Yes, stiff. I wonder if there is a high quality right angle termination that Galen would consider using? That might be an answer to your problem.
EDIT: I just reread your question. Some gentle teasing should get them to uncoil. I’ve not had a problem. Getting them into a tight space can be problematic.
From Galen: (in relation to the newest interconnect designs)
The new design improves current coherence (current magnitude through the conductors with respect to frequency) and phase (lower inductance. The higher capacitance is immaterial as the first order slope is WAY, WAY, WAY above audible…but phase effects are through the audio band so it is better to bias the design to lower inductance if you can hold cap low. The chart in the attached paper shows the 1x4 conductor lowers DCR and flattens the higher frequency Rs slope.
Wire. Let’s discuss that a second….new modern ETPC copper matches what is called OF copper (above OFHC). Audiophiles seem to think that ETPC is furnace sludge. Well, they had to “invent” OF as ETPC was well crossed over into OFHC territory and even into OF for impurities (bullet chart below). The number of nines isn’t the problem with wire. The next issue is the copper grains, which are formed by the heat and the draw speed…and I think that is what causes differences in the sound. But, the ETPC with super SMALL wires in interconnects is excellent sounding…better than a lesser design (the single wire conductor) with $$$ single crystal copper.
The goal is to make really good leads at $ prices over $$$. The interconnect design change has done exactly that, and eclipsed the UP OCC. Would UP OCC sound “better” than the ETPC? Possibly, but with the improvement SMALL 0.010” wires allow, the differences are compressed to a much smaller degree making the expense of the UP OCC less and issue than before.
Silver? This metal does not have large benefits to audio as the DCR isn’t an issue. Silver has a shallower skin depth penetration size matched to copper (see tech article). If you can make wire with copper in the same size as silver, copper is a better, more coherent, metal for interconnects. If we adjust the DCR (speaker leads) to be the same as copper by making the silver wires smaller it is a wash as the smaller silver now approaches copper skin depth penetration ending up about the same but at a HUGE difference in price. So silver isn’t the panacea people want it to be.
C10100 - also known as Oxygen-Free Electronic (OFE). This is a 99.99% pure copper with 0.0005% oxygen content. It achieves a minimum 101% IACS conductivity rating. This copper is finished to a final form in a carefully regulated, oxygen-free environment. Silver (Ag) is considered an impurity in the OFE chemical specification. This is also the most expensive of the three grades listed here.
C10200 - also known as Oxygen-Free (OF). While OF is considered oxygen-free, its conductivity rating is no better than the more common ETP grade below. It has a 0.001% oxygen content, 99.95% purity and minimum 100% IACS conductivity. For the purposes of purity percentage, silver (Ag) content is counted as copper (Cu).
C11000 - also known as Electrolytic-Tough-Pitch (ETP). This is the most common copper. It is universal for electrical applications. ETP has a minimum conductivity rating of 100% IACS and is required to be 99.9% pure. It has 0.02% to 0.04% oxygen content (typical). Most ETP sold today will meet or exceed the 101% IACS specification. As with OF copper, silver (Ag) content is counted as copper (Cu) for purity purposes.
ICONOCLAST is designed to be a tremendous VALUE based on better DESIGN. The series II interconnects move the bar further in that direction.
Galen Gareis
Something is wrong here. wglenn’s last entry did not occur 12 hours ago, instead many days ago. I and others added comments and questions to his post, and none of them are showing.
Yes, this is one of the threads that only got partially transferred. I hope they get the rest of these threads transferred over.
What a mess!!!
By the way, I am not lmf22-2! Where in heck did that come from!!!
PM Elk and he can fix it (that is if PMing is working 
)
I just tossed that last note from Galen back up there this morning. Didn’t mean to cause a stir.
Sorry Rob. What user name would you prefer. I’ll chan ge ity right now.
Ready to change it to whatever you prefer - keep it clean.
(PM has been working fine. I am getting plenty of them.)
System: BHK 250 to MartinLogan Spire, WAS: XLO Reference 3 speaker cables bought 9 years ago,
First Impressions of Iconoclast at less than 1 hour of burn-in:
Supporting instruments in the orchestra showed up on the soundstage. Sure, the primary theme instruments were there, but the first thing I noticed was just adjacent to the primary instruments, there were (sorry, I know this is an incorrect term, but bear with me) the supporting instruments that offered additional color, harmony, & texture to the music that I hadn’t noticed before.
It was like getting a brand-new DAC. For quarter the price.
During the first hour, though, it did seem like some of the percussion ‘thwacks’ of the wood sticks on the taiko drum frames did seem a bit more muted than before, so I don’t know if this is a permanent ‘feature’ of the cable or will correct itself after burn-in. (Sorry, I’m limited to my critical listening time while my Spousal-Unit is working her Kickstarter campaign, so I can’t just crank it up when I want to)
Also, I haven 't changed out the interconnects yet as the new versions aren’t available from Belden, so I may be seeing this as the weak point in the system at the moment.
But, yeah, they’re working like they’re supposed to so far . . .
Oh, that avatar brings back memories.
When an audiophile gets too engrossed in the tweaks: Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it.
I wasn’t completely sold an just the ICONCLAST speaker wire in my system either. But when I also added the ICONOCLAST interconnects things got much more cohesive and, for the lack of a better description, things seemed more phase coherent. Playing the devil’s advocate: perhaps the ICONOCLAST cables show where other cables in the system are weak and when all of the cables in a system are to the same level weak links are avoided? (Not sold on this theory, but it explains my experience and yours.)
That’s entirely possible. Back in 1992 we flew an experiment on the Shuttle to measure heat capacity of superfluid Helium to about 1/2 nK. (if new York to Los Angeles was one degree, then a half nano-Kelvin would be about a tenth of an inch on that scale). Everything mattered. The crew running on their treadmill in the cabin would cause vibrations through the Shuttle bay structure (where we were mounted) and cause our sample to heat up via an uncalibrated heat input (the vibration), so we asked them not to exercise when we were taking measurements. Remember doing differential equations in college when the professor said “these terms can be eliminated because they’re too small?” Nope, those terms, though small, would dominate at the 10 to 100 nK level and swamp out the measurement. So we’d have to take them into account and work out how to eliminate them. It’s like peeling layers off an onion: get one problem solved only to find the next one that’s still gumming up the works. (Side note, the thermometer error budget was such that the thermal stability of the thermometer itself had to be stable to 10^-14 K/s to be able to make the desired 1/2 nK measurement.)
So, yeah, just fixing speaker cables may not solve the whole problem until the interconnects are fixed as well.
PS, yeah, the experiment worked just fine.
Where are these cables for sale? High end audio turns consumer marketing on its head in many instances. The harder it is to find the item, the more desirable it becomes. Mining for cables.
Jamaicans have an expression for this: “wanty wanty, no getty/getty getty no wanty”.
Pretty much have to go direct to Belden, even though the website is pretty user-hostile. http://info.belden.com/iconoclast Or let Will send you Galen’s direct email.
Yeah, it’s painful, but looks like it’s worth it if you can get through the process.
Are the newer interconnects less curly than then original?
The first version was so tightly permanently coiled that for a longer run they were like trying to string razor wire - basically impossible to straighten.
The new ones are like the old ones - the curl depends on how they are shipped, they take the form of the box. I used a spare connector on my sub as an anchor and reverse bent the cable piece by piece (blocking it with stacks of CDs , each section took a couple of days to settle in before I did the next.
My guess was that they are not letting the wire cool long enough when it comes out of the machine, and are winding it on a spool too quickly.
Good to hear that it can be straightened, although for my 12-foot run that would take about a month…