[drummermitchell]

Always love this from Shunyata and even the hydra 6







Even the fat cables(I had 12(pythons/ Anacondas)
 My take ……so from a normal iec connector thru the magical Shunyata cable thru the other iec connector and then ………..to your pre or amp that has whatever female connectors and then …oh my let’s not forget the hmmmm internal wiring.
If the last 6 feet make a difference then lo and behold I’m sure all those connections and wiring in components will truly interact with the Shunyata magic.
Even with my VAc sig MKIIa in the front naddaaa naddaaa.
Stock cables here and the same ol’ emotion of the music.
The only thing that made a Huge difference are my Torus PIUs,
Now that’s something you actually hear.

I wonder besides someone opening up Shunyata products has anyone opened up one of their power cords.
Id like to really see the MAGIC that transforms the end iec connectors and then the components iec and the components wiring.
I’m sure I’m missing something here and it’s not from my bank account.

I do love though how foam pipe insulation makes even 12 awg look so impressive at 1.5” THICK.
Hey  I was there myself years ago.

[drummermitchell]

Ps,
There’s more if you look up 10audio.
Full description and what’s reallyy inside a hydra 6 and I’m sure there’s the latest marketing snake oil we love to believe.

Something for the mind to stress about over the weekend.

[jmimac351]

I too love AudioCircle for more “involved” conversations rather than the constant fighting I’ve seen in “other” forums. 

I very much appreciate all the awesome replies to my original post. 

I’m not sure if something got lost in translation or not - but my original question was more or less how going from an 8 gauge wire to a 26 gauge wire wouldn’t lose a tremendous amount of current/energy.  I’m already convinced the quality and shape of the conductors matter

Thank you again everyone as I’m sure I’m going to be spending hours more filling in my knowledge gaps with all the references in previous replies.

A sincere thank you to all.

It didn't get lost, I just started rambling.     I have thought the same thing you have... one of the crossovers I have uses Duelund resistors with leads that might as well be human hair.  So fragile that you need to be very careful about how you handle them.

Then, it also occurred to me that fuses carrying significant current have wire that isn't very thick either... and an Esotar tweeter isn't looking for 20amps of current. I figure it's seeing "thicker cables = more expensive = better" and my own lack of knowledge about how thick a wire really needs to be to carry current.  Maybe that's a good analogy, maybe not.

I think it's why I've been able to get away with leaving plain 16ga wire in there while playing with gear, but that is getting ready to change.

[jmimac351]

Ps,
There’s more if you look up 10audio.
Full description and what’s reallyy inside a hydra 6 and I’m sure there’s the latest marketing snake oil we love to believe.

Something for the mind to stress about over the weekend.

As if the timing could not be any better... last week I helped someone (a lot) and they insisted I take home a used pair of Cardas Clear Sky XLR interconnects.  I put them in between my Ayre QX-5 Twenty Digital Hub out to my Ayre KX-R Twenty preamp.  Mogami 2549 is still in the system between the KX-R Twenty preamp and Ayre MX-R Twenty amps. 

That single cable swap... BIGGER, FULLER... more palpable tone / texture.  It was such a big move I had to call people... and they've experienced similar things.  One experienced it with Cardas Clear Reflection cables. 

I've spent a year building this system up with "regular wire not done right".  I just put in a single very good XLR cable, not even "Top Tier", and it transformed the system.  Cardas Clear Sky is a $600/pr 1M XLR... so probably can be had for ~$300 used.  Not cheap, not crazy expensive either. 

There is no stress here... I was kinda hoping I could ignore cables, and the Mogami stuff I have used is still really good.  But, again, I experienced the fact that you just don't know until you hear the difference. 

All of my Mogami cables will be replaced. With what, will be the fun.  I hope you're having fun... I sure as heck am! 

[twitch54]

There are opinions and then there are....facts.

Lot of folks still think that an electrons are sub-atomic particles revolving around an atom's nucleus as originally described by the Bohr model. This is an...opinion.

The facts are...they're not. Electrons are not particles revolving around an atom's nucleus, like planets revolving around a star. They are a probabalistically-determined quantum wave-function.

Ĥψ=Eψ and ∇ x E = ∂B/∂t are facts regardless of the opinions of a sub-population of male Hominids living on a planet revolving around a star.

Shunyata Research products function and provide quality attributes based on a deep understanding of physics and quantum mechanics.

Cheers and Happy Holidays.

Stephen, well said !

