Anyone with experience having cables made using Amorphous Metals/Alloys

@williewonka 

Steve, thanks for sharing your journey on making cables. It nicely points out how many permutations there are in searching for the “right stuff”. Early on in my career I was asked to develop a electro mechanical system which required a dielectric of uncertain properties. After struggling with theory for a few days, I just went out and bought every brand and type I could find and started trying them. From that I learned some generalities. Same kind of thing you are doing. I assume you have done similar research in insulation. 

@audio_phool - did some reading on the amorphous metals and I am intrigued, but from what I understand, this could potentially open up a pandora’s box - it should be fun trying to figure it all out 😃

At this moment in time I have no sources for this type of conductor, but will keep it in mnd going forward.

From what I have read, they tend to be used in experinabtal or highly advacncd engineering and are yet to be used in something as mundane as wire. However, there is some articles on using them for transmission cables to mitigate tranmissions overheads, so it souls come sooner than later

But do keep an eye on Neotech cables - they seem to be ahead of the curve on metalurgy.

And thanks for providing all the info - much appreciated - Steve

@ghdprentice - yep you got it - from my web site

Dielectric Constant - what is it?
During previous developments, it was quite noticeable that selecting wires that had an insulation with a low Dielectric Constant (Dk) for the signal or live wires only resulted in improved sound quality

Dielectric Constant (Dk)…

• Dielectric constant, property of electrical insulating material (which is a dielectric) equal to the ratio of the capacitance of a capacitor filled with the given material to the capacitance of an identical capacitor in a vacuum without the dielectric material.

• PVC: Dk = 4.0
• Teflon: Dk = 2.2
• Foamed Teflon (AirLok): Dk = 1.45
• Cotton or Silk: Dk = 1.3
• Air: DK = 1.1

So what does this mean in reality

• the lower the Dk, then the noise that is generated by the signal passing through the wire is lower.
• I have compared teflon to Foamed teflon and foamed teflon to cotton and in each case the wire with the lower Dk valuse outperformed the other wire
• One of the reasons Duelund is loved by audiophiles is that the cotten insulation provides for a very detailed signal

My challenge with the Helix IMAGE DIY cables, was to get the Dk value as close to Air as possible...

• my cables use solid wire conductors
• if you put a bare solid wire inside an oversize teflon tube then the wire will only come in contact with the teflon at a single point and the rest of the wire is surounded by air
• I use a tube that has an internal diameter approximately 25-30% larger than the diameter of the wire
• the tube does not collapse around the wire - hence maintaining the air gap around most of the surface area of the wire
• I seal the end of the tube with hot glue or heat shrink to minimize the amount of tarnishing - so far after two years the wires are still very bright

And so the Helix IMAGE Air came into being!

You can apply this technique to any cable geometry and it will provide excellent clarity and details.

Hope that helps - Steve

Stealth Indra's are amorphous metal. Fantastic cables.

@williewonka I am glad that you are also intrigued by Amorphous metal as I am and hence the hunt. You have made an intersting point about Dielectric Constant of different materials. Since Dielectric constant for a material is the ratio of capcitance of the material to capacitance of the vaccum. Since Capacitance of the vaccum is a constant which means higher the diaelectric constant, higher the value of the capacitance of the material. So have you measured the capcitance of same conductor (of same lenght, geometry, width/diameter, thickness) with different dielectric used as insulation material. I thnk thats what is making the audible differences.

@bugredmachine Thanks pointing out the Stealth Audio. If you have (considerable) experience with it then I would like you to elaborate it. It would be better if you can provide any comparisons as well. I checked their website & looks like they use amorphous metal only in their analog interconnects. But price seems to be prohibitve to me.

Audio_phool

What is attractive to engineers is finding technology being used to "solve" the cable dilemma. I used single ended, but could not find used XLR, cables 3 years ago and they added some serious soundstage and clarity to the sound. Vastly different system then but I still have the imprint of how nice even the single ended sounded in my system while trying to kill my background noise since I did not have balanced preamp then.

I felt like the Indras were pure as the driven snow and added nothing and took away nothing. But stupid expensive.