dc10audio use Duelund CAST capacitor ?

Mountain-high,

I have been using Duelund products since 2006. In that time I have tried VSF Cu, VSF Black Cu, Cast Cu, and Cast SIlver. Each time I moved up the Duelund line the sonics improved. When I finally tried the Silver Cast it was hard for me to get my head around the price.

When I finally took the leap I was well rewarded. Going from the VSF Cu to Cast Cu is a very obvious improvement. Going from a Cast Cu to a Cast Ag is as obvious.

Most associate silver with being thin or bright. My experience confirms this if it is stranded silver wire in a teflon dielectric. Duelund uses silver foil, this is why the cost is high because foil is expensive to manufacture, and it does not have any of these traits. I used Dulund silver on the LF first and the improvement was more definition in the bass, greater weight, and more speed. Notes do not hang longer than they should and have a natural decay. Going back to copper it almost seems the bass is bloated after using the silver.

I use Duelund Ag wire inside the speaker and this was a substantial upgrade. Check in with Volleyguy as I instructed him what I did and he did the same regarding the internal wiring. Our findings were almost identical.

I have Scan Speak Revelator drivers in my speakers. With the Duelund Xover and internal wiring they pair very well together. I call them the Denmark connection.

The one area that is not discussed that much is Duelund inductors. For me they are the real value in the Duelund lineup. You have not heard a black background until you try them. You will hear more ambient infomation with them in. They improve all frequencies. However, in the LF in series with the bass driver you will hear things that you never did.

The caveat with Duelund is their size. They are BIG ASS. If you are interested I have numerous Duelund caps lying around and can send a photo of them compared to a V Cap, Clarity MR, Jupiter HT, Mundorf Supreme Siler/Gold.
These caps are dwarfed next to the Duelund.

Irish65,
Your comparison makes sense, silver products are wonderful with proper implementation.The cost is too high for many of us but the copper CAST are within reach for more people. Just don't hear the silver version and you''ll be very happy with copper CAST.
Regards,

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Irish65, I'd love to see some pics of Dueland and other caps. Could you e-mail them to jeffreybehr(at)cox(dot)net?
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Hi Irish65

Thanks for your detailed write-up. Strange your experience with Silver is different to the maker I know. I don't really know why - maybe its the ribbon speaker wire he makes and uses internally - just a thought.

He has tried their inductor's as well - very good - but finds the inductor's he hand winds from 10 or even 8 gauge wire has the edge. Evidently he was mentored in his early speaker building days by George Short who impressed on him the need for loose hand winding from thick gauge copper wire and has found nothing better.

The much under appreciated product in the Duelund range he reckons is the Cast resistor and I have been fortunate to hear why. He had some late prototype speakers where one speaker had the Cast resistor and another a Mundorf because he was waiting on delivery of some more Cast. It was a joke - the speaker with the Mundorf sounded muffled - as if a blanket had been placed over the speaker. I asked why - he attributes it to their negative temperature coefficient. In fact I couldn't listen to the pair and asked if I could come back when they both had the Cast. When I returned a few days later it was like I was listening to an entirely different setup - it was no longer disjointed with one speaker sounding muffled.

Regarding size they are HUGE. The speaker the guy I know is building for me will have external crossovers and they are nearly as big as the speaker - in fact he has plans for an Isobaric 5.5 inch mini monitor and the external crossover will be a lot bigger than the speaker with Duelund Cast and 8 gauge loose wound inductor's - wild - can hardly wait to hear them.

Thanks
Bill

Charles1dad,

I agree. The Cast Cu are an exceptional cap. I mentioned Ag because the question was asked concerning the silver.

The question I did not answer was will Cast Cu mate well with Ag wire. That depends on the silver wire. I have never used dc10audio silver wire so I have no comment.

Mountain-high,

I went to dc10audio website and read that they design their speakers like musical instruments. To the point that they use tonewood. They believe in a resonating speaker box but choose, as their top cap choice, a Duelund Cast that has been designed to do the opposite. Staying with the theme of material used (tonewood) for musical instruments, the Duelunds uses the metal (copper and silver alloy) of musical instruments. It seems odd they did not choose a cap that resonated to go along with their speaker.

I'm not deliberately trying to be antagonistic. The two seem contrary to one another and from my experience this is where you start to throw more money into a system than what is needed.