[WGH]

Also, cables in group 2 are moving on to WGH right now

Cables are scheduled to be in Tucson on Friday, if you are in the area and would like a listen this weekend send me a PM.

Wayne

[DaveC113]

Thanks for the updates WGH and maxima, unfortunately I am too far from Tucson, I am in Colorado.

The only other thing I'd mention from RPM123's review is the comment on the leading edge of notes, and that my cables rounded them off. It is possible for silver cables to accentuate the leading edges, and the grovers and the cabledynes do this to some extent, it is a sonic characteristic of silver plating and silver wire less than 5N purity. So, while there is no doubt RPM123's cables will produce a more defined leading edge to notes, it is more than is realistic and depending on the system and listener can lead to listening fatigue.

[WGH]

Thanks Dave, actually I meant to be more inclusive. If anyone else in Southern AZ and would like a listen this weekend send me a PM.

Wayne

[scottd132]

I am using Signal Cable products all around. The Ultra speaker cables have Nom. Capacitance - 18.5 pF/ft

Nom. Conductor DC Resistance - 3.2 Ω/1000 ft. I am currently driving Super 3S with a McIntosh Receiver but

have a Trafomatic Aries in transit. I will use these cables as well.

Previous to Omega i drove Cain and Cain Abbys using Cardas SE15 with great results.

I like the neutrality of the signal cable and the price is hard to beat. It will be intersting to see how the Signal Cable Ultra Speaker cables work with the Trafomatic Aries.

I suggest keeping price and performance in balance and there are a lot of good cables out there that are truly affordable.

Blue Jean cables are very affordable and for those who use them they have good reviews.

Scott

[genjamon]

Scott, we all know there are a lot of cables out there at different price points with different design philosophies and materials. What does this post have to do with Dave's cables?

[DaveC113]

WGH, thanks, I appreciate your generous offer!

scottd132, there ARE much more affordable alternatives to my cables but cheap isn't my goal. Best value for the money is. Value for different people is going to differ, depending on finances and the system. My cables are designed to be used with systems from relatively modest to top of the line. Honestly, I do not make cables for "mid-fi" kind of systems, it's not a good balance and honestly, without a good system these cables are probably too accurate and will simply make any issues with the system much more audible.

In any case, this is not the right thread if you wish to debate the value of cables just in general, this is a thread for people to try my cables and share their impressions with the community.

But, I do not mind sharing my "vision" for my cables and why I decided to offer them, that is in this thread and on my website. Simply put, I am offering a cable that costs far less than the competition because I keep my overhead low and sell direct to the consumer with little to no money spent on marketing. I have a day job, and do not need to pay for rent, employees, etc. I may get to the point I need to expand, but that may also never happen. I have no idea. 

The next cable out will be cost-no-object and should be among the worlds best IC cables and it will still be well under $1500.    This cable will have a custom made UPOCC silver/gold alloy wire that is better than what is available to the general public. More info to come....

[scottd132]

Sorry guys your right i posted in the wrong thread. I had two threads open and meant to post it elsewhere. My comments were not meant for Dave's cables. I know nothing about them it was meant to respond to a fellow who was asking for ideas about affordable cables on another thread. I will post it there.

[DaveC113]

Update:  Cables are changing hands right now to poseidonsvoice and guf, so we should hear from maxima and teetee in the near future with their experiences.

I am also going to send Chris Adams and jd3 a 1.2 meter long set of D3 XLRs, I am just waiting to get it back from another customer who is ordering an upgraded version... that way it'll be broken in for you guys too.  I may make 2 upgraded versions and send them out to you guys too, they will be the D4 XLR I've mentioned...

The D4 XLR cables will have Furutech FP-601/2 (G/R) XLR plugs, one rhodium plated and one gold plated. I can use the super fancy CF connectors but only if you like rhodium on both ends and have another $200...    The ground wires will be 6 x 26 gauge UPOCC silver w/teflon insulation. The signal wire will be a custom, OEM Neotech UPOCC silver/gold alloy wire that is my exclusive product and is an improvement over the D3's wire, which is available in bulk from Neotech retailer Partsconnexion, Take 5 and myself for $7.50/ft in North America. I have not decided whether or not to provide more info on the wire or offer it for sale in bulk yet...  it is probably THE best wire for audio use in the world right now, nobody else has it, and I am hesitant to say exactly what it is. The single ended version of the cable will use WBT/Mundorf silver/gold alloy Nexgen RCA plugs with platinum plating.

The D4s are going to be a huge step up from pretty much any other cable on the market. The D3s are already one of the best cables you can get but the D4s are just going to surprise people. They will hide no faults in equipment or recordings. But they will also not compromise in tone, dynamics, body and harmonic structure. The D4 delivers as much detail as the best silver can, but has a more realistic tone, better dynamics and image density. The D3s have a very similar tone and overall sound to them, the D4s improve over the D3s in clarity and detail, and do away with the bit of added warmth from the upocc copper returns and gold plated RCAs. The D3s are a little bit warmer and more forgiving in return... in some systems this may be a good thing.

