Hey Folks,
Hapa Tuesday
I wanted to chat bit about how Hapa Audio came about. I'm sure many of you remember Bolder Cables. Welp, for years, Wayne Wananeen from Bolder Cables made some of the most amazing sounding cables at the time. I replaced several of my cables with Bolder cables throughout the years. More than anything I learned a ton from Wayne's designs as well as his general knowledge that he was always more than happy to share. He may not have realized it at the time, but much or what he taught me pushed me in a direction that I likely would not have been able/interested in going. And that was braving the wild and designing my own stuff.
Try not to laugh, this is some of my early attempts back on the day of making a floating conductor /air dielectric cableThrough the years I built some UGLY MONSTROUS designs that, while some sonically sounded great, visually was entirely unappealing. Not only that many of my designs took weeks if not months to make. The result, a set of cables that were more trouble than they were worth unless they were done strictly for my own personal use. That all changed last year.
During my martial arts class in May of 2019 I managed to blow my achilles. Complete 100% rupture. I couldn't do anything but lay in bed with my leg up. I wasn't allowed to work, or do anything other than slowly worm my way to the bathroom when needed. It wasn't until June that I was even surgerized. Being a very active person, this was devastating to me. I was bored out of my mind for a few days, that is until I decided that since I couldn't move, I might as well listen to some tunes in bed.
As many of you might remember, I helped iFi get their forum established here on AC for few years back when I decided to work for them for a short stint. I have a ton of iFi gear to keep me company and it has served me well through the years. iFi gear of course sounds amazing, but as per my Audiophilia-nervousa I couldn't leave well enough alone. Which brought me around to figuring out how I could push my system to the next level. I had plenty of time and ordered up a bunch of high quality wire and parts and started tinkering.
Something I had always wanted to incorporate in my designs was a new geometry. I had spent a ton of time messing around with star quad cabling and found it had a ton of advantages. For one, it self shields via it's geometry. Due to the spiraling star quad induces a field that inherently rejects RFI,EMI noise, but the problem with star quad is the geometry also causes a severe amount of crosstalk between signal and common/ground due to the proximity of the two through the entire length of the cable.
One of my early attempts at making a decent pair of headphone cables. Bright, sterile and mechanical sounding, yet better than anything I had made previously. 
With nothing but time on my hands, so I started twisting and braiding, braiding and twisting, TWISTING AND BRAIDING until my fingers were raw and I had a frustration headache. No matter what I would do I wold end up with a mess. Uneven braiding, inconsistent sound quality and a tangled mess. Yuck, not a fun way to spend my forced vacation time.
Stay tuned, more to come later.