It always cracks me up when some twit babbles his supposed subjective opinion, which is not always a reliable indicator of objective reality

[PumaCat]

As if the timing could not be any better... last week I helped someone (a lot) and they insisted I take home a used pair of Cardas Clear Sky XLR interconnects.  I put them in between my Ayre QX-5 Twenty Digital Hub out to my Ayre KX-R Twenty preamp.  Mogami 2549 is still in the system between the KX-R Twenty preamp and Ayre MX-R Twenty amps. 

That single cable swap... BIGGER, FULLER... more palpable tone / texture.  It was such a big move I had to call people... and they've experienced similar things.  One experienced it with Cardas Clear Reflection cables. 

I've spent a year building this system up with "regular wire not done right".  I just put in a single very good XLR cable, not even "Top Tier", and it transformed the system.  Cardas Clear Sky is a $600/pr 1M XLR... so probably can be had for ~$300 used.  Not cheap, not crazy expensive either. 

There is no stress here... I was kinda hoping I could ignore cables, and the Mogami stuff I have used is still really good.  But, again, I experienced the fact that you just don't know until you hear the difference. 

All of my Mogami cables will be replaced. With what, will be the fun.  I hope you're having fun... I sure as heck am! 

Cardas makes excellent products and George is very knowledgeable about the underlying material sciences that is the foundation for the audio cable manufacturing process and the design requirements for specific cable applications. He makes excellent quality and well-designed products that provide quality and value.

As a side note, when I built up my Nelson-Pass designed Amp Camp amps, I used Cardas solder for soldering the circuit board components and internal wiring.

[PumaCat]

Stephen, well said !

It always cracks me up when some twit babbles his supposed subjective opinion, which is not always a reliable indicator of objective reality

It's a behavior that's par for the course for any predominantly male participant-based discussion forums. I see the same exact behavior on other internet forums that are also predominantly male. I dubbed the term "MFB" (male fighting behavior) for it. Doesn't matter if it's audio, sports cars, sport bikes, or camera forums. If you think the audio guys can get into it with each other, you should see the extent to which the Nikon guys get into it with the Canon guys. 

I have a Stoic view about it. As Marcus Aurelius espoused in his book, Meditations: "Tranquility comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do".

Cheers.

[Letitroll98]

I've been around the hobby for a long time so I've seen a lot of fads in wire and cable.  From using Romex as speaker wire because it's the thickest solid core wire you can find to using 24 ga single wire copper for speaker cable to reduce skin effect to using various forms of Radio Shack magnet wire in various configurations to using a specific Walmart extension cord (White Lightning) as speaker cable.  There's a whole 'nother set of recipes for interconnects.  A cable manufacturer told me the order of importance is geometry, construction, material then dialectic.  The only holy cow that's amazing moments were from well respected audiophile cable manufacturers.

[AllanS]

I had the same question when staring at the 6 ft, 3/4” diameter cables leading up to the exposed wiring in my M4 Sapphires.

Hopefully it isn’t bad form to link to a ~competitor’s website, but I think there is a lot to learn from Galen Gareis’s Iconoclast design and technical papers.
https://www.iconoclastcable.com/index.htm. It’s been a while since I attempted to digest all the info, but what comes to mind are the geometries and relative lengths of the external and internal conductors/cables. 

There may be other effects, but I recall frequency phase being effected by length such that the longer the cable, the greater the effect of phase relationship/shift across the frequency spectrum.  The differences may be measured in milliseconds but, if human hearing is very sensitive to timing differences, it’s reasonable to me that length can have subtle but noticeable effects on what some hear. 

Given my budget, I consider myself somewhat fortunate to be seemingly incapable of hearing many of the differences that others detect.

[corndog71]

I had the same question when staring at the 6 ft, 3/4” diameter cables leading up to the exposed wiring in my M4 Sapphires.

Hopefully it isn’t bad form to link to a ~competitor’s website, but I think there is a lot to learn from Galen Gareis’s Iconoclast design and technical papers.
https://www.iconoclastcable.com/index.htm. It’s been a while since I attempted to digest all the info, but what comes to mind are the geometries and relative lengths of the external and internal conductors/cables. 

There may be other effects, but I recall frequency phase being effected by length such that the longer the cable, the greater the effect of phase relationship/shift across the frequency spectrum.  The differences may be measured in milliseconds but, if human hearing is very sensitive to timing differences, it’s reasonable to me that length can have subtle but noticeable effects on what some hear. 

Given my budget, I consider myself somewhat fortunate to be seemingly incapable of hearing many of the differences that others detect.

Another nice thing about Iconoclast is you can try them for free for 30 days.  I tried their lower cost BAV interconnects and was so impressed that I splurged for their Series 2 speaker cables.  They definitely get the timing thing right.  Very dynamic sounding cables.