Duelund conversion to DIY Helix Geometry Cabling

@donnylovely - not to my knowledge.

Not sure there would be any advantage because...

• each twisted pair is a "ballanced architecture" i.e. 
  • one wire carries D+ve signal and one carries the  D-ve signal
  • there is no neutral wire to connect to the Helix coil
    •  CAT 7 does have a shield, but again, I do not think there is a drain pin on the plug for the shield to connect too,
    • so it is only a floating shield (i.e. not grounded)
    • whereas a USB cable does have a neutral pin on the plug, so the helix coil attaches to that

The wire quality in a good ethernet cable and the Ethernet architecture is capable of carrying todays fastest LAN traffic without losses, so I'm ont sure there is a need for a Helix version

Hoper that helps - Steve

@williewonka, Hi Steve,

I have some parts ordered and about to order the bare solid silver which is fairly pricey. Have you any experience using the next size thinner? I am considering using 22AWG instead of the 20AWG for signal that you recommend and also going to 18 AWG for the neutral rather than the 16AWG in your recipe.

You report on Toddverrone using 24AWG for signal. This gauge would represent a significant saving but as my system is borderline entering into over analytical I would not want to push it any further in that direction.

Thanks.

@lemonhaze - I think you will be OK with the thinner wire

• assuming you are building the signal conductor using 2 x 22 gauge with each wire inside it’s own Teflon tube ?
• The 18 gauge neutral should also be OK with the 2 x 22 gauge signal conductor

RE: analytical sound

• If this is your first Helix Interconnect it will prpobably sound quite different from anything else you have tried and it will require about 200-300 hours break in before sounding it’s best
• you will hear more details, dynamics and clarity with the silver wire, but I’m not sure if I would consider this "analytical"
• small sounds like the reverberations of the venue stand out more
• details are "crisper"
• tsome people prefer the more mellow sound of duelund wire
• I’ve found that using UP-OCC copper for the neutral conductor of the speaker wire proved to be more analitical, so I went back to silver plated milspec for the neutral.
• Perhaps using milspec on the neutral of the interconnect might curb this problem ?
• I found using the silver wire with copper neutral resulted in what I thought was a more complete representation of the music across the audio spectrum.
• I think it’s one of those things you have to try in your system first

Hope that helps - Steve

@williewonka,   Thanks for the prompt reply. Yes this will be the start of my Helix journey.

Giving more thought to this I will now build 3 interconnects. One for digital as per your 'Ultimate' recipe and two for analogue, both using solid silver, one with 20AWG and the other using 22AWG.

It's the only way to truly know which is better for my system.

Regarding power cables, I will be able to experiment a bit more here due to cost. I have some Furutech cable which uses their Alfa 14AWG conductors which I will strip and use for light duty power-cables' neutral. These conductors are silver plated and are similar to the Mil-spec but I will also use the Neotech 14AWG OCC in PTFE for comparison.

@lemonhaze - The Furutech Alpha wire was one of the first wires I used as a Helix PC, because I had used the Furutech bulk cable for some earlier PC’s.

Having said that it was tragic to butcher such a great bulk cable, just for the conductors 😐

Whilst it is a pretty good wire to start with it’s main drawerbacks are

1. it is stranded, which is far less capable than solid wired, but more flexible
2. it is plated, which I have found to be less capable than unplated wires
3. the alpha copper is not as fast (i.e. dynamic) as UP-OCC copper

But it is a very good wire, compared to OFC copper used in many cables, and a great wire to start with

Good luck with your builds