Sakura Systems OTA Cable Kit

Hi Davej - I purchased two kits & used it to wire up my home theater and my two channel system. I couldn't manage to use it all - I would be willing to sell a partial kit to you if you're interested that way you don't have to take on the entire 600 expense. I have 8 connectors and about 20 meters of wire left if you're interested let me know.

After listening for an evening - I think the OTA has outstanding potential to be a real giant killer. It doesn't have the "flavor" of most other cables I've tried and perhaps that is a good thing - the OTA is quite neutral.

The neutrlity comes as an immediate shock since I have grown so accustomed to colorations and used various colorations to build my system into one that I imagined to be the "perfect color" - something that I had thought was neutral but clearly not. Right now, I'm not quite sure what to do with the more neutral coloration that OTA is showing me since it makes my system sound so much different.

Over the course of the evening the OTA changed its tone frequently & I expect alot out of this cable.

BWhite: What are the longest cable runs that you are using (to other than ambient speakers)? I should have tried longer runs (in the beginning before cutting up the cable) to see how they sounded, but did not think of it @ the time. Also, are you using the OTA as IC's throughout the system? It can also be used to replace digital and phono IC's. You have already made the offer (and lots of people want to get a "piece" of this kit), but I would suggest hanging on the the extras for use down the line. If a run were to break in the middle it would need to be replaced, plus I have broken five of the white center posts on the RCA's to date.

Hi Dekay,

The longest run I am using is about 25 feet to ambient (rear surround) speakers. The longest interconnect is about 1.5 meters. I wasted the first 1 meter pair of interconnects as they were way too short after stripping and breaking TWICE while trying to assemble and ended up with a 1.5 foot pair which I use from my DVD player to the home theater processor.

I cannot tell a difference between the long ICs and the short as far as sonics goes.

In addition to the two kits, I purchased extra sets of the RCA plugs. I'm covered for a while plus I have a significant quantity of left over wire. The offer to sell the extra stuff was made to allow someone else to reap the benefits of this kit for much less than 600 bucks.

Hey Bwhite!
sounds like a great idea.I have been looking for someone to go in on a set.I'll email ya after I get off work...thanks! dave

I made up some of the knotted OTA digital cables (80"/40") described by dekay on 11--14--01. These were superior to straight runs of equal-length OTA on digital. The only way I have been able to improve this design is to add an MFSC ferrite ring clamp of 415/645 Ohm impedance (inner diameter of 5mm) to the two cable leads near the output end. The resultant HF damping in the MHz region accelerated the rise time of the signals and improved the dynamics. I will experiment a little more with ferrite rings next week.
I should probably report, given my "overkill" atttitude towards Stratos power cables, that the filaments of one of my VAIC 520B power tubes are now burned out. I do not think that the Stratos power cables I was using shortly before this happened contributed to the burn-out of the tube, since I had been overheating it for about six months to compensate for microphonics. Just a word of warning: Stratos cables in at least two applications (phono and power) have had a way of pointing up certain faults or weakness in my system that either I was aware of (but ignoring) or I was not at all aware of.
Bwhite, let your OTA cables break in for at least 120 hours (better 200 hours) before you judge them. I too noticed "something missing" when I replaced the Statements with OTA, and the "missing piece" was probably what you refer to as (NBS house) "colorations." I prefer to run these two cables apart from one another, rather than mix them. Like dekay says, I would probably keep the extra Stratos wire and connectors. In my case, I needed extra connectors to keep up with the experiments I wanted to conduct with OTA. I used up 100 meters of Stratos wire in 6 weeks.