FWIW, my bet is on Galen’s designs.
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He describes his system as follows:
The System
Folks, the latent engineer in me must admit that this is all not only fascinating, but damn logical. Yet for me, numbers are only a starting point. The sound is the final arbiter. Just how do they stack up when compared to some of the world’s finest performing loudspeaker cables in my reviewer’s cable stable? The reference system I use to evaluate products includes the Kronos Sparta turntable powered by the Sparta Super Capacitor Power Supply, mounted with the Kronos Helena 10.5" carbon fiber tone arm, which in turn is fitted with the Etsuro Gold Moving Coil cartridge. My phono stage is the stellar Dynamic Sounds Associates Phono II.
Digital is rendered by either my own Windows 10 based PC, using J. River 27 (64-bit), Audirvana 3.5.40, or Roon 1.6, all optimized with Fidelizer v8.6, or my extensively modified McCormack UDP-1, both handing off to my Mola Mola Tabaqui DAC. Electronics include the Audionet PRE G2 linestage, and a pair of Audionet MAX monoblocks, driving my Von Schweikert Audio ULTRA 9 loudspeakers. Everything rests on the Gran Prix Audio Monaco rack and amp stands, and Critical Mass Systems CenterStage2 Footers. Power conditioning is managed by the superb Audience aR12, and a pair of Quantum Symphony Pro’s, with the total system investment just eclipsing the $600,000 mark.
That’s good, I guess - though I’ve only even heard of about two of those pieces (aside from the Windows digital chain) much less heard them. Megabuck system owners, please weigh in. But anyhow - it’ll be interesting to hear how the wires sound!
I looked up the patent application: WO2020/198152AI. Contention is that by using a metal with 5.5% of the Int’l Annealed Copper Standard the velocity of propagation can be made uniform across the audio band. Based on the application the foil is likely a Ag-Pb-In alloy.
After I save up some money I might risk them: 30 day return policy in case I like my money more than the cables. Also, I need more than 12 feet.
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Now that’s interesting. Very interesting.
Exotic metallurgy in high-end is something that really piques my interest, I hope I get to work on such dreamy exotics some day… Not to mention geometries that just work. Dreamy things.
“the foil is likely a Ag-Pb-In”
Care to know which metal(s) in the mixture contribute to its colour?
How come such a design involving a single crystal foil hasn’t surfaced more often in designs?
To think how simple the geometry is…
And what about stacked foils with a porous dielectric inbetween them? Is there an inductive “distance effect” that would be detrimental to the signal? If they were to be separated enough to not cause any interaction - the same signal travels all the strips, phase-correct, to the speakers, amplifying itself at the terminals when the signals from individual foil strands stack? More current?
Actually - just use several same length foil cables? Would stacking a pair of those Silversmiths give way to more current?
Hard to say. Could also be a Nickel alloy. According to the patent application the ideal percentage of IACS conductivity is 5.5. A few alloys on his list reach that number or come very close. At my old job I had instrument that could tell me what it was.
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I am just reading this thread, but have a comment about the Parasound amp.
The Parasound amp is the new JC 1+ monoblock. It is a Stereophile class A amp and two of them retail for close to $17,000. While the price might not be commensurate for a $600,000 system, I would think the SQ would be close to the state of the art regardless of cost. And it is designed by John Curl.
I do not work for Parasound or are associate with them, but do have a Parasound amp myself that I am very pleased with. I think they make great amps for the money that can compete with almost any. And they have another amp that retails for $3000 in the Stereophile class A amps.
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I stand corrected - an old bias. Darren talks to Curl on the phone with some regularity and has great respect for his work.
Be careful what we think we are experiencing.
On audio, we are testing proximity effect more than skin effect. Both are there superimposed at the same time. Both reduce wire efficiency as frequency and current go up. A swept attenuation graph will show this effect through audio, but is is BOTH at work.
Proximity effect needs current (two wires close together pull together and current density moves to the inside surface of the wire). Switch the current direction opposite one another and the wires are pushed apart and the current moves to the outside surface verses the inside surface
Skin effect leverages frequency. AT RF we have low current so proximity effect isn’t high. Of course, if we SHIELD the signal wire we can’t have proximity effect. Think coaxial cable at RF where the signal is EM, not magnetic, and the shield prevents ingress or egress.
Just be aware that proximity effect in say a speaker cable is a larger contributor to wire efficiency than skin effect. IC cables it is more the opposite as we have low current.
The fix is the same, though, trick the signal into seeing a smaller cross section “cable” and/or also putting several in parallel to match DCR requirements.
Just some fun stuff to think about. All cable has this trade-off in wire efficiency.
Best,
Galen Gareis
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Good that you chimed in.
Galen, could you specifically give your analysis of the Silversmith cables’ construction?
I trust that at this point you can acutely visualize the magnetic/electromagnetic flux of a conductor geometry. I’d love to gain such acute sense of how the signal flux works best.
