
Could be longer. I know the stuff was around in the early 1960s. They have modified the plastics used over the years but the origional specs are still the same.
It looks like you've been pretty careful about your parts selection. Definately go for the extended kit if possible. I would say that you could probably do without the Black Gates, there is a growing camp that prefers the Panasonics in many positions. Definately put good money into the coupling caps, and maybe some 9 pin teflon sockets. Have you also grabbed some Goldpoint Attenuators/Input selector?
Black Gates are PS caps, all other are highly regarded Obbligato aluminum film in copper caps. I have ceramic sockets for all tubes, do you think teflon is a good investment? I have some nice DIY 24 position attenuators using vishay-dale resistors. Still stock input selector. Obviously I haven't skimped on parts, but the Goldpoint selector is like $60 and I wonder if it is really worth it.
FWIW, I've used Teflon 9-pin sockets from DIY HiFi and boy are they a pain - pins are very close and require more of a wire wrap technique. So, if you use them be sure to have a good magnifiying glass and tiny pliers. Of course, could be my eyes/dexterity is at fault, but I don't think so. IIRC, they also needed a different size hole.
The shielded solid core twisted pair cable in the kit is not Teflon insulated, it is Belden 8450 mic cable, polypropylene insulated, 22AWG, 100% shield, PVC jacket. The hook up wire is Teflon insulated.
Had it backward, then. Thanks for the reply, Doc.
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