Furutech GTX-D Rhodium NCF Outlet

[DaveC]

Dave, if you wrap the barrel of the RCA with a few layers of teflon, doesn't that make it very hard to actually turn on and off the thread when releasing the RCA from the input? I agree the barrel on my WBT's has dropped off a few times, which is annoying, but one just screws it back on. The trick is to remember to turn it towards the input when releasing, otherwise you are possibly overtightening the whole affair, which I worry could actually lead to some damage. That aspect to me seems to be the biggest concern with this type of plug.

Nah, it just makes it smooth and with a little resistance. You should never be using enough torque on the locking barrel that it could possibly cause any damage. Just enough so the plug doesn't pull off the jack is fine.

I've also been using viscoelastic dampers on the barrels, they are really nice but my supplier changed things and the new stuff isn't working out. I have some carbon fiber tubing I've been playing with and this works even better, basically rings of carbon fiber that slip over the locking barrel. I may offer these as a stand-alone product to go with the WBT RCA plugs. I think that's the one thing WBT can improve, mechanical damping of the locking barrels.

 

[DaveyF]

Dave, the WBT locking barrels seem to be pretty durable and I think they do their job well...not sure how much of an upswing one gets by dampening that area, I would have thought that the locking aspect is more important....creating a solid connection with minimal to no loss. I actually own some cables that are from yesteryear, that the designer, Don Palmer, added mechanical and electrical dampening to the cable itself. At the time it was pretty revolutionary, but for some reason it never really caught on? Cable does sound very good, albeit it is beaten these days by some of the better high speed cabling.

 

[DaveC]

Dave, the WBT locking barrels seem to be pretty durable and I think they do their job well...not sure how much of an upswing one gets by dampening that area, I would have thought that the locking aspect is more important....creating a solid connection with minimal to no loss. I actually own some cables that are from yesteryear, that the designer, Don Palmer, added mechanical and electrical dampening to the cable itself. At the time it was pretty revolutionary, but for some reason it never really caught on? Cable does sound very good, albeit it is beaten these days by some of the better high speed cabling.

The damping can make a pretty big difference. Some other cable makers damp WBT locking barrels.

Furutech is also evidence it makes a difference. Many of their connectors are exactly the same with the only difference being a stainless steel and carbon fiber body. This can make for some unbelievable differences. I've tested almost every one of them and the Furutech CF versions are always significantly better than their brass or plastic bodied versions... even though the electrical contacts are exactly the same.

So yes, I do thing WBT is leaving something on the table and the plugs can be significantly improved by damping the locking barrel.

 

[ayreman]

I had a clear preference for the crimp sleeves vs bare (stranded) wire inside those connectors as the end result came together more cleanly. There's a lot of extra space in there, which is maybe why Dave is wrapping extra wire. But I didn't like the splaying of the bare wires inside the connectors and felt best using the sleeves. Caig ProGold is what I use in lieu of the Furutech stuff. Works great at substantial cost savings.

If worried about signal loss from materials, we should then be considering bare wire and ditching the connectors.

bazelio, I have 2 questions:
1. Could you please attach a photo(s) of the crimp sleeves you found worked best with CF-201 (R)?
2. When choosing spades for your speaker cables... what options did you test and compare? Did CF-201 (R) beat everything else hands down or was there a "|close call" with another contestant?

 

[Uk Paul]

Ayreman,

Forgive me for replying to your question to bazelio; the crimp sleeves need to match your wire bundle as tightly as possible, so that it is not loose prior to actual compression. WBT are good, as is their crimp tool..

Rgds,
Paul

 

[bazelio]

Hi @ayreman ,

Just to be clear, I didn't say I tried various different crimp sleeves and found that one type was better than another. I simply said I tried twisting the bare wire and clamping down the connectors first and then also tried crimping. I preferred the crimped wires from a purely mechanical connection standpoint. A copper sheet should work also, but the reason to do that over copper crimp sleeves isn't intuitive to me. These are the sleeves I used (despite using Furutech spades): http://www.wbtusa.com/pages/crimpsleeves.html . Then someone loaned the WBT crimping tool to me. Easy peasy. If you're building silver wires, it'd make sense to use the silver WBT crimp sleeves instead of copper. Either way, just make sure the sleeves are a matching gauge to the wire so that there isn't a void. I didn't go to great lengths to select the specific spades. The connector choice for me always comes down to either Furutech or WBT. I'm familiar with how the materials they use differ in terms of sound, having done a fair number of DIY interconnects with the different types. In this case, I went with Furutech. Both are good, though slightly different.

 

[DaveyF]

The damping can make a pretty big difference. Some other cable makers damp WBT locking barrels.

Furutech is also evidence it makes a difference. Many of their connectors are exactly the same with the only difference being a stainless steel and carbon fiber body. This can make for some unbelievable differences. I've tested almost every one of them and the Furutech CF versions are always significantly better than their brass or plastic bodied versions... even though the electrical contacts are exactly the same.

So yes, I do thing WBT is leaving something on the table and the plugs can be significantly improved by damping the locking barrel.

Thanks, Dave.

I won't disagree that the dampening can make a difference, just like so many variables in this hobby. ( many of which I have experienced myself).
Question in my mind is why this should matter....any thoughts on that?

 

[DaveC]

Thanks, Dave.

I won't disagree that the dampening can make a difference, just like so many variables in this hobby. ( many of which I have experienced myself).
Question in my mind is why this should matter....any thoughts on that?

Probably the exact same reason footers and racks change the sound.

 

[DaveyF]

Probably the exact same reason footers and racks change the sound.

Ok, but why...any idea? Racks present a much larger footprint to a back wave or directional wave of sound than the other two...and they are usually subject to impact from less than rigid floors... or other underlying support. Footers, that’s another question, but their main duty is to add isolation to the supported gear, and in some instances to level it. The amount of wave impact on the footer should be very negligible, imo. Therefore, the same cannot really be said about it vs. the rack. OTOH, the barrel of the plug....how much wave impact is that likely to be seeing, I would say...nil.
So, maybe something else is going on, no?

 

[purevinyl]

has anyone tried Furutech 105.1 NCF Receptacle Cover?

any improvement/difference between the Furutech 105 NCF Cover?

Cheers

 

[RnRmf]

has anyone tried Furutech 105.1 NCF Receptacle Cover?

any improvement/difference between the Furutech 105 NCF Cover?

Cheers

I looked up info about it, last year and I thought I read a Furutech description that indicated the ".1" version was a minor redesign to fit better the duplex and wall plate but I'm not 100% on that.