And I will, gotta trust oneself.
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This especially is obviously what Silversmith cables aim to do best, but at as you mention… putting several in parallel. If I was to stack several such ribbon cables in parallel, would I gain more and more benefit? Where is the bottleneck?
Arenith,
More of the same cables in parallel won’t change wire current efficiency much, just the amount of current that can flow but…every like cable you put in parallel doubles the capacitance and halves the inductance.
I say not too much change in wire efficiency because you do DECREASE the current in each wire and this lessens proximity effect but not skin depth with the same driven current. But looking at just this one aspect of all that the variables can influence a cable’s sound is not the best trap to get into.
We need to look for overall design ethos that seems to better balance a cable and not chase extremes. Way high cap or way high inductance by driving the opposite reactance low.
If we keep adding cables in parallel and changing the capacitance and inductance, at some point we influence the amplifiers damping factor (amps output impedance divided into the cable + speaker resistance) and frequency response (need lots of negative feedback with high reactance). Got an amp with zero negative feedback? Tubes?
At some point we are listening to what the cable does to the electronics with specific amplifiers. Do I want to do that? Should you?
Every network will accept a cable differently. Generally “A” cable may sound like “this” but more or less of “this” with a given amp or speaker. No two people will agree on if “this” is better than “that” until you use it in your system.
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So would a full tube amplifier, given the (necessarily high quality) tubes’ transfer function, be the best pair for ribbon cables, which naturally do give square waves and transients a good road to travel…
Outside of the cabling matter, quoting Bob Carver, tubes and ribbons do magic. Maybe the Silversmith ribbon cables along with full tubing, would be best suited for a primarily ribbon/planar based speaker?
Also, why aren’t binding posts designed such that to have as little surplus surface area as possible? Isn’t a thick bulk of conductor at the terminals detrimental to signal purity, as the signal needn’t any additional eddies?
Ribbon cables don’t have consistent capacitance to a ground reference for each wire. This is why I didn’t build one. They are several “different” cables in parallel. Wires closer together have higher capacitance than the ones farther apart. If we FOLD the ribbon capacitance goes way up. The fact that all the wires in a ribbon cable aren’t the same distance apart from every other wire in the cable is a problem I wanted to avoid.
Shielded “ground plane” digital ribbon cable has a mesh ground plane under the flat ribbon as a ground, to evenly distribute the ground as best possible but and it raises capacitance. The insulation material and thickness is used to set the IMPEDANCE. Good speaker cable likes to have each polarity identical to one another as this is AC. Most high speed ribbon cables pulse DC referenced to a ground and we hope each wire sees the same ground so the voltage is the same value referenced to that ground. We can’t use this kind of cable for AC signals too well. Sure, it will “work” and make noise, but not as well as it should.
Not sure where you get the idea ribbon cables are better at transients. R, L and C don’t know what the cable’s construction is, but speakers do know their bulk values and how that is presented. Cable becomes part of the speaker seen by the amp which can’t tell one from the other. The amp sees a different network.
There is no magic to this. Tubes do voltage well, not so much current. This is by the design of a tube, after all. No feedback likes resistive loads and Magnepan type planers offer a more resistive load with a lower phase angle (reactance) than an electrostatic speaker. This easy load suits low feedback amps. But, electrostatic and ribbon type need lots of CURRENT so it is hard to drive them at a decent price with tubes for that reason. Read Magnepan’s literature, it’s been there for years.
WBT and like binding posts have to match a wide variety of cables. There are terminal strips all through the inside of a speaker, not just the binding posts.
Best,
Galen Gareis
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I’ve been using Townshend Isolda ribbon cables for years. So have lots of other people, they’ve been in production for the best part of 40 years. It is not particularly expensive and is a reference cable for several audio “experts”, including Jimmy Hughes who really is an expert and recommended them to me.
Max Townshend has come up with a new ribbon cable in a different format called Fractal that is much more expensive, and has become a reference cable in the UK and also in Europe.
Don’t ask me how or why, just fit and forget.
So, what about same polarity stacked ribbons with thin and proper, “breathing” porous insulation between? Here again, + and - in separate runs?
To give them ground, why not add thin conductive yarn that runs across their length and separates before the terminals, and runs to ground post ? Not many speaker cables have a one-way ground unless it’s a shield (which constricts the field unless properly distanced?)
Also, as I understand your text Galen, certain capacitance is required for optimal conduction? A balance between capacitance and inductance for a given purpose?
Someone described an exceptionally capacitive cable by Zeus (?), apparently it was harsh sounding in audio use but for video it provided better colour contrasts.
I wonder if we’d find (or invent) certain speaker drivers even benefiting from surplus cable capacity? We could maybe change crossover component values depending on the cable’s own capacity?
Could I get a common language explanation of proximity effect? Is it very related to same polarity conductors that are close? How is it described by L, C and R?