My Silver DIY IC build

That Chris venHaus' IC are highly rated is one of the mysteries of life: I've tried them.

When one looks at a table listing the dielectric constants of various materials and one sees cotton with a very low DC it's important to realize that the cotton in question is desiccated and very fluffy. In other words, it's a fluffy ball of oven-dried cotton.

Cotton is naturally hydroscopic. That's why it is used for bath towels. Cotton also absorbs oils. That's why it is used for shop towels. The cotton tubing typically used in DIY cables is hardly fluffy or dry. That cotton will absorb moisture from the air and skin oils from handling thereby making it less and less useful as a dielectric. That these myths perpetuate is a testament to the stupidity and gullibility of consumers, especially audiophiles.

 

nice

 

i placed my silver in cotton speaker wires on the radiatior for a day and they sounded better afterwards....















honestly.

 

Is that honest, or a bit of sarcasm

Well still waiting for this silly amp to burn in, so i give it another week and il post up some listening impressions. I think there will be a difference but probably not as big as i was initially expecting.

But the last time i though i head no difference was with my previous headphone amp compared to the headphone out of my arcam integrated. Went back to the arcam after a few weeks and realised straight off that it sounded horrific.

 

That's exactly what I'm talking about. At equilibrium the moisture content of the cotton is proportional to the moisture in surrounding air and the cotton's dielectric properties will change with the weather. In so far as the dielectric properties of the cotton sleeve affects the performance of the wire it surrounds, the sonic performance of the interconnect will also change with the weather. Is that what you want?

 

Are you speaking from experience or is this your opinion. it makes sense, but have you listened to a cotton covered cable when the weather was dry or humid? Just curious, not trying to be difficult.

rollo

 

"uw, mods, yes your so right and just. Finally this world evil has been put to rest after being tormented for so very, very long"

 

Have I tried it? Why would I? As I have explained, there is nothing about a thin layer of cotton fabric that recommends it for use as a dielectric. There are other readily available and inexpensive materials that have a lower dielectric constant than even dry cotton balls and certainly much better than cotton fabric. Materials that are not hydroscopic, do not absorb oil, or anything else for that matter. Materials that are strong, durable, and available in a number of forms: blocks, sheets, rods, tubes, fabric, rope, and thread.

If you are interested in finding a good dielectric for DIY then get one of those tables and study it. Maybe you'll find something that no one else has tried. Or, you can just copy what someone else did by following what Chris venHaus or some other snake oil salesman recommends.

 

readily available and inexpensive with a lower dialectric than cotton?

really, what?

are you suggesting we try some light woods like kiln dried balsa perhaps.

dialectric makes bugger all difference once you get under a certain value. i use cotton because it looks, IMHo, better than any plastic tubing, not because i think it sounds better.

and i'd like to see any 'proof' that humidity levels experienced in the UK could affect it's LCR nevermind have an audible effect on the sound.

if you think CV is a snake oil merchnat you are wide of the mark. he sells high quality product made from high purity metals and plastics, and his cable designs are given away free.

chord, nordost, tara and every fucker else could learn from him

 

I guess you've never looked at a table of dielectric constants.

Not at all. Like cotton, balsa wood absorbs water and oil but is harder to wash after it gets soiled.

If you think cotton covered audio cable looks cool, OK. I was responding to Ad's claim that cotton was the best dielectric.

I don't have to prove anything. Dry cotton has a D.C. around 1.4; water is around 80. It shouldn't take a PhD in physics and material science to realize that wet cotton will have a higher D.C. than dry cotton and that the higher water content the higher the D.C.

With regard to audibility, I said,
“ In so far as the dielectric properties of the cotton sleeve affects the performance of the wire it surrounds, the sonic performance of the interconnect will also change with the weather.â€Â
If the dielectric properties of the cotton fabric surrounding the wire have no audible effect on the sound, why would Ad or CV or anyone else boast about cotton's supposedly low D.C?

CV's claim to fame was the promotion of braided Cat5 speaker cable at Audio Asylum. I tried it and I think it is awful. I always wondered why Chris' cable recipies always got rave reviews. Then he started pushing his commercial venture on AA. I looked at his web site and discovered that the description of his power cable was inaccurate and misleading and that his wire was more expensive and technically inferior to what was available from Belden. I posted my findings on AA but my post mysteriously disappeared. I posted again with the same result. I emailed the moderator to find out what happened and I received a reply from Mr. venHaus, himself, saying he didn't like my agenda. My agenda was sharing the truth so other DIYers could get the best product for the least money. It seems as a moderator of the Cable Asylum, CV had a very different agenda.

