[DaveC113]

Recently I have been making cables with braided Neotech EC-UPOCC wire, a upocc copper litz wire with a woven cotton jacket, as well as more conventional silver and silver/gold alloy wire. In the past all my cables were side-by-side using the litz wire... it's flat, looks like a shoestring... pics of a 17g speaker cable below. I have no idea why I didn't think of braiding it earlier! While there are some tradeoffs to the side-by-side geometry of my past cables, over all most people seem to prefer the presentation the braided cable gives vs the side-by-side cable. By far the biggest difference I notice is the braided cable throws a larger soundstage and preserves fine detail in note decay and reverb trails better than a side-by-side cable. The side-by-side arrangement throws a smaller soundstage, however there is more focus and more density or weight to the images. In the past I have tried more complicated braided geometries and think that goes too far... it creates too much capacitance. But a simpler braided geometry seems to have a balance of inductance and capacitance, and maintains good focus while throwing a large and convincing soundstage.

I'd be interested to hear other folks experiences and preferences with cable geometry... all else being equal (or near to it), would you prefer a cable that throws a more expansive sound stage or a slightly smaller soundstage with more focus but maybe a little less overall detail?

It's looking like I might axe the side-by-side upocc copper litz speaker cables in favor of braided versions as shown below:

[beowulf]

Hi Dave, well I've never listened so intently to speaker cables before. Literally I've been swapping the 2 speaker cables that you sent me back and forth and even had my lady and my 15 year old boy both sit down with me tonight at separate occasions for a good intensive listening session and they both gave me "the same" feedback. I tried not to get involved with their decisions and let them both know that there is no right or wrong with the cables and to just let me know which ones they liked better and why. What was unexpected is that we all came to the same conclusions on sound and preference.
 
We listened to 3 songs on each cable ~
 
(1) Ani DeFranco - 32 Flavors. I chose this song as it has great sort of breathy female vocals and there is a lot of percussion involved (especially in the beginning).
 
(2) Miles Davis - Saeta (from Sketches of Spain). I chose this songs as the percussion starts off very delicate and clicky (if that's even a term) and then builds, and the sound stage moves from left to right subtly ... one minute you're hearing percussions on one side and then horns move to the right ... really just a mesmerizing track.
 
(3) Neil Young - Cortez The Killer. This has to be one of THE most classic rock songs of all time, the guitar work is outstanding (no doubt as its one of Rolling Stones greatest guitar solos of all time), but the cymbal work on this track is especially outstanding in the recording as well. I literally cannot think of another song in my library that matches the awesome recording of the cymbals and percussion on that track.
 
All tracks were 192/24 hi-res and used with a McIntosh C220 preamp, Decware Taboo MK II amp, Rega DAC, Omega RS7 Loudspeakers and an Asus VivoPC with Windows 8.1 and JRiver MC 19 (volume was set the same throughout the entire listening duration).  The speaker cables used were your UPOCC Copper in 17 and 20 gauges and compared to my 14 gauge Oxygen Free Copper cables.
 
I don't know a lot of audiophile terms, but so far here is what we have come to believe ...
 
First off, both the 20 and 17 gauge speaker cables are fast compared to the Oxygen Free Copper cables I had before. And both cables are good at the retrieval of information. But to be 100% honest, the 20 gauge UPOCC are only slightly better than the 14 gauge OFC cables that I already have in there. I tried them both over and over and I don't think I could pick them out in a blind test. Despite the gauge differences though ~ the edge would go to your 20 gauge cables as I felt they could retrieve a tad more info from the tracks than the OFCs.
 
But that is where the road ends. Your 17 gauge are freaking mind blowing in my system! First off, we all thought that the percussion instruments sounded live, as if they were almost in front of us. The 20 gauges were good at this as well, but they sounded as if the drummer was further in the background in comparison.
 
The 17's however sounded as if the drummer was literally in front of us. Things that were in the background moved forward as if on the same stage or plane as the other players. I've never heard this happen on another cable and seriously ... I never thought that speaker cables would have this dramatic of an effect on my system.
 
As you may remember, I've been having troubles with cymbals. I had those mil-spec silver over copper cables in there and was getting a tizziness that were destroying my enjoyment of music. I moved to the OFC copper and that at least fixed the tizziness, but I felt that there was just something missing from the music as if everything important was in the background, but with your 17s there has been a retrieval of information and a placement of the musicians up front that I was not expecting to happen. To say that this made a difference in my musical enjoyment is an understatement as I'm sitting here at almost 4:00AM and haven't gone to bed yet as I can't stop listening to music.
 
OK, so here's my comparison of the 17ga vs 20ga after only one night of listening. The 20 gauge seemed faster and the bass seemed more taught. But the 17's retrieved WAY more info, the decay of instruments (especially cymbals) was off the charts and spooky real, the bass (while not as taught as the 20g) was fuller and the tones overall much richer. IMO, the 20 gauges are really good, but the 17's are probably the most significant upgrade to my system that I have heard to this date.
 
