A different kind of snake oil?

DaveC

Industry Expert
Nov 16, 2014
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Dave I have spoken with many cables manufacturers and cables assemblers the last few months and it was a very interesting experience.

As expected, the most of them presented their product as the best in the world (even the assemblers did so, for their assembled cables with parts from the shelve) . Many, directly, attempted to degrade the competitors by misrepresenting Physics and chemistry or attacking their competitors pricing policy or the dealers’ networks.

Fortunately some, very few though, are keeping a low profile, do not hesitate to speak highly for their competitors; and are leaving their products to speak for themselves. These manufacturers are those who will send demos for free without any obligation or security. One of them offered a very rare unlimited warranty, to replace for free any of his cables, in case they will show any short of oxidation or corrosion; and another didn’t have any problem to reveal the source of his materials that most assemblers are using, Wan Lung Electric Wire & Cable Mfg., Co., Ltd (one of three OCC technology manufacturers around the world, Wan Lung uses this unique material & technology on a full range of audio/video cables and related accessories. Wan Lung has also registered the trademark as “UP-OCC (single crystal)” worldwide.)

he even sent me that extensive catalogue of all different cables designs and materials which Wang Lung can produce (different designs, different geometries, many different silver alloys, different dielectrics including cotton ) and which are claimed by many assemblers as proprietary secret recipes.



i agree with @Kenc who wrote in a thread ...humility is a wonderful trait in both humans and audio cables as well...



Wan Lung is Neotech. Their registered business name in Taiwan is Wan Lung, but they do business as the brand Neotech. They make the best wire in the world for audio use, imo. I'm not sure I understand the point of your post?
 
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Atmasphere

Industry Expert
May 4, 2010
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Differences in cables was why I designed our MP-1 preamp. It was the first balanced line preamp made for home audio.

I did this because I knew Robert Fulton, who founded the high end audio cable industry pretty much on his own, way back in the 1970s.

I hated that I could hear differences in Fulton's cables! I played in various orchestras in high school, college and beyond and I saw microphone signals going a very long way through some pretty ordinary looking cables and came out the other side sounding just fine. So I knew there was a better way when I began the design cycle of our preamp.

There is a standard employed when balanced lines are used. So I made sure our preamp supported it. It was only a few years later that other manufacturers started doing balanced line products, but it was many years later before I found another that was actually supporting the standard (known as AES48). Because of this lack of support in high end audio, many audiophiles hear differences between balanced cables like they do with single ended. This really shouldn't be happening!

People have sent us many connectors over the years. The best balanced ones IMO/IME are made by Neutrik, which is nice because they are also nicely priced and easy to get. Most of the more expensive ones are copies of older XLR designs and in a nutshell, less impressive and I mean that in every way. Neutrik thought everything through and got the metallurgy right. I tend to not care too much about single-ended cables since if you hear a balanced line operating properly you're not going to go back to single-ended. However, Cardas makes a very respectable RCA connector- they've held up for us admirably over the decades.

Oxygen-free copper is used in audiophile cables. Generally its 99.99% pure. Its very hard to do better than that; I've heard of '6-nines' copper but I've been told over and over again by wire people that if you hear about that from someone, its probably best to turn in the other direction and run as hard as you can. Oxygen free copper wasn't created for audiophiles BTW, its for generators and alternators where the wires for the brushes has to remain flexible.

This hasn't stopped us using it. I found early on that getting the wire I wanted for hookup in our amps and preamps was going to be expensive and challenging if I paid other high end manufacturers for it. So we had wire companies make it for us. OFC needs to be well protected if you expect it to perform over years and decades. The trick to this is to use a dielectric that melts. That will cause the wire to be sealed when its been soldered. As a result, if you have a copper wire the best insulator money can buy is polyethylene, which is sort of the wire insulator equivalent of polystyrene; its performance is quite good at audio frequencies. If you think about it, wires will result in capacitance and that capacitance might as well be a good quality.

This approach has worked well; amps that we built over 40 years ago have wire in them that still isn't corroded after all that time. We had an Italian distributor decades ago that insisted on sending silver wire to us for wiring preamps we made for them. The insulation didn't seal the wire (this is important for silver BTW as mentioned by DaveC) so I'm sure by now those preamps need to be rewired. Sealing silver wire seems to be a bit of a trick. Its common to see Teflon on silver but I don't see Teflon as really sealing the wire properly. This is why its almost never used on copper.

I started out as an audiophile that wanted to do every tweak in the book to get better performance. But making amps on a practical basis if you have an engineering background teaches you in a way that you don't get simply buying audio products. I hate to say it and its no secret, but dang it there's a lot of snake oil in high end audio.
 

whistleraudio

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2015
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On the expensive cables, while I understand a $20k Siltech Triple Crown is a lot of money and maybe you feel it's not a good value, IMO the Siltech cable is still an AMAZING cable, they tell you what's in it (lots of UPOCC silver) and use genuine plugs...
I do not think that Wan Lung process wire for Siltech/Crystal Cable. I have never seen a reference regarding their use og UPOCC. As far as I know, Siltech and Crystal Cable (Crystal Connect) have their own casting and manufacturing equipment.

http://www.highfidelity.pl/@main-812&lang=en

Conductors are silver wires cast at the Siltech factory in a patented process. As a result, ultra-fine solid-core silver wires with a mono-crystalline structure are obtained.
 

Vienna

VIP/Donor
I do not think that Wan Lung process wire for Siltech/Crystal Cable. I have never seen a reference regarding their use og UPOCC. As far as I know, Siltech and Crystal Cable (Crystal Connect) have their own casting and manufacturing equipment.

http://www.highfidelity.pl/@main-812&lang=en

Conductors are silver wires cast at the Siltech factory in a patented process. As a result, ultra-fine solid-core silver wires with a mono-crystalline structure are obtained.
UP-OCC is a trademark registered worldwide by Wan Lung (Neotech). If Siltech or any other assembler has specified UP-OCC for their cables then they are using one of the many Wan Lung products, including the silver/gold alloy ones (of various gold content). Wan Lung is also one of the three OCC manufacturers around the world.
 
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