Well, I have finished making a very short pair of silver litz interconnect cables. They are 40cm long with a twisted pair of OCC silver Liz conductors of 24AWG. I have created the conductors as described above but with an overall cotton insulation. The sample of LITZ I received has a PTFE outer insulation but since the strands are already electrically insulated in the Teflon tubes I thought that the thick cotton tubes will add more space between the conductors without increasing a lot the dialectic effect. And since I will use it without a shield or jacket, cotton will give a substantial size and protection to the cable.
I decided to test this cable as a phono cable. Most of the weaknesses of a cable are more likely to be exposed when used for such an application. The reason is that the signal between the cartridge (especially when the cartridge is a low output MC) is very weak. Such a signal is not only vulnerable to EMI and RFI but also to the effects of the conductor and insulation materials. The signal carried by a phono cable will be amplified many more times than the signal coming from any other source of a hi-fi system and therefore any effects on the signal will be amplified too.
Obviously, in order to test a cable as "phono" this cable has to be suitable. My experience (backed often by the observations of others as well as by theory) has shown that the ideal solid or stranded conductor size for phono applications is between 26AWG and 34AWG. The internal tonearm wires are usually 32-34AWG and a cable with such a small size of conductors could be extended to the pre-amp for short lengths. However, a 33AWG solid wire is very weak and likely to break if used as an external cable. So my favorite DIY phono cables have 28AWG solid conductors in a simple twisted pair structure and they have performed better than any silver cable I have tried so far.
Litz however, is much different than solid or stranded wires. It seems to perform equally well (if not better) in larger sizes down to 22AWG. One of my favourite phono cables is a Cardas that uses 24AWG Litz conductors. I imagine that the individually insulated strands in a Litz wire act separate thin solid conductors and therefore larger sizes can be obtained without a high frequency roll off effect. Anyway, since the Litz cable I have made uses 24AWG conductors I decided to compare it with a pair of my handmade 28AWG solid silver cables and a pair of 24AWG solid silver cables I normally use between my pre-amp and amp.
The difference when I used the Litz cable was so obvious. It did take away some of the brightness but added authority and even more detail in the mids. The bass remained natural but layering became clearer. To be honest I was somehow used to the brightness and slight resonance on the highs delivered by my solid silver cables so it dit take me some time to realize that both clarity and openness where still there but mostly projected in depth rather than being flat.
I am now so keen on getting hold of some nice pure silver Litz cables. I would consider the DIY path but it seems unlikely that I will be able to create longer then half a meter Litz conductors. Also, I am actually looking for properly shielded cables which make things more complicated. I am not aware of any branded terminated cables with pure silver Litz conductors (but I imagine they would be extremely expensive).
However, I did come accross the following sourses that seem interesting and I may consider exploring.
hificollective has some similar Litz silver wire for DIY by HGC but comes at a cost of £33.60 per meter!
wonderco_buy on ebay has a bulk shielded twin cable (silver LItz) at around £30 per meter. I am very tempted to purchase some of it and test it. Anyone with some experience of it? It has quite a large outer diameter though (6.7mm) so I don't think one could fit a double run in a DIN tonearm connector, but I guess it would do a nice interconnect.
back25beat10 on ebay sells terminated phono cables and interconnects using OCC silver Litz conductors and since he has been quite nice to me so far I may purchase something to try it out. His prices are very low for what he offers (which after having it tried myself it is a really hard job to make) but I haven't heard anything about him in any reviews.