Next up ... your interconnects...

[DaveC113]

Thanks for the comments, in your system the geometry really made a big difference! For me it was more subtle but still very noticeable with the 20g presentation still being really good but not as expansive as the 17g.

I'd also offer to sent the 17 and 20g cables to anyone of they want to try them out. Also, if anyone has my side-by-side cables they can be converted easily, but you lose about 10% in length.

[Quiet Earth]

The side-by-side arrangement throws a smaller soundstage, however there is more focus and more density or weight to the images.

That's a good observation. I tried this experiment a little while ago. I prefer to keep my speaker cables separated rather than braided. It sounds more natural to me when each bundle of polarity is separated from the other by at least an inch. I tried twisting my litz bundles by about 10 turns per meter and the sound became a little too vivid and confused for me. It seemed like there was more detail at first, but in the long run it was a little too mechanical and artificial sounding. I have no idea why that would be. I can see why someone might prefer that sound though. It could spice things up a bit. Maybe it would work better with with copper litz rather than silver. (Mine are silver.)

Also, I think when you're running a bi-wire system it's very important not to braid the woofer polarities with the tweeter polarities. Remember, you are bi wiring to keep things separated in the first place. So, if you braid, it should be two separate braided runs per speaker. Hmm... can you "braid" two bundles, or is that just twisting?   

[DaveC113]

I fully agree about the bi-wire setup, it really should be 2 sets of speaker cables. Whether a bi-wire setup is better than spending the money on a single set of higher quality cables is another topic...

With the geometry changes we are changing the physical relationship of the electromagnetic fields to the wires in the cable, which changes the overall inductance and capacitance of the cable as a whole. I think there IS a difference in the result of twisting vs braiding in one key area... a twisted pair still has the wires running parallel, side-by-side, while braiding has the wires running at an angle to each other. For IC cables, I definitely prefer a geometry where the wires are not running side-by-side but it's not so clear-cut with speaker cables.

If you look at commercial cables we can see geometries that range from foil conductors that resemble an unwound film and foil capacitor (Goertz) to the foil being arranged side by side (MG Audio). In the Goertz cable we have very high capacitance, to the point a zobel is often sold with the cables, while the MG design has virtually no capacitance at all.  And most cables are somewhere in between these extremes... I prefer a more balanced approach, one you get from a simple 4-strand litz-braid. This is part of the name of my business, ZENwave... the middle way.   

It looks like QE, beowulf and myself have all noticed an apparent increase in perceived detail with a braided or twisted geometry... the question is, is this detail that is being lost with a side-by-side or separated geometry, or is it something that is being added to the signal with the braided geometry? I have noticed the decay of notes and spatial information is more apparent with the braided geometry which would point to the braided cable being more accurate, but QE thought it sounded artificial after some time...

[Quiet Earth]

... a twisted pair still has the wires running parallel, side-by-side, while braiding has the wires running at an angle to each other.

You make a very good point. Twisting them, even with many twists per meter is not exactly braiding. I don't think I could properly "braid" my speaker cables (or interconnects for that matter) since they are surrounded with a PTFE jacket. Well I suppose I could try,,, but if I decided to unbraid them they would look terrible.

Anyway, to be fair, I guess I have not heard my litz wire "braided". Only twisted. That may be why I prefer them separated.

 Great topic by the way. Nice looking cables too! 

[DaveC113]

Hi QE... I've tried twisted vs not many years ago when I was experimenting with some magnet wire SCs. Twisting definitely made a difference in presentation but I'm not sure about twisting vs braiding. I have tried various braided geometries and I think keeping it simpler is better... some of the cat5 designs are pretty complicated and they sound ok, but I think a simpler braid that has less capacitance is better.

Another thing I think makes a difference is using multiple runs of smaller diameter wire vs a single run of larger wire, which is the key to the performance of litz wire... Litz wire is an extreme... for instance my 14g litz wire contains ~1060 strands of individually insulated 44g wire. That's a lot of wire and 44g is very thin! For audio frequencies using thicker wire is ok, maybe up to 24-26 gauge, but I feel like using larger wire than that isn't a good idea.

 

[beowulf]

Have you thought about using the same braided geometry with the other version of your cables such as the SMS/G or would it be a big difference as I notice they already looked somewhat braided from the pictures?

[DaveC113]

Hi beowulf, the SM line of cables are all braided... and the SLs will be going forward too. The SM line has a more intricate combination of techniques, but it is based on a 4-strand braid. So, all my cables will be braided. It's a simple geometry that works great. Enough folks have tried side-by-side vs braided that I can safely say braiding will be perceived as an improvement for the great majority of people. And if anyone has my side-by-side cables and wants them braided, pm me.