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Yesterday was the most satisfying listening I have ever done here in this house with this gear in over 12 years here. In the last couple of years the final tweaks have really paid dividends: more room acoustic treatments, better digital playback from cabling and music server among the primary changes.
Yesterday took another level perhaps from two things I did change: I implemented the final piece of DIY 14 gauge copper foil speaker cable to the LF side of my bi-amp and the other is I now unplug the laptop PS that my wife is almost always using in the same room as I listen.
The last few times I have unplugged the PS and HF is much smoother and the difference is easy to hear. Just yesterday the final piece of DIY speaker cable was installed and the image improved a lot in both size and coherence. The image got bigger but the mono image dead center also improved and the way it was presented was much better. Pans where part of the music travels from channel to channel "tracked" much better with no dead spots or holes. It was a whole new experience where image integrity was concerned.
ET
Follow Ups:
Great to hear ET! That is the wonderful end-result of our hobby.
Been using it for years and have no desire to go spend silly money for something silly.
Above 500 hz Chris Sommovigo's tubular copper wire. I cannot imagine it being bettered.
What have you used to seal the foil? I have used my standby 3M Blue Painters Tape - never gets hard and stays in intimate contact with the foil. The two lengths just hang from amp to speaker - no attempt is made to control their relationship to each other.
I used masking tape too. In my system (I may have said) I felt it improved HF most although both improved.
ET
the aforementioned Mr. Sommovigo said that the foil is not optimum and gave me a couple of lengths of the tubular copper wire and it was much better.
Beware of typical masking tape - it will get hard and lose contact with the foil and then you have oxidation. I have cables made with 3M Blue that are over fiver years old and still flexible and fully in contact with the foil.
I had attempted making interconnects by splitting the foil and did not find it to work as well as I hoped it would.
Of course, all credit for the foil idea goes to Allen Wright. I had used his silver foils for years but slowly (and surely) tired of the silver sound.
I like the wire that VDHAudio is selling. It is not getting on my nerves, yet. AS with all in audio, it will eventually. It is a convention round wire with an unusual jacket. Easy to use ...
"I like the wire that VDHAudio is selling. It is not getting on my nerves, yet. AS with all in audio, it will eventually."
You have my sympathy... Really. Over the years I've had plenty of things get on my nerves too but have been largely free of such for many years now and it is good. I'm free to listen to the music without fretting about the system. I know it sounds trite, but there you have it.
I'm still fascinated with home audio, but I appreciate being satisfied (enough) with my system that I don't have the urge to thrash it. On the other hand playing with systems can be fun and is (IMHO) a valid pastime in it's own right.
In my experience time-domain problems are usually the root of mysterious dissatisfactions. Things that bother you despite the fact that your system seems to sound good. And they can occur all over the place: in components, cables, speakers even rooms. Naturally they all show up in the frequency domain also but typically not very clearly unless you know in advance what the problem is then look for the spectral artifacts of it. My understanding is that our ears have essentially special circuits to sort out transients, like twig snaps in the jungle, that have a high survival value. If those get accidently activated listening to music then satisfaction is hard to come by.
You need to control near-field defractions from your speakers (and their immediate environment), electrical reflections on your cables, input bandwidth in your amplifiers and dielectric absorption in the electronics.
Piece of cake...
If you happen to have a reasonably fast scope, ie > 10MHz and function generator (or even just build a little prop-delay oscillator from a TTL gate), you can sort out what your stuff is doing in time. I will be surprised if you don't find it helpful.
I love our hobby, it seems so simple but...
Regards, Rick
You wrote,
"You have my sympathy... Really. Over the years I've had plenty of things get on my nerves too but have been largely free of such for many years now and it is good. I'm free to listen to the music without fretting about the system. I know it sounds trite, but there you have it."
A lot of the early pioneers traveling west in covered wagons got a little sick of all the traveling and decided to cash their chips in and stay in Indiana, Missouri or Kansas or wherever. Not that there's anything wrong with that. ;-)
Thanks for the follow up.
ET
I do the same with copper foil between Blu Ray player and headphone amplifier.
poster and OP{ are talking about foil for speaker cable.
What are you writing about?
Streamers. This is Tweakers, isn't it? Maybe we can combine Tweakers and Cables. LolActually, now that I think about it my interconnects are tubes, too. You know, anaysis plus.
Edits: 03/30/14
I rarely go to the CABLES forum since I cannot remember ever seeing a post about DIY.
I go there so seldom I may have missed them.
I think most ready made cables are made by the same people doing the global warming scare stuff. The narratives seem very similar to me.
Good to know you are not concerned about global warming, which is why your children will need to move to high ground eventually.
I really do not want to know.
But if I had children I would get them to ride the back of a polar bear since they are excellent swimmers.
Please ignore my posts in future; you might consider doing your part and get rid of those wasteful amplifiers you use.
Nt
I will have to look up what this is.
_
Just tried and don't see anything that is wire.
More explanation please.
Mapleshade's ground plane ribbons are "streamers."
Has anyone used those Mapleshade Streamers and heard "startling" improvements? I am not being facetious. I have the highest regard for Pierre Sprey, but sometimes he is given to hyperbole, IMO.
You wrote,
"Has anyone used those Mapleshade Streamers and heard "startling" improvements? I am not being facetious. I have the highest regard for Pierre Sprey, but sometimes he is given to hyperbole, IMO."
I think the whole idea is the cat's pajamas.
Do you know what he is covering his foil with?
Looks like the same foil as the inductors but with a plastic covering. Plastic, BAD is my first reaction.
From what the fellow who came up with this idea (Bud Purvine as far as I know) opined that a cotton covering was part of the scheme.
One would need to first coat the foil with shellac (my favorite coating) to slow oxidation and then place between lengths of cotton cloth for the best effect. Of course, Purvine also found it best to form a loop which is not clear if this has been done from the photo. Maybe MAPLESHADE found it was not necessary?
Whether to use foil or litz wire? Cotton cloth or not? I thought these were questions with settled answers. I should know better. Nonetheless it would be interesting to hear Mr. Purvine's assessment of this.
claimed that wire surface area was critical. His recommendation was to use litz since it has a large surface area. I have utilized his ideas using 4 inch wide copper foil with very good results. Looping did sound better, BTRW.
Streamers are not the same thing as ground loops. The far ends of the streamers are left unattached as per Mapleshade's description. I don't know what he coats the foil with. I do not coat mine.
Edits: 04/01/14
Gonna make me some streamers.
Be interesting to see if they make a difference used in conjunction with the EVS Ground Enhancers used on my amp.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" - Michael McClure
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