[Speedskater]

Hold on, balanced analog audio XLR interconnect cables don't have a ground wire. They have a shield. Under some conditions the shield is not connected at the receive end.  Under other conditions the shield is connected at the receive end through a small capacitor. if it's a phantom powered microphone cable then the shield needs to be connected at both ends.

A balanced circuit interconnect does not use a audio ground.  The most important thing about the cable is the symmetry of the two signal wires to the cable.

[DaveC113]

Speedskater, you (we) are not going to turn this thread into a debate about cable design.

First off, this thread is for the cable tour, which is on the title of the thread. Second, I'm not getting into this because explaining all of my design decisions regarding the XLR in particular would give away some things I don't want to state publicly.

Rest assured, I ask my customers what their application is for their cables to make sure they get something that will work for their situation. And the signal wires are symmetric in the cable's geometry. I am going to leave it at that.

I'm absolutely sure we are not going to agree on cable design, and I'm absolutely sure I'm not going to argue with you about it. If you want to argue about cable design please start a new thread somewhere else. I have read plenty of your posts and my feelings are that what you write is mostly based on reading books and not on actual experience. My cables are the result of about 20 years of actually experimenting with building cables and other audio gear as well as an engineering degree.

Unless you want to audition my cables, I am going to ask that you refrain from posting on my thread, thanks in advance. 

EDIT: I do want to say I appreciate your contributions and posts here on AC as well.   

[Ric Schultz]

Dave,
Great stuff!  Sending you an order for more of the 14 gauge wire now.  There is no pricing for your balanced interconnects on your website.  Can you tell us what the pricing is on the various balanced versions?....especially the DD, D3 and D4....and how much will the D4 unbalanced interconnect will be?  Thanks.

[DaveC113]

Thanks Ric, I'm glad the 14g wire is working out, it makes the best speaker cable for anywhere near the price I have found. I have kept improving the IC cables but there's nowhere to go with the speaker cables, improving them would cost at least 5x as much as the current cables.

I do need to work on the website, I have been too busy with other stuff... I will try to catch up over the weekend and update the website with pricing on balanced cables. For now just shoot me a message...

A standard D4 XLR 1 meter pair would go for $1200 and the single ended version $975. Both as described in the post above and in about a week I will have some pics.

Price IS getting up there but the D4 line uses better parts than most top of the line cables that cost several times it's price, and I am the only one using the Neotech UPOCC silver/gold wire while everyone else is still selling UPOCC silver cables (or worse)... the silver/gold alloy costs 2 x as much as pure silver so the value for the money in the D4 is still exceptionally high. An end-of-the-line, cost-no-object IC cable for under $1k that will probably beat any cable you put it up against regardless of price... that is my humble goal for the D4 line. 

[WGH]

First I would like to thank Dave for adding me to the cable tour. I had the pleasure of auditioning the D3 interconnect (Neotech UPOCC Silver / Gold Alloy) and 14 gauge Neotech EC-UPOCC speaker cables in my system for a week.

My stereo is revealing but not analytical, leaning toward the warm side of neutral, I would call it musical. The speakers are the wonderful Salk HT2-TL with RAAL tweeters; electronics are the overachieving Van Alstine  FET Valve pre-amp, FET Valve DAC, Synergy 450 amp and a CAPS server with Paul Pang USB card serving up flac. files. Vinyl is spun on a Harman Kardon T55C with power supply mod, a Goldring G1042 cartridge plugged into a Hagerman Cornet2 with Mundorf S/O, Sonicap, and Russian FT3 cap upgrades.

Cable are the classic Straight Wire LSI Encore II interconnects and Kimber 4VS.

I tried different combinations and found putting the D3 between the pre-amp and amp was the best location, the DAC, phono, and radio all sounder better.

My first and lasting impression was increased clarity, these cables do nothing wrong. They have a balanced sound, not favoring either extreme. Musical details are clearly presented in a natural way. High treble is clear and goes on forever without any stridency. The overall flavor of the interconnects is similar to the Straight Wire, when switching between cables the bass, mid-range and treble along with coherency was very close, the D3’s were just clearer.

The speaker cables may have been more detailed than the Kimber but in my system it was too close to call. Let me explain. I use a double run of the Kimber 4VS, replacing the Kimber with Dave’s 14 gauge resulted in a clear presentation but at the expense of some mid-bass and low bass attenuation.

Test #2: Try Dave’s on the RAAL with the Kimber 4VS on the bottom, jumpers removed. Results are about the same as the single run – OK but the magic is gone.

