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Any opinions ?
I just made the CAT 5 on a lark seeing as I'm the curious type, like fiddling with stuff and thought it would be an interesting experiment. I started with 24 AWG, teflon, plenum CAT 5 I found at home Depot and some simple gold plated spades from Rat Shack.It also just so happens I use SPM having bought it shortly after its introduction and have already compared it to Cardas Golden Cross, Synergistic Resolution Reference & Designers Reference, Discovery Signature, Marigo, Ensemble and a few other I forget at the moment. The SPM alsways sounded the least like wire of anything I tried, as all the others sounded like overtly colored filters which quickly drove me batty with additive sonic characters.
It took me 2 evenings to make the CAT 5 and I then burned it in for about 4 days straight before starting to listen. My speakers are the Von Schweikert VR6s and the amps are Thor TPA 30s. I also had a dual pair of Synergistic Resolution Reference on loan from my dealer just for grins as I was already experimenting with an all Synergistic line-up since just replacing my Quatro Fil interconnects with the new Designer Reference interconnects with Active Shielding (WOW! - but that's another story).
I took Chris / Jons excess capicitance caution to heart and made a biwire pair using the smaller 9 pair configuration on the mid tweet arrays while doing the full 27 pair versions for the woofer modules. All terminations were done via crimp rather than solder.
OK so how does it sound?
We'll I'll start with the comparison to the Resolution Reference biwire pair. The Res Ref was rather amazingly more colored with an exageratedly bloomy midband that gave a slightly cartoonish quality to vocals which came across as overblown, unreal and distinctly colored. This is a character I have associated with every Synergistic speakler cable I've ever heard save for the Designers Reference. The thing is, the 2 pair of 6 foot Res Refs required for biwiring sticker for around $3,600! The bi wired CAT 5 was slightly more electronic in character than the Synergistics but was less overtly colored overall than the Synergistics. In fact the CAT 5 was a bit more transparent, lacked a bit of the curiously thick air the Res Ref fills the soundstage with that seems to get between you and the original event. I know it will spound crazy, but given their respective limitations I found it easier to suspend disbelief and get lost in the music with the CAT 5s and given the choice thats the cable I would use if forced to choose from these two candidates. Not bad for a cable I built a biwired pair of for around $47 in materials.
Now on to the real challenge - how do the CAT 5s fare against the SPMs? First a little bit on the SPMs. I bought these cables after an extensive search a few years back for a cable that didn't do the sort of thing the Res Refs I described above did. In short I wanted a cable that was transparent, full bodied, well balanced, grainless and lacking from obvious additive colorations (Hey, I dont want much out of life!) and after comparing to lots of wire this was the only one that came close. In its most basic terms listening throuigh the SPMs is like not having a cable at all. If I had to ascribe a character to it it sould be trransparent, open, effortless and notably lacking in additive colorations. So how did the CAT 5s fare in comparison? Well lets get the minuses out of the way right off - they didnt equal the SPMs. Most notable was a slight added grain and emphasis in the lower treble which created that electronic character I alluded to earlier. In addition there were a few subtractive issues as well. The CAT 5s just didnt have the authority in the bass or ultimate extension on top of the SPMs either. OK, so what did they do right? Well, if you listen past the limitations I mentioned above you will hear a basic clarity and freedom form congestion within the soundstage more cables than not suffer from. And the basic "character" of the cable owed more to the SPM thant the overblown Synergistics. In short - a pleasant surprise. Particularly given the price. Now there's no way I could use them in place of the SPMs, but keep in mind the SPMs cost much, much more. If I had the snuff I'd buy the SPMs 10 times out of 10, but if I was on a cable budget under $1000 I'd make the CAT 5s and compare them to all commercial alternative I was considering before buying anything else. Hey, there's always the basic system synergy issue where they might not match your gear, but within the context of their personality they are competitve with wildly more expensive ready made alternatives.
Oh yes, how about compared to the Nordost Red Dawns? Well I've had those cables in house in the past too, though I didnt have them in house now for a direct comparison. My memory of the Red Dawns is rather vivid however, as I regard them as the weak link in Nordosts product line, sounding distinctly bright to the point of being unbalanced. Certaily brighter than the sound I heard out of the CAT 5s if my memory serves me.
joe
Hi,This post is not actually a reply but does definitely relate to these cables.
I am most definitely not an audiophile. I would like to be, but my equipment does not permit it. I live in Australia, and not in one of the two major cities, so quality audio equipment is hard to come by and the price is phenomenal. My (quite s**tty) system is as follows:
Yamaha RV-1105 A/V receiver
Polk RT-55 Bookshelves
Toshiba SD-2109 DVD player (using the Yamaha's DACs tho)
M&K V75-MKII Subwoofer
bottom of the line interconnects :-)
nasty copper speaker cable (dunno what ga.) that costs $10 AU/meterNow, I can pick up on many sonic flaws in my system, and I sometimes *hate* the way it sounds. My question is, would my system, being as it is, benefit from the use of these speaker cables and Chris's DYI interconnects? Or would they simply serve to clarify its shortcomings?
Thanks for any and all help,
Stu
Sorry, can't pass that one up, I went to Home Depot today looking for some teflon Cat and couldn't find any info on the box or from customer service if the insulation was teflon of not. It had a blue outer jacket, twisted 2 pair 24 ga solid copper. Do you still remember the mfg name and part # of what you bought ? Thanks
Seeking the elusive Teflon Cat...
Kelly
Actually I dont have any of the insulated stuff left with the part # on it. Check the section where they have bulk cable on the spool where you can buy by the foot. It was on a spool and its jacket was blue. I found a few boxed things there but I'm not convinced they were (read: pretty sure they weren't) teflon. If you find it on the spool it should be around $ .35 a foot. Take the cut end and pull back the outer insulation and take a close look at the wires themselves. The individual conductors inside should have transluscent insulation thats hard & shiny. Oh yeah, the colors will be pastels - if its dull or satin in finish, very opaque (very solid colors) and soft enought you can easily strip it with your fingernail it aint teflon.Hope this helps
joe
Hi Joe. Not bad, considering the competition! :-) Could you please tell us a bit more about your system (source, digital/analog), the music you listen to, and you room? I can't help but wonder what would happen if you increased the ga. to 2- 9 pair braids (each braid twisted around each other) on the mid/tweets? I found that when I was biwiring my Audio Physic Tempos (older version), they were REAL fussy about the # of pairs on the hi-end- too few or too many pairs and the sound deteriorated substantially. The Legacy Focus I had weren't quite as fussy, but then again, I wasn't thrilled with those speakers to begin with. If you get bored, you might want to experiment. Thanks for posting your thoughts.
Front end is digital - CEC TL2 with G&D Transforms mods & the Thor DC 1000 tube output DAC (not bright or typically digital). Music - female vocals (Patty Larkin, Jonatha Brooke), some rock, classical & film scores. Actually the whole thing is on the memebers system page...joe
nt
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