Hello looking for advice...

[Thick_Mike]

Hello all.

I'm Mike from Buckinghamshire.

Currently my system is...
Rega Planar 3 / Rb300 / Ortofon 2M Blue --> Yamaha S500 --> Kef 104/2

I also have a Yamaha CD-N500 and a Mac Mini for digital.

I listen to a wide variety Be Bop/Big Band/Hendrix/Bjork/Beck/World Music/Classical and everything in between.

I'm here for advice on how to upgrade my system and spend some money!!!

[mr sneff]

Hi Mike, welcome to AOS, a good place to get some advice! What do you feel your system is lacking?

[Thick_Mike]

Thanks Mr S

I think the amp is holding things back...I love the KEFs I replaced the tweeters and doughnuts on the woofers and they sound great to my ears. I also replaced a Linn K5 with the 2M blue recently and really liked the upgrade. I'd like an integrated amp with a DAC, or a separate integrated and DAC that will open things up...I have a feeling that there is more to come from these speakers.

[r100]

hi, what cables are you using ?

[Thick_Mike]

hi, what cables are you using ?

Ha! Any old thing! I have some 13amp twin and earth as speaker cable!!!

Interconnects are a mish mash too.

I never understood the cables thing...but I am willing to be educated (I don't want to start a fight on my first dayM) :)

[The Grand Wazoo]

Hi Mike,
Welcome to Aos.
Nowt wrong with twin & earth as speaker cable!
Enjoy the forum.

[MartinT]

Hello Mike and welcome to AoS. I used to use T+E cable too, stripped it from the outer sheaf and twisted the cores in a hand drill. Worked very well!

[r100]

I didn't think it would make a difference either until I swapped out my 15 year old purpose built heavy gauge speaker cable. in my system it really did make a big difference. Since then I make my own interconnects with silver wire in Teflon tubing. Cost is low an it is fun experimenting. It really has opened up the sound, especially the LS cables. I would start by unwinding the wires and run them in parallel. just my 2cts ;-)

[trio leo]

Hello Mike,
Welcome to the AoS from me, nice to welcome another vinyl spinner, nice system, get the most you can out of it before changing things.

enjoy your music

regards Al

[Haselsh1]

Yeah, if you have some very revealing loudspeakers, I would go with tweaking before spending big money. Interconnects do make a substantial difference and loudspeaker cables can open up the bass and the treble. My NVA LS5 cables made a huge difference to the treble of my system but with my present loudspeakers I find I need to biwire. Interconnects make a huge difference. I went from Van Den Hul to Atlas. What a difference...!

[Thick_Mike]

I didn't think it would make a difference either until I swapped out my 15 year old purpose built heavy gauge speaker cable. in my system it really did make a big difference. Since then I make my own interconnects with silver wire in Teflon tubing. Cost is low an it is fun experimenting. It really has opened up the sound, especially the LS cables. I would start by unwinding the wires and run them in parallel. just my 2cts ;-)

I love a bit of DIY...any idea where I can get some pointers on how to do this?

[Thick_Mike]

Hello Mike,
Welcome to the AoS from me, nice to welcome another vinyl spinner, nice system, get the most you can out of it before changing things.

enjoy your music

regards Al

Don't put me off...I've got money burning a hole in my pocket! :D

[r100]

I love a bit of DIY...any idea where I can get some pointers on how to do this?

yep that's cool . I got my stuff from a French site http://www.audiophonics.fr but you can also easily find it on ebay

search for ptfe tubing and solid core silver wire 9999 (jewellery quality or even medical quality) or audio quality which will be more expensive but basically the same.

To make ic's you'll need some 9999 (4 nines) silver wire or any other solid core wire to experiment with, diam. 0.3mm upwards, some ptfe (Teflon) tubing 3mm int. diam. or less and a bunch of connectors. I use balanced connectors without a shield (max 60cm) for my amp directly from the dac with vol. control. I have no issues with hum or such so maybe I'm just lucky. If you are using balanced IC's you could add a shield if needed.

So far the one that works really well is a double 0.3mm silver core wire in a 3 mm ptfe tubing per signal (3 for a XLR cable)... but I'm only at the beginning of the journey .. next will be a triple core and also some guitar cord wire just for the fun.. who knows I might stumble upon something !!

I have also used standard microphone cable like the Belden 1805 but in my setup the silver core is best so far.

As for the speaker cables I would suggest getting a set of NVA 1, 3, 4, etc. not the LS2. I have the LS1 which is made of 7 solid core wires running in parallel (copper with tin/silver ??) per length. It would be very easy to experiment with that sort if construction. In fact, I have cut two 50cm pieces from them to experiment with ic's and they sound pretty good at that too ;-) Dead easy to build. The LS1 cable made a quite a big difference in my system and got me experimenting with the ic's which also influence the sound to some degree.

I would definitely argue against twisting the cables together. It will make the cable unnecessarily long and cause all sorts of other problems I cannot explain but have heard for myself. Hope this helps.

best !!

[r100]

Some pics of the wire and some IC's

First cable is plain Belden. The second cable is the three tube, double core .. the third one has an outer sheath made from some thin rope I had lying around and three NVA LS1 wires inside.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/21/ygaqu6un.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/21/9anagana.jpg

[Thick_Mike]

Thanks for the info...I'll definitely have a go at that. I've always been sceptical about the effect of interconnects and speaker cable, but I've never really investigated it. Like people have said, it's a good way to tweak things without spending much money.