Hi Dave,
I've used the Jon Risch cables with great success for several years. Without casting aspersions on your system (with the exception of the AKSA and TLP, my system has a
very modest pedigree) I wonder if the PVC-insulated twisted pair that you had been using masked faults in your system that were revealed by the CC89259.
When I upgraded from the TLP to the Nirvana TLP, a clear majority of my CDs suddenly sounded terrible, some were so bright that they were physically painful to listen to. After a week of burn-in, it was obvious that this was a problem and that it was not going to go away. Looking at my system, the obvious weak spot was my speakers, Energy exl-26 (when I bought them 3 years ago, they were by far the strongest part of my system, but that was before I fell under the evil influence of Hugh Dean
). In fact, I had some nice replacement Auricap and Solen caps and Mills non-inductive resistors for the crossovers already on hand... when I made the swap the sound smoothed out to an incredible degree and the huge step forward represented by the Nirvana TLP became evident. Thus, sometimes a step forward does not initially sound like one... makes things difficult I know, but this is not a simple linear problem.
As for teflon, I haven't listened to a lot of insulators and done the critical comparisons so my opinions are based only on theory. In my day job I sometimes spend some time working on microwave heating problems and thus have done a fair bit of reading on how EM fields interact with materials. Teflon is an attractive material because it can be made in a fairly pure state, it is chemically inert, and it has a fairly low dielectric constant. Actually, the "dielectric constant" can be resolved into two components (real and imaginary parts):
the "dielectric constant" = e* = e' - je'', where:
j = square root(-1)... for those who doubt the value or utility of complex numbers, may I refer you to Feynman, et. al, (1963)
Lectures On Physics, vol I, Chapter 22.
e' = the real part of the dielectric constant. When an EM field encounters a dielectric the charged and polar molecules within the material move (or try to move) in response to the field. e', the real part, characterizes the
reversible part of the charge displacement. When the field decays to zero, all
reversible charge displacements which would be characterized by e' have returned to the position they occupied before the field was turned on.
e'' = the imaginary part, the dielectric loss factor. This is the component that reflects the irreversible changes that occured in the charge distribution in response to the EM field. If there are mobile charges (e.g., ions or electrons) in the material, they will be driven through the material when the field is "on" and their collisions with other molecules produce heat (and are thus irreversible by the 2nd law of thermodynamics). If there are polar portions of larger molecules, they may move in response to the field, but return to their initial positions when the field is turned off may be blocked by other thermal motions of the polymer chain, so those contributions can be irreversible too.
In audio, I believe that it is e'' that is the real culprit in dielectric absorbtion and bad sound. Comparing teflon and PVC (data at 100Hz and room temperature)
Teflon e' = 2.8, e'' = 0.002
PVC e' = 5.9, e'' = 0.48
For foamed teflon, as in 89259, both factors would be reduced in proportion to the amount of air foamed into the insulation, and thus be even better for use in audio.
So, this is not to put down any listening tests to the contrary, it is simply intended as a bit of information and perspective, FWIW.
My apologies for the long ramble...
Peter
