Duelund DCA16GA

stopping teasing me wig.  :-).  Thanks, look forward to giving it a try. 

Just finished a mini shoot-out comparing 3.5M long balanced (XLR) ICs made from Duelund 20 ga wire with ICs of the same length and construction method but made with WE 16 ga wire.  The ICs connect my Metrum Pavane Level 3 DAC with my SMc preamp.

The construction consists of twisted pair conductors covered with a low-noise spacer layer then a tinned copper braid-shield connected at the source end only and a counter-spiraled ground wire of a larger gauge than the signal wires and connected at both ends.   Clean-cut TechFlex covers the whole assembly.  Connectors are the Furutech FP-601/602 (G).

A third, control IC that I am very familiar with consisted of Furutech's highly rated U-p2.1 balanced interconnect that uses 19 awg stranded Alpha-PCOCC conductors in special foamed PE insulation.   

In end, the DIY ICs made from the Duelund 20 ga wire were preferred.  It was sort of a Goldilocks type of thing where the WE 16 ga wire was just a little too rich-sounding and midrange-centric, while the Furutech wire was nicely extended but didn't quite have the warmth and glowing tonal presentation of the two DIY ICs that both use tinned copper wire.  The 20 ga Duelund wire was "just right" with a very nice blend of richness, warmth, detail, and extension, as well as that great tonal quality that folks like about the tinned copper Duelund and WE wire. 

All three sets of ICs had been conditioned for days on my Audiodharma Cable Cooker and all three sets sounded very nice - I could live with any of them.  Unfortunately, my shoot-out still does not answer questions regarding Duelund vs. WE wire since the both of those had similar characteristics and I cannot say for sure whether the differences I heard were due to the differences in the wire and dielectric materials between Duelund and WE, or simply due to the difference between the gauge of the two wires (i.e., 20 awg Duelund wire vs. 16 awg WE wire).

well, I ordered the Oyaide Black Mamba V2 from Rakuten on Jan. 1st but it never shipped.  I guess they require you to confirm the order after actually ordering the product.  I got an email after ordering the product, I didn't read it, I just though it was your typical confirmation email after you buy something.  But I guess they actually require you to email them back to confirm the order.  Kind of vague to me.  So for anyone else trying to buy this, just a heads up.  I guess it will be a another 9 or 10 days before I get it.  

@mitch2 
Curious where you found the info on constructing a set of balanced cables using the Duelund cable? I am using the 16ga for speaker cables but not for interconnects as my system needs balanced interconnects. I am not that handy when it comes to soldering and have not tried to make interconnects. I tried a set in RCA and liked them but they don’t sound right with my current integrated, Ayre AX-7e. Any info is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi joey54,
I have been doing this for awhile so have read a lot of information and constructed a variety of cables, some that sound pretty good and others not so much. For information, you can search both this site and over at Audio Asylum in the Cable Asylum, particularly articles by Jon Risch (you can search by author over there). Goals for speaker and power cables are mostly low inductance and low resistance. Goals for ICs include low capacitance and EMI/RFI rejection while low resistance is not as important for ICs.

A posting by Jon Risch at AA gives this basic information for twisted pair XLR ICs;

For XLR to XLR, twisted pairs should be constructed like this:
pin 2 to pin 2, pin 3 to pin 3 for the twisted pair wires, THEN, the shield to pin 1 of the source component. This SHOULD work for true balanced gear, but some is not true balanced, and a ground reference connection must be made, in this case, wrap a 16 gauge tinned stranded hookup wire around the OUTSIDE of the shield braid, and connect to pin 1 at both ends. This will help keep any ground currents from interfering with the two differential pairs, and minimize cable capacitance.

BTW, as for all DIY twisted pairs, I recommend spacing the shield briad AWAY from the twisted pairs using a high quality insulation, and then oversized braid for a shield covering.

Better XLRs do help, but the industry standard Neutrik and Switchcraft are pretty decent, it is the other cheapo brands of XLR’s that you have to watch out for adversely afecting the sound.

So, the design I used consisted of a twisted pair, to reduce EMI/RFI, spacing material to keep the shield away from the conductors, a braid shield connected at the source end only to further reject EMI/RFI, a ground wire outside of the shield that is of a larger gauge than the signal wires, tech flex, heat shrink, and high quality connectors.

If you dig deeper into design options, you might find some believe there are benefits to spacing the signal cables away from each other a certain distance. Risch from AA did this by using cores of coaxial cables that are surrounded by foamed dielectric material, others do this by a variety of methods, including laying the wires flat with a consistent spacing between packing tape or sewed into material. Most manufactured ICs (if not coax) are a simple twisted pair, or multiple wires twisted around a core, because those designs are easier to mass-manufacture. Wires twisted around a core is the basis for DIY ICs you can read about at the VH Audio website. Consistency in spacing is important. Good luck whatever you choose to do.