David: Many think that solid core wire is something new to audio and the net. If you do some research, you'll find that solid core has always had advocates, even when it wasn't popular or thought to be beneficial to work with. Even some people that are now considered by many to be "experts" on the subject of cabling needed some help in this area many years ago.
Please look at the dates in some of these posts and the people posting and responding to these posts. You might recognize some names of others that are currently manufacturing cables, but weren't back then.
My original posts recommending that Jon Risch try listening to / working with some solid cabling were made before AA had an archive. For the record, Thorsten Loesch was also involved in these conversations with Jon. In this post, you'll see where i mention making
hints to Jon about the sonic advantages of solid core cabling . Jon also responds in this thread, but in another section. Jon later refuted the part that Thorsten and i played in his R&D, but as you can see in this thread, he had no problems with the comments that i made back then. The fact that i supplied Jon with the connectors that he came to recommend for use in building this cabling is also mentioned i.e. "i just run my mouth and supply the parts".
Please read all of my responses to this thread. To be honest, sometimes
solid core designs aren't best and even the manufacturer of the cables don't know their own products very well. This was proven when i ended up having to not only correct mistakes on the Belden website, but also correct flaws in the Belden's responses to Alan.
For those that didn't know, the Alan in that thread is Alan Wright. He's the author of
The Supercables Cookbook. After all of that took place, Alan ended up revamping that specific design based upon my corrections and suggestions. He also asked me to design some cabling for him via private email, but i declined. As mentioned in other threads, i'm not part of the audio industry or marketing of products : )
Here's a post where Sean Heisler, the artist that designed the AA logo and artwork, was asking about various cable designs for use with a sub. Jon Risch responds and i add on to Jon's initial response. As per my standard response for a good but low budget speaker cable,
i recommended a low inductance solid core design.
Sonic characteristics of decent solid core cabling and why it is finally catching on*.
What to look for in a cable or the
"Keep It Simple Stupid" approach to good sonics.
There are hordes of references available in the Agon and AA archives regarding solid core cabling, but as you can see, i've been one of the most vocal proponents of this type of product for many years. As such, i'm pretty familiar with how to get the best performance from it in terms of wire geometries and impedances. This doesn't mean that everyone will like the specific sonics that such a cable will bring with it, but that is a matter of personal preference and how good the rest of the support componentry is. Sean
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* As a side note, Mellson, who was involved in this thread, was one of the guys that i had interaction with during the great PS Audio HCA-2 debates over at AA. For sake of clarity, Mellson owned three of these amps. Some will remember that i based my comments on what the amp was capable of / how it would perform / the sonic traits of this amp without ever hearing it. After several months with these amps, Mellson came to agree with the assessments that i had made and sold the amps. Audio Pharoah was another AA Inmate that i did battle with over this subject at the time and he too came to the same conclusions that Mellson did. That is, my "sonic guesstimate" of how these amps would perform ( in stock form ) based on the technical measurements as provided by Stereophile was right on the money.
There was a relatively recent thread on Agon where i did much the same thing i.e. predicted the sonic outcome of a shotgunning some Kimber cabling without ever having tried it myself. I did this by looking at the electrical characteristics of the Kimber as one would use it normally and then what it would do to the circuit if used in shotgun form. Knowing how those electrical characteristics translate into sonics allowed me to post a comment. Another well respected Agon member ( I think it was Pops ) chimed in and said that he had tried that exact configuration with those exact cables and my comments were right on the money.
As i've said before, spec's can tell you quite a bit. That is, if you know how to properly interpret them and they were accurately derived.
