Belden ICONOCLAST Interconnects and Speaker Cabling

That is just part of it.

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I watched the whole video and roughly half way through it my girlfriend said I should be doing audio stuff for a living. If only it were that simple.

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He makes rocket scientists look like a bunch of first graders. It’s always rewarding to listen to or watch someone who is the consummate professional. Galen is a no bull$hit person and that is a good way to be in my book.

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My friends tell me that too once they hear my system. But inventing or selling is harder than piecing things together by purchase and set up. Nobody wants to buy the latter.

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Whew! 15 degrees isn’t cold enough shoveling 9" of snow on a big driveway with a grain shovel. All I had on was a sweatshirt under a Goretex® outer shell with a stocking cap. Start cold as ice and end the job as hot as a heater coil! 63 year old bones still got it done.

I listened to my Astell&Kern Junior player loaded with .WAV files and a set of Beyerdynamic ear buds that have a nice clear sound, for ear buds, but came to no conclusion on what music is best shoveling snow. I may edge to new wave type in the dark morning hours as it is dimensionless and you don’t need to pay attention to it but when the sun came out rock seems better.

Hope everyone in this storm is fine. I CAN GET THE GTI OUT AND GO GET STUCK SOMEWHERE NOW!

Best,
Galen

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Since I can’t seem to find an appropriate thread for the Iconoclast/Belden BAV power cables I’m going to park this here. Elk can do his magic if he feels otherwise. One of my amps is a monster that requires two C19, 20 amp cables to power both sides of it’s dual mono configuration. Because I only had two low quality cables that had C19 ends I used them. Well the sound that was coming out was a major disappointment. The bass was woolly, the midrange was exaggerated and the crisp highs that my BHK 300’s gave me were missing. I was ready to put it on the market and call it a learning experience. One thing that nagged at me we’re the cables. Could they really be impacting the sound that badly? On a whim I contacted Bob Howard about a pair of 6 foot, 10 gauge cables with the required C19 connectors and some tech flex to dress them up. One week later FedEx arrived. It took a while to warm up the cables and to reconfigure my system to get the amp going. Well right out of the box, boom the sound I was missing was present. I now have tight bass, great midrange and lovely crisp treble. Music is just flowing effortlessly and making me smile. The amp is staying, as are the cables. The construction is perfect with machined aluminum connectors with centre barrels of carbon fibre. Very nice looking! One of my better decisions.

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The decision to use the Heavy Industrial EPDM (synthetic rubber) dielectric power cords was based on Rs testing. We try to make sure everyone knows that I managed to repurpose a great cable for audio that was not tested for RF mitigation properties in the original application. I have the paper explaining all what was tested and how. So no there is no “magic” verses RF testing and a re-application of a good product where it works. This allows a form/fit/function at a great price as we don’t pay for the development of a special design cable.

Please be realistic about how these products work, and we try mighty hard to test and document what and why we do what we do. I think you, as a customer, deserve to at least be trusted to understand the tech and how it is used, and if it is even correctly being used.

In the case of the power cords, EPDM has a very good RF passive absorption properties that is great for filtering RF in the cord per the Rs (swept resistance verses frequency) graphs. So if there is magic, that’s the trick. The BAV products are about VALUE and 95%-90% performance for far less money.

Best,
Galen Gareis

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Dang! Need me some 'o them!

This definition of EPDM may be helpful:

I think our garage roof is covered in EPDM. Maybe that’s why radio reception is abysmal in there :grin:

Everybody knows cables cannot make a difference in sound. Please.

I have a pair of Iconoclast speaker cables that I bought used. SPTPC. They came with LARGE spades on one end and Banana plugs on the other end. It’s a seven foot pair. I am wondering if they can be altered so that they have small spades on both ends. Or would it be best to just buy a new pair? Currently a three foot pair would work but I think it would be a poor decision to buy a new pair shorter than six feet. Thoughts?

The cables that I have tried and used before are all different, but the Iconoclasts I have now moved me to put Shunyata Sigmas back in their very plush case. No regrets.

I guess I believe cables can make a difference.

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I’m sure they can be reterminated using their new process. Contact Bob Howard.

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Yes, we can re-terminate cables to fit the application. The use of the proper connectors is so much more enjoyable and easier to work with.

The ICONOCLAST speaker cables are a sound first design so the bending moment force will be different across each axis and they are generally a “stiff” classification. For this reason, I suggest a four foot or so working length.

The EPDM power cord dielectric is a simple low pass filter to mitigate RF down the cable at a reasonable price to performance. It just keeps ingress above 60 Hz managed. The tested data shows how it works across frequency.

Best,
Galen Gareis

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Any new developments e.g. future iconoclast power cords? Other exciting developments on the roadmap?

We aren’t a large bottomless pit (in a good way) of money so we have to go slower than a high margin high volume type business.

It is also slower to do things per testing as that means well, you have to do a lot of testing and calculations.

-) I have a better plastic modulus for the jackets on RCA and XLR cables. It will improve how easy they are to bend, but it won’t allow them to be bend tighter. Just easier to get to that minimum bend radius. The material is, unfortunately, the same price as Teflon give or take a little but it is very UV resistant and that’s a big requirement of mine. I can use this material OVER a shield, not on unshielded cables so no speaker cable application.
-) A lot of development on speaker cable tends to say better is going to be expensive, but for real reasons. It won’t be applicable in all situations or budgets. And, we need to see if the paper improvements are real in use to most users. We don’t really sell BLING too well as you notice.
-) A lower inductance and better RS absorptive power cord maybe, based on if the design can leverage better numbers that are meaningfully better. Slightly better isn’t a good value so I won’t go there.

All the above is test data driven and papers will explain what and why they exist if and when they do.

Best,
Galen

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EPDM is standard for roofing, pond liners, automotive window gaskets, and any part that sees sunshine. We have a small fish pond that we made in 1998 and the EPDM is still flexible and crack free where it is exposed. Any other rubber would have been long gone in the sunlight.

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I see you ordered some. Good decision Mark!

What’s wrong with what we have? It will be a while on this. Nothing is slighted. If you haven’t held them in hand and tried them in the line you will be amazed how good our power cords are.

Re-termination is always an option if you can spare an inch or so… Wait, that didn’t sound right. :grimacing:

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Remind me not to do a BJC factory tour…:stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

The BAV AC’s are great - look good and sound good. Excellent bang for the buck. Got two with the C19 horizontal-slot female ends for my ARC pre and amp. They came with heavy standard molded cords, but these look and sound way better.

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