Test #3: Dave’s on top, Kimber 4VS on the bottom and with the Cardas tweeter-woofer jumpers installed – the magic is back. Unfortunately the cable mix does make it impossible to tell what Dave’s speaker wire add to the party, they certainly don’t hurt the sound.

Conclusion: The Salk HT2-TL speakers need more wire to live up to their potential. The Kimber 4VS has an aggregate wire size of 2-13 AWG conductors, a double run has an aggregate wire size of 2-10 AWG connectors. The two Seas Excel W18E001 speakers in each cabinet need all the oomph they can get, 10 or 11 AWG is the sweet spot.

Mixing and matching can work – or not. Dave’s and Kimber work well together, but try to cheap out and bi-wire with Dave’s and something like the Monoprice 12 AWG Oxygen-Free copper speaker wire will result in an incoherent woolly sounding system.

Salk and AVA have this wonderful synergy together that, in my experience, changing one item totally mucks up the sound. Dave’s Cables are the exception to the rule; they made my system sound better than it ever has. Congratulations to a job well done!

Highly Recommended 

Wayne

[DaveC113]

Great review Wayne, you can tell the guys who have a dialed system and have been doing this for a long time.... 

Your comments are spot-on, and should give folks a good idea of what to expect. The goal for the D3s is just to sound natural, real and neutral with as much clarity and detail as possible. Another requirement for everything I offer is to "do no harm" or not add any harshness that could cause long term listening fatigue. This can be a fun-killer as it's not immediately obvious to folks who haven't been in this hobby for a very long time, and causes you to want to listen to your system at lower volumes or not at all. I am very careful to offer cabling that will not do this. Of course, I can't fix harsh recordings! 

My speaker cables do have a variety of reactions and over time I have come to the conclusion that my speaker cables get the best results with speakers that have the least complicated crossovers. With single drivers or 1st order xovers and efficient speakers these cables usually get amazing reviews and many have said they are the best they have ever tried. My system is a single driver with no crossover whatsoever and these cables are a night and day difference vs something like the Kimbers Wayne has. But on his speakers there is a substantial xover network and the cables just don't make the same kind of difference, and low resistance seems to be a key attribute where it doesn't matter much with my system. So this is great feedback because it gives me a better idea of when to recommend going with the 11 gauge option instead of 14, and to gauge the kind of results that can be expected. It may be the case with some speakers that the litz-type construction of my cables just don't matter as much as others as well. In many trials my speaker cables result in greatly increased resolution in the mid to high frequencies but again, this effect seems to be reduced when used with more complicated crossovers. Thinking about it, this does make a lot of sense as the more complicated the crossover the more it will dominate the sound vs a speaker cable, and with a crossover-less speaker there is nothing else in between the amp and the driver besides the speaker cable, so it would have a much larger effect.

On the other hand interconnect cables serve the same function in wildly different systems so results with the D3 ic cable have been grouped MUCH closer together than results with the speaker cables. The upcoming D4 is similar in character to the D3, but offers increased resolution and clarity. It also does away with a bit of warmth and softness the gold plating and copper returns offered, so it is a bit "ruthless" but the increase in information coming through the cable is pretty amazing. It's also not thin sounding and does not accentuate leading edges like less pure silver cables and silver plating have a tendency to do.

I want to thank everyone again for the feedback, it is invaluable in making sure I am offering and recommending the right cabling to suit people's needs.   

[maxima95]

Many thanks to Dave for allowing me to participate in the tour.  I listened to the D3 IC's (XLR and RCA) and 14 ga speaker cables (12' w/ Furutech FT-211 (g) and 212 (g) connectors).

I tried various combinations of D3s and 14 ga speaker cables in the different systems below.  The 14 ga speaker cables were used in a single run, and as one leg of a bi-wire configuration.  I did not use the jumpers.

SYSTEM 1
(Transport) Sony DVP 9000 ES w/VSE Level 5+ Mods (DAC) Teac UD-501 (Preamp) BAT VK-3i
(Power Amp) Llano Trinity 200 (Hybrid) (Speakers) Gamut Phi 7
(Cables)(Speaker) Morrow Audio; Nanotech (Analog-RCA) Dave's Cables DD w/Duelund 2.0
(Analog-XLR) Homegrown Audio Silver Lace; MAC Palladium (Digital RCA) Darwin Silver Digital
(Power Cords) Triode Wire Labs; Lessloss DFPC; DIY Furutech Alpha 3; Wireworld Silver Electra 7
***********************************************
SYSTEM 2 - Same as System 1 except for speakers:
1975 Klipch LaScalas (Tweeters) B&C; Crites (Crossover) Alethia Audio Super AA
***********************************************
SYSTEM 3 – Same as System 2 except for power amp: Bottlehead Paramour 2A3 monoblocks
***********************************************
D3.
The XLR was from DAC to Preamp; RCA from preamp to amp.
The D3s did many things better than the cables I had on hand.  There was a lot of  information being projected; images were somewhat better defined and fuller; the acoustic space was easily identifiable; nicely dense stage; bass was slightly fuller.  Extended - smooth with some warmth; unflappable - with a sense of control and ease.  More of the above with both D3s; a bit less with just one. Given all the things the D3 does well, it is a “must hear.”

