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Single Ended Triodes (SETs), the ultimate tube lovers dream.

RE: 13 ga. Siltech ...

Great questions/ideas.

That old Siltech was LS-38, and some more modern variants.
This wire annihilated the solid VS multistrand headache that
has plagued builders for over a Century.

Totally laid waste to it, and a bunch of other pet theories too...

Using solid wires? Then, accept notchy bandwidth anomalies---
solid wire tunes according to length and diameter. Works
fine in a Radio.... not so much in High Fidelity. Don't forget
"skin-effect"-- it's very real, and more prevalent as wire
diameter increases. Solid wire is very coherent, but alas!
It, alone is only one tool of many, it's not High Fidelity.

Multistrand? Copper oxidizes, giving us diode-like effects...
Strands rub together, giving us less coherency and a more
mushy, bloated, gutless sound. Use silver? Silver tarnishes.
Fortunately, silver tarnish has nowhere near the horrible
effects of oxidized copper-- so it isn't AS bad...

Enter George Cardas, the man who tames copper multistrand.
George has his own metals refining in California. Cardas Litz
has individual strands that can't rub together-- they're
coated with a dielectric. Want to hear copper perform?

Siltech added some Gold to their silver metallurgy-- an
amalgam was the result. Solder is also an amalgam.

Their silver/gold metal does not tarnish, so has no diode-
effects. Sounds just like a solid wire in that you have no
non-coherent side-effects from using it. It is Multistrand,
of course. And no, nothing outperforms it-- solid or
multistrand.

In Siltech's case, multistrand outperforms solid. How? It has a
far more linear bandwidth. So, as long as the side-effects
problem is solved, you have something that outperforms ALL
solid wire. This was due to very careful metallurgical
engineering, and careful Silicone, Kapton, or perhaps
Teflon jacketing.

We also have Cardas solid silver-- which is a very good
short-length hookup wire for small signals-- I often
parallel this or triple it, and gain more overall
linerarity and "punch". We have AGSS from Kimber. It has
a very slight "golden" sheen... Hmmmm-m? Alright, then...

Silver Sonic continues to advance, and other silver
wire people are catching up.

All of this wire development is a huge advantage to
builders. Now, we can find near Siltech performance
from other vendors... which is already lowering costs.

In the old days, I used the heavy Siltech multistrand
silver/gold for nearly everything. The difference over
anything else was very obvious-- you HAD to use it.

The largest improvement of all came to me while I had a
JBL Paragon. (83-88 db). The Paragon had over
80 feet of 14ga. silver wire in it from the factory. This
special wire was carbon-granule baked, and then
jacketed. I was using high-power tube amps to drive the
Paragon. My 2A3 amps sounded wonderful on this monster,
but couldn't get it to full power and glory-- I
love marching bands, and a good Rock Band as well as
other music.

I re-wired the whole thing with Siltech LS-38.
This was doubled-up for the crossover inputs from the
amplifiers, (there are 4 crossovers) and for crossover
outputs into the 15" woofers.

The system was listened to-- the small 2A3 amps now easily
had more power than the Paragon needed-- through THIS wire!!
For any listening level that one could physically stand.
Clean, clear, super dynamic and wideband. Awesome.

Next, I "blueprinted" both the midrange drivers and the
tweeters.... I went through several voice-coils until I got
perfect fitting all around. The short wires inside the
driver cups were replaced with Siltech LS-38. This garnered
more improvements than the voice-coil fitting alone did!
Together? NOW, we were talking!!

The JBL Paragon became an indispensable engineering tool.
It could reproduce every part of music with great transparency
power and dynamics. The Integrator-panel across its front
(see JBL Heritage) allowed far better see-through into
recording venues, and inside acoustical instruments than
most anything, yet transparency and bandwidth rivaled the
best headsets. It delivered something headsets can't
do-- it placed the venue into your room. It didn't merely
"take you there", it took the venue TO YOU.

The JBL Paragon became the ultimate design tool for amps,
and everything else in a good audio system.

Of course, it became obvious that amplifiers require the
same quality wiring, and require different wire-fitting in
different parts of an amplifier. Today, several brands and
designs of wiring are used as wire advances continue..

What you use is up to you-- and it must be.

This is only a Hobby-- you can play at any level you like.

Don't let anybody fool you, or play around with your mind,
or waste your time trying to "prove" clinically-provable
assumptions with charts, graphs, etc., unless you NEED and
can APPLY the data usefully. Personally, I read most of it,
and sometimes learn something genuinely useful from it.

Just remember one thing: it's all about performance in the
real world-- does it make you want to get up and dance, or
will it just play impressively until you sooner or later--
tire of it?

The better the ingredients, the better the Pie. The better
the Baker, also the better the Pie, and you get satisfaction!.

-Dennis-




Edits: 03/09/17 03/09/17

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