sleeving AudioNote tonearm wiring


Hello,
Recently tried newly purchased AudioNote silver tonearm wires on a couple of my arms (Ortofon RS-212D and Sumiko MDC800), I should say I was impressed in a positive way. Now I need to finish the project, I am going to install it into Sumiko. What I am looking for is some advise. I am planning to put either cotton or silk sleeve outside, if somebody can share a good distributor for cotton/silk sleeving material. Also, would be nice to read up / hear any thoughts on the procedure. In particular would love to hear opinion whether or not I should apply any extra insulation before it is put into the sleeve. The wire itself is already insulated of course it is not a bare wire but I was not sure.
Thank you,
Anatoliy
anatoliy
Anatoliy,

Would you mind sharing your source for the exact wire that you're using? Is it the three stranded wire with the Polyurethane insulation?

Frogman,

That is exactly how I wired my ET-2 tonearm except I didn't twist the pairs after the loop or put the polyurethane mesh on. I read somewhere that Lloyd Walker does not twist the pairs unless there's an RF interference problem. Did you have an interference issue?
Great small tutorial, thanks much, this helps!
Speaking about Teflon – the reason I wanted to have cotton sleeve is that I like how cotton (or silk) feels :) Though on a more serious note I agree with the opinion that cotton will not provide any proof against the corrosion, certainly not like Teflon, but I want to take a risk at this point.
A couple of questions - how did you put the wire through Teflon and then through the mesh? Did you use some specific tool or just some long needle or some rigid steel wire?
Do you think I should ‘ground’ the arm tube as well as the mesh?
And about the mesh itself – can you recall your supplier or just any copper mesh of the right size will do?
Thank you again
Hi Anatoliy, I bought the Teflon tube, copper and polyester mesh from Michael Percy (Michaelpercy .com). Sending the wire through the tubing was tricky. What I did was to solder the preamp end of the twisted pair to one end of a piece of uninsulated solid core steel wire a little longer than the teflon tubing, and send the steel wire through the tube, with the AN "going along for the ride". You have to be careful and make sure the steel wire (or whatever you use) has an OD smaller than the teflon's tube ID. Putting the "filled" tube through the two meshes is not difficult; they expand somewhat.

Ketchup, unfortunately, I do have problems with RFI so braiding was very helpful. Do not have RFI problems now, but can't say how the braiding affected the sound, if at all. However, since it is fairly well acknowledged that the consistency of the proximity of conductors (in general) in cable to each other is something that is optimized in most cable designs, logic tells me that since upbraided wires WILL have some contact with each other at different and unpredictable points along their span, so why not at least bring some consistency to the "design".

Anatoliy, as you know, the cable is very very thin; although not quite as fragile as we might think. However, and in spite of that, I managed to fray one conductor before I put it in Teflon, and had to replace it. On the other hand, if I did not, as I do, have multiple arm wands and not have the wire hard wired, I probably would have either left the cable alone or do what you have in mind.

Good luck.
Frogman, sorry, didn't see the question about the wire source - yes, you are correct, it is the three stranded wire, consists of 3 twisted wires of 0.05mm, not sure about what's on top, I guess you are correct it should be the Polyurethane insulation, I am just not sure. Part number AN-WIRE-300 (I don't have diff colors though, all 4 wires same color).

Thanks, folks, I guess I am a t a good start thanks to your input.
Best Regards
A