I am new to this forum and consider myself a novice to the world of audio. I am a retired engineer, and recently purchased a pair of old B&W 803D's , a used NAD C370 amp, and a Bluesound Node streamer to get started.
I hooked up the pieces and started listening to a range of recordings from artists playing Blues, Rock, Opera, and then some to get a feel for the system. After reading about soundstage, presence, and depth, their meanings quickly made sense with regard to what I was hearing. I also found there was a difference in sound and depth after swapping in better RCA cables between the node and the amp, as well as another improvement after swapping 14 AWG to 12 AWG wire to the speakers. That's all the good news. The bad news was that I also found some recordings sounded great in High def, but some recordings with female artists like Adele, and Linda Rondstadt had a raspiness in their mid range that was pretty harsh to listen to. After sequentially swapping amps and speakers to an old Sony amp and pair of B&W nautilus bookshelf speakers i have owned for 20 years, and keeping the Node in the loop, the raspiness continued, but disappeared after I , eliminated the Node and swapped in a CD player as the input device. I took the Node back to the store I purchased it from and played it through a Michi amp and Totem speaker combo, and then ran the same recording through a HiFi rose streamer, McIntosh amp/B&W speaker setup and heard the same raspiness out of their newer equipment. It was one of those moments, where you ask yourself, "is this it"?. I realized it was time to dig in and start learning from the experts, using sites like this one, to better understand options to make improvements for more enjoyable listening experiences.
Speaker cables is currently #1 on the list of upgrades, and the GR Research solution with the 24 strand woven cable solution with the rope core made the most sense with regard to wire gauge ,impedance control, and overall construction out of all the sites visited. I purchased the termination kit today, but had some questions on the various rope core material and core diameters discussed on the forums over the past two years. The original video Danny made mentioned a 7/16 nylon core used in the build. Since then, in the write up by Rock Ball, organic cotton, poly cotton cores have been mentioned as well as core diameters of 1 inch, 1-1/2 inches, 5/8 inches. and 1/2 inches have all been mentioned.
As an old engineer I can understand the progression of getting a solution dialed in. I just wanted to ask what the current core solution is with regard to material and diameter based on form and function, and if a cotton core is part of the solution, is there any influence to performance from moisture retention in the core during summer months?
Many thanks to Danny and all at GR Research for helping a newbie get started.
Marc