14 ga.
The speaker cables were used in a single run, and as one leg of a bi-wire configuration. There was a “liveness” to the sound, particularly in the upper registers, that added an extra dose of realism. Bass lines were clear and easily followed. The acoustic venue was easily discernable. Imaging and staging were first rate. 

This is a very linear cable with lots of information in the upper registers. Bass was detailed rather than  prominent.  The 14 ga mated particularly well with the 2A3 amps and with horn speakers. It also worked well with a hybrid amp and neutral, revealing speakers (as part of a bi-wire run for the “high” section).  While this was a successful match, poorly recorded or marginal discs did not get any repreive.  Using them on the “low” section was good, but not preferable.

They are likely not a good match for an already lean or bright system. But in the right one, there is a reward to be had.

D3 XLR and RCA and 14 ga.(“high” section – bi-wire)
With all 3, the above characteristics of the D3 complemented those of the 14 ga.  The complementary relationship and resulting synergy of the 3 together improved the presentation even more, and would mate with virtually all systems.

[DaveC113]

Lol, we must have been typing at the same time, thanks for posting David!

Another great review and I like that your comments about the speaker cables and where they worked best for you match with my previous post. I think this is good info for people to get an idea of how they will work in their system.

Not a lot of people hear the improvement in bass accuracy with the speaker cables so I am very happy you noticed that! I don't think these cables reduce the amount of bass coming through, they simply don't ADD anything. Regular copper cables add a lot of warmth, which obscures detail and makes the sound slow, wooly and bloated. The cheaper the copper the more the effect. As Wayne said in his reviews the Monoprice cables would be slow and wooly sounding. Speakers with more complicated crossovers probably have inductors with a lot of non-upocc copper in them which would reduce the effect of the litz/upocc construction of my cables. I think anyone with conventional speakers should consider a custom, high quality outboard crossover. I recently made a set for a friend of mine and the difference was unbelievable, they did not sound like the same speakers with the new xovers. The speakers were vintage AMT Heils, so there would be more of a difference vs modern speakers....

Also, that's good you got synergy using the D3s and SCs together. They have a similar kind of sound that really compliments each other.

[jtwrace]

I think anyone with conventional speakers should consider a custom, high quality outboard crossover. I recently made a set for a friend of mine and the difference was unbelievable, they did not sound like the same speakers with the new xovers.

I highly recommend you test/measure the new crossovers to make sure they are reacting the same exact way the orginals were.  It's not uncommon at all that something is different rather than truly better.  At bare minimum you need to measure them as complete assemblies which they should match and then subjectively judge how they sound.  I've been down this road...

[DaveC113]

Good point, and I agree!

There was no guarantee the old ones even worked as-intended anymore, and I used a totally different xover design from a newer pair of AMTs so it's not a fair comparison really.

But with a speaker you are replicating the xover design with I think controls like you suggest would be mandatory! And of course the speaker may already use very good parts, but it's not liklely because a good xover can be very expensive... I do think that replacing electrolytic caps with film caps and cheap inductors for air-core ribbon inductors makes for a huge upgrade and is well worth it though.

[jtwrace]

Good point, and I agree!

There was no guarantee the old ones even worked as-intended anymore, and I used a totally different xover design from a newer pair of AMTs so it's not a fair comparison really.

But with a speaker you are replicating the xover design with I think controls like you suggest would be mandatory! And of course the speaker may already use very good parts, but it's not liklely because a good xover can be very expensive... I do think that replacing electrolytic caps with film caps and cheap inductors for air-core ribbon inductors makes for a huge upgrade and is well worth it though.

I'm just cautioning...a lot can be learned with a Smith & Larson Woofer Tester.  Using a totally different crossover design from a newer pair could also be an issue. I'm sure you did measurements after the swap to confrm the new crossover is correct and adjusted accordingly based on measurements.

[WGH]

One thought about the attenuated bass I heard with just one run of Dave's 14 AWG speaker cable: The Salk HT2-TL's are capable of reproducing strong tight bass down to 34 Hz (+/-3db), 38 Hz and above is no problem and is essentially flat. So if your speaker doesn't go that low you'll never hear what I heard.

A friend brought over some classical organ music CD's we tried out with Dave's cables, he has a REL Gibralter G2 sub; we never heard what he hears at his house. The Salk's just didn't have it in them.

Wayne