Cables, a case history of an Agnostic

Snooker14, thank-you for sharing even if you "feel" your not qualified. As you have now learned, your as qualified as any of us Bozos. The moral here is never be afraid of sharing your experience, if you interject your opinion then we'll jump down your throat but an experience is just that, yours. The lesson is that it can be extremely frustrating finding the right cables and a good honest dealer who has experience with your equipment can be a God's send. It would be nice if all dealers and individuals would take cables back within 30 days, it does sometimes take that long to know.
Great post! J.D.

Gentlemen....I thought I would post some information and a couple of corrections to the previous posts regarding the Cable Cooker. Brian Ackerman of Artistic Audio (the U.S. importer for Ensemble) kindly directed me to this site.

Firstly, the Cable Cooker is really a small amplifier with an outboard switching power supply, not "just" an accessory. It contains a mosfet-driven circuit, one for interconnects and another for speaker & power cabling, including a series of 2-ohm power resistors for the higher-level circuit. And there is a cmos circuit controlling the extended frequency sweep. Not only is the pcb hand-soldered with discrete components, but all the wiring to/from the circuit board to the connectors is also done by hand. Beefy, high-grade connectors are used throughout. The power switch is rated at 30 amps. This is *not* a product made overseas using cheap labor. If I were to price the Cooker based on common audio manufacturing practices, the Cooker would have a retail of at least $895, perhaps more, based on parts quality and labor. At $649 "factory-direct" for the standard version, this project is really a labor of love and an attempt to provide a great system enhancement at an affordable price, considering the upward spiral of many components we've all seen over the years.

The Pro version is being built primarily for heavy-duty users (cables, that is....:--)) such as cable manufacturers and dealers. Individuals may purchase this version for $749. As many of these businesses have been using the Cooker for many months 24/7, fully loaded with every connector occupied, I decided to prepare an upgraded unit that would better serve their needs, and increase the useability of the Cooker in a professional environment.

Earlier in the year, a couple of dealers requested that I install heavier-duty binding posts, as some of the speaker cables they sold were very large and bulky....some had rather stiff leads. These leads needed to be tightened down quite a bit, so they felt that a larger, all-metal binding post would work better for them. This led to the initial idea for the Pro version. The Pro Cooker incorporates these heavier-duty all-metal binding posts, a quiet interior fan, and a capacitive "soft-start" circuit to protect the switching power supply and circuit board from current and voltage aberrations. This soft-start circuit also relieves the circuitry from seeing a full-on signal from the power supply, thereby extending the life of the electronics. This is important for continuous duty use.

I again thank Brian Ackerman, and also Joe Cutrufelli of JC Audio for all their good words and support. And Snooker....continue enjoying your fine cabling!!

alan m. kafton
audio excellence az

Alan, since the "Cable Cooker" uses a switching power supply, isn't it possible that this could become a source of both EMI and RFI ??? It is well known that switching supplies are notoriously "dirty" due to the spikes and glitches that they generate when turning off and on continually. Have you taken steps towards filtering and shielding the pollution that this design is capable of ? It would be a shame to spend HUNDREDS of dollars on a product that actually added more intereference into the electrical system of the house.

As to the total cost of such a device, wouldn't it have made MUCH more sense to use common low cost devices such as IC's to get the job done ??? I see NO technical benefits to using discrete devices in a "burner". Since we will not be listening to anything through it, something that can generate and amplify the basic signal with good reliability, ease of production and lowest manufacturing costs would seem to be the best route to take in a device like this. While discrete components might sound good in terms of advertising, the burner is there simply to "pre-condition" the cables, NOT become another active component in our systems.

Also, since we seem to have your attention, what type of signal does the cable cooker produce ? Is it a sine wave, square wave, sawtooth, etc ??? Is it centered on one specific frequency, does it do rolling sweeps or is it simply a broadband "hash" like pink or white noise ? Is the signal constant in amplitude or is it ramped up and down ? What is the amplitude of the signal being used ??? All of these are things that will vary the effectiveness of this device. Needless to say, i'm quite curious about it and i'm sure others are too. Sean
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Yeah. What Sean said. And especially say more about aptlimitude. Before you do though, I think it would be good to tell what that even is.

AMPLIMITUDE is what you get when you don't get it. Get it?"