Most snake oil merchants “give away†designs as a way of promoting themselves and their products.

If you say so.

 

Well said.

 

I agree that cotton may not be the best dielectric with english weather. Especially if used outdoors. Problematic if it's raining. But I think it's safe in most living rooms with central heating...

Besides, the main dielectric in that design is the teflon tubing, with which the wires are in contact.
Even with plenty of air around, the central PVC pipe is the one to blame if some low-mid colouration is noted. I'd use a thick cotton rope instead.

 

sorry, my mistake i thought the dielectric was the insulation around the metal.....shows how stupid i am.

i'm still waiting for you to post up that table of better than coton materials, which are cheap and readily available. i think we'll all find it enlightening.

Did you ever consider your stuff from AA was removed becasue you haven't got the first idea what you are talking about.? just a thought.

 

Actually, the dielectric includes everything in the electromagnetic field of the conductors, But, you're right, I don't know what I'm talking about. Bye.

 

I was being ironic, really. Just trying to say that under extreme situations cotton may not be the best, but in the "controlled" environment of the living room it'll be almost perfect. Cotton as dielectric (and also paper) to me makes the contour (attack and decay) of instruments and voices sound more natural than teflon and other plastics. Its downside is that timbres are not so well defined as when plastics are used. Swap any non-electrolytic capacitor in the signal path for a paper one and hopefully you'll see what I mean. There's always a compromise. Each material has its own advantages, and one must try not to be more papist than the Pope.
I think it's not just the dielectric constants that tell the whole story, much in the same way silver sounding different from copper must not be solely attributed to the better conductivity. If it was the case, using a double run of copper wires of a predetermined gauge would halve the DC resistance and should sound silvery than a single silver wire of the same gauge. But it doesn't. Why the heck it doesn't, I don't know.

Been there, done that . That's a splendid design, I must say. I did use cotton rope and cat5, though (not an issue with portuguese weather :JPS: ). I testify that geometry is one of the best around. It simply adds nothing to the sound and stays musical unlike other low capacity, air dielectric designs I've tried.

Thanks for sharing. Those cables should beat a lot of commercial ones.
I advocated the use of polypropilene rope on several posts in AA and DIYAudio.com, long before SilverFi appeared with their line. They seem to use the very same ropes I did. It's the same weaving pattern. You can find them anywhere in AKI stores and the like. They're made in Spain and cost like, 3€ for 10 metres? Just be sure they're made of polyprop, not nylon, and that they're woven around a core. The basic design sounds very, very good. Take the core out and carefully insert the wire of your choice. Twist it or braid it PBJ style and terminate. This way it should measure no more than 50 pF/m. Adding more wires and complex braids like SF do will just add more capacitance and no significant benefits, I think.

To finish, j_b you got a champion there. I advise everyone into DIY to try it. You may discover the interconnect thing is done.

Cheers

 

Well it seems I'm not the only one that thinks and hears the same way ....

I agree cotton is superior in sound to any of the plastics assuming all other variables are kept constant....with the down side of being hydroscopic....in real terms in the uk this is not an issue in my experience.

Polyprop rope was one of the very first things I tried about 20 years ago and works nicely ....though it has a ropey finish [pun]

better still is the three lay rope where you can insert the conductors into the grooves and secure with ptfe tape this produces a hybrid parallel conductor that has some rejection characteristics.

 

Countless hours of fun to be had here.

http://www.asiinstr.com/technical/Dielectric Constants.htm# Section V

Graham.

 

I certainly didn't say cotton was the best, my quote is above, and like i said im not that mad about the lowest value of dielectric and spending hundreds on some cables. I followed and tried and tested design that ive only heard good things about. Why are there some people on here who seem to go off on a power trip about the slightest thing and try to flex their muscles about their knowledge.

I could go do exactly the same if i read up on this or just quoted lines from journals or wikipedia even. What ive done is create a fucking awesome looking cable which i will rigorously compare to my mark grant solid core cable and some cheapy lead 30 years old and the leads that came with my ps2.

But i suppose people will tell me then my ears are inaccurate and there is no difference, it's all a perception as im not doing multiple blind tests. TBH i don''t give a flying ****, as long as im happy with the sound then other peoples comments about the sound they haven't even heard been sweet fack all.

Right im off to enjoy some music, lets see how my BGs are today. Give it until mid-next week and il try to start some comparisons.

 

you listen to the Bee Gees, what a waste of new IC... ;-)

 

Ahhh ahhh ahhhh ahhh staying aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive