What am I ???

Speaker cable actually!

But can anyone tell me anything about it?... It's called 'SHF SP CORD' and appears to be made by OTK (possibly, the logo is quite small and stylised) in Japan.

I bought it used a couple of years ago when the vendor said it was some 'high end' stuff imported by Musical Fidelity or Monitor Audio, err, or something. I forget.

It's really very very good indeed and would like to find out a little more about it if anyone can help?

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/3791/p8091920sn6.jpg
By shian7, shot with u30D,S410D,u410D at 2008-08-09


http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/7715/p8091918rd2.jpg
By shian7, shot with u30D,S410D,u410D at 2008-08-09


The only thing I can find is this: https://ssl.allegro.pl/item407928086...ny_.html#photo

Nope, I've no idea. With it's green/copper alternation, it's vaguely reminiscent of some un-named Litz configuration speaker wire I bought on eBay a year or so back, only that didn't sound very good. That was said to come from the early 80s, I think.

This looks very much like the Monitor Audio cable of the early 1980s, possibly late 1970s. MA were as far as I can recall the very first UK maker to introduce 'audiophile' speaker cables.

I seem to recall they played havoc with all and any NAIM amps and that NAIM refused to honour warranty claims where this cable was used.

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That sounds familiar!

As I don't use any Naim gear I don't really care! ;) :lol:

I'm using it again at the moment and don't think it's quite as good as the Chord Odyssey I've been using (3M Chord V 10M 'Stuff') it's actaully pretty nice. Ish!.... After all, it only cost me £26 for a 10M pair! :)

Early Monitor Audio speaker cables. I had a pair, can't remember what I did with them now. Good cables at the time, low inductance but high capacitance if I remember correctly. Destroyed Naim amps - some would say this was a benefit.

This is the same cable as was sold in the US by Polk and was called Polk Cobra. It was Japanese-made. (actually, I've just noticed your photo shows the country of origin on it!). It was, as Howard guessed, marketed by Monitor Audio in UK and, at least some of, Europe.
You may be able to find some references available to it under the Polk name - I don't know for sure, I've never tried.

It was actually very good and sounds quick as lightning and very detailed in the treble. It does have a very high resistance and capacitance - hence the problem with Naim & some other transistor amps falling over at the sight of it. It works fine with valves though!

There was a theory that if it was bundled up into short, multiple runs then it could be the perfect speaker cable. The incidental bonus would be that it would reduce that incendiary effect it had on some amps.) I tried this but it was so tricky to do that I gave up, ending up with doubled up cables rather than the 4 runs I was after.

The problem is, that if you cut the cable, you have to seperate all of the green and copper coloured wires to terminate them. Once you've seperated them, you have to burn off the insulating lacquer - from each very fine strand. The fumes that come off this lacquer are really REALLY noxious and I got one or two very slight whiffs of it, ending up feeling sick and with a serious headache. I'd imagine it could do you some proper damage if you got a lungful.

What I ended up with was much better than the set of cables I started, with but not nearly as good as what was claimed by people who had the patience (& / or gas mask) to do the whole job.........though I never heard a full set myself.

Since then, I've discovered far more exotic ways of nearly killing myself!

Hope this helps or is at least of some interest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Grand Wazoo

The problem is, that if you cut the cable, you have to separate all of the green and copper coloured wires to terminate them. Once you've separated them, you have to burn off the insulating lacquer - from each very fine strand. The fumes that come off this lacquer are really REALLY noxious and I got one or two very slight whiffs of it, ending up feeling sick and with a serious headache. I'd imagine it could do you some proper damage if you got a lungful.

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Yes I've done this when re-terminating them... I fully agree!!!

I've been toying with the idea of chopping them up to make a 5M bi-wire set but memories of of 'the last time' have so far put me off.

It's a total ball-ache of a job! :exactly:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Grand Wazoo

This is the same cable as was sold in the US by Polk and was called Polk Cobra.

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Ah, thanks for that, I've found something:

http://www.high-endaudio.com/RC-SpkrCab.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shian7

Ah, thanks for that, I've found something:

http://www.high-endaudio.com/RC-SpkrCab.html

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Glad you found something.

I had a quick squint at your link & I didn't know about the idea of bundling 8 runs - that would just be too tedious and time consuming......and risky.

Food for thought though.

I very nearly threw these away.

Then I thought I'd pop em on ebay to see what happened....

and....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MESOX:IT

:door:

Nice one, Mike - good result! So is 'the boss' letting you keep the money to spend on goodies? :eyebrows:

Marco.

Blimey Mike!
I gave mine away. Well done you.

I was doing a bit of clearing out and they were on the way to the bin! :)

Bloody hell and bugger it, I gave about 15 metres of that stuff away not so long back, scuse me while I go scrape me face along a brick outhouse.

Word of warning to anyone who gets their paws on some of it though, don't use it on any amp that doesn't use a "Zobel Network".

I did, and I was sorry.

Well done Mike....a happy ending to a thread started so long ago:) :cool:


Regards D S D L

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mart

Word of warning to anyone who gets their paws on some of it though, don't use it on any amp that doesn't use a "Zobel Network".

I did, and I was sorry.

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.........and don't go sniffing it!
I did & I was sorry.

They look like some Monitor Audio (I think) speaker cable I used to have years ago. Highly capacitive, if I remember correctly, and known to cause Naim amps problems.

<confusion>
This thread didn't look like this when I replied. Something very screwy going on with AoS at the moment.

Could you explain, Martin? Everything seems fine to me :)

Marco.

Had an e-mail notification this morning that pointed only to post #1 (no other posts showing). I had forgotten about it so replied (my post #17 above) whereas I had already replied before (post #5).

I think it's wrapped up in the larger problems with AoS recently, such as slow posts and page rendering. I posted about it in Critics Corner this morning and it seems others have been suffering too.

Ah I see... I've noticed things being a little slow and 'clunky' recently, but everything seems ok now.

I'm afraid it's down to the server, Bluehost. The smooth running of the forum is directly proportional to what's happening at their end in the US - if they're having problems then so will we, and there's bugger all we can do about it :(

It's a 'grin and bear it' one, I'm afraid, until it sorts itself out.

Marco.

Thanks for the explanation. I didn't know AoS was being hosted in the USA. It may be worth keeping an eye on their status page here (and adding theartofsound.net to the list of domains to watch):

http://serverstatus.bluehost.com/

Thanks for the link, Martin. We'll keep a check on that :)

Marco.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marco

Nice one, Mike - good result! So is 'the boss' letting you keep the money to spend on goodies? :eyebrows:

Marco.

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To quote Manuel "I know nothing"..... ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MartinT

They look like some Monitor Audio (I think) speaker cable I used to have years ago. Highly capacitive, if I remember correctly, and known to cause Naim amps problems.

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Agree, they do look like Monitor Audio cables. These, if I remember correctly, were made in Japan and were designed to have a characteristic impedance of 8 Ohm, so matching 8 ohm speakers (!). To achieve this figure the cables had a very high capacitance per unit length (something like 1500pF/m); a BAD thing, and a commendably low inductance per unit length; a GOOD thing.

Technically complete nonsense, as the concept of characteristic impedance is irrelevent at audio frequencies, if the cables are less than a few kilometers long! Anyway the source impedance of the amp is not 8 ohm, but less than one hundredth of that figure.

Despite this, I believe the cables were said to have 'sounded' good.

Regards

To briefly go back to the original thread title, and in light of the not inconsiderable sum that eventually came via eBay, I think the correct answer is actually 'A Lucky Git' ;)