Preamps... nothing is perfect.

[bazelio]

@Sablon Audio

How does Teflon compare to cotton and silk in your experience?

@DaveC

Even inside Teflon, I'd expect corrosion. Wouldn't you? Are you somehow sealing the ends of each 26 awg strand of Teflon insulated wire when you build a cable?

 

[Sablon Audio]

Teflon? Leaner midrange and a harder edged presentation. .

 

[DaveC]

@Sablon Audio

How does Teflon compare to cotton and silk in your experience?

@DaveC

Even inside Teflon, I'd expect corrosion. Wouldn't you? Are you somehow sealing the ends of each 26 awg strand of Teflon insulated wire when you build a cable?

Haha, yeah, just putting it in teflon won't do anything. I flush the tube with inert gas and seal the ends.

IMO, conductors that corrode are about the same as selling a 12g solid-core cable or a ribbon cable that can't be bent repeatedly without breaking. It takes a lack of ethics to sell products like these. We have enough throw-away garbage in the world, I want my cables to work a century later.

 

[bazelio]

How do you seal the ends? Something like shrink tube is unlikely to do the job.

 

[DaveC]

How do you seal the ends? Something like shrink tube is unlikely to do the job.

There are a couple adhesives that will seal teflon.

 

[bazelio]

There are a couple adhesives that will seal teflon.

What do you recommend?

Also, even after flushing with gas, unless you're creating a vacuum then oxygen, CO2, etc will still be present before the ends are sealed.

 

[CKKeung]

With my schedule over the next few days, I won't be able to listen to music until Saturday. So I decided to test observations I've read that transformers or autoformers have a "break in" period, after or during which they will sound different.

I'm running a varying frequency and amplitude sweep. Amplitude is capped at 5V pk-pk at the autoformer inputs. The fundamentals sweep 10 Hz to about 25 kHz with different waveform patterns (square, sawtooth, sine, etc) warble tones, complex waveforms, and noise with high frequency content out to 100 kHz. I'll run this through the AVC for the next 4 days. It should provide a rigorous break in. Saturday after about 100 hours, I'll try to detect audible differences with the AVC back in my system.

You don't need to try to detect diff after the process, because there must be changes/improvement and they are easily audible.

Will you "load' the output side too, to simulate a real working condition?

 

[bazelio]

You don't need to try to detect diff after the process, because there must be changes/improvement and they are easily audible.

Will you "load' the output side too, to simulate a real working condition?

I'll be the judge of that! Haha... Yes it is loaded by the scope 1Meg inputs.

 

[bazelio]

On the topic of corrosion... Everything I've been able to uncover in researching the topic indicates that silver oxide has excellent conductivity and virtually no effect on the sonics, unlike copper oxide, which is a poor conductor and a semiconductor of sorts, with some negative sonic consequences. So while the silver will presumably develop surface oxide eventually, it's not likely to be a problem.

Based on @Sablon Audio 's description, I suspect the silver in silk will be my personal preference and it's cheap enough to try and see how it differs from Neotech in teflon. At some point, I'll do this.

 

[Sablon Audio]

There is always the option of enamelled silver, like the 24awg from Audio Consulting.

 

[DaveC]

On the topic of corrosion... Everything I've been able to uncover in researching the topic indicates that silver oxide has excellent conductivity and virtually no effect on the sonics, unlike copper oxide, which is a poor conductor and a semiconductor of sorts, with some negative sonic consequences. So while the silver will presumably develop surface oxide eventually, it's not likely to be a problem.

Based on @Sablon Audio 's description, I suspect the silver in silk will be my personal preference and it's cheap enough to try and see how it differs from Neotech in teflon. At some point, I'll do this.

Well, how much corrosion is ok? I've been building cables for a long time and it gets to the point you can brush a black dust off of the surface of the silver. Silver doesn't just corrode on the surface and then stop.

Also, the claim that it doesn't effect sonics is untrue as well. Think about it, you're agonizing over what to put right next to the wire right now, and then saying corrosion, which will not only replace that material with another, but also destroy the surface finish of the wire, which is very important too. Silver corrosion won't just stop right at the surface.An example... some high frequency coax is silver plated steel, the steel allows it to be run between utility poles and the signal is on the silver plating, which is polished as well because surface finish is important.

I don't know, but this all seems common sense to me. The differences in sound quality here aren't even that significant, not enough to choose to build a cable that will start sounding worse as it ages. If you want to go for it, at least you're not selling them.

I hate to say it, but there's a ton of incompetent people in many different businesses right now as a result of the democratization of technology, with audio you can buy gear to test and measures for pennies on the dollar vs decades ago and you can sell via the internet with far less investment in marketing.

This can be good but it can also be bad... you have people designing cables that corrode and break when they are bent because they simply don't know any better, or they have ethics that allow them to sell a product they know will fail and/or sound worse and worse as time goes on. I know for sure the latter is true in some cases.

Further, you also have incompetent people giving advise as self-proclaimed "experts" and people are overwhelmed with information. It makes for a difficult situation where people don't know what to believe and need an engineering degree to sort through all these ridiculous claims and theories. I mean, look at the anti-vaccine thing, people will choose to accept information based on their feelings instead of fact and now long gone disease is cropping up again.

 

[bazelio]

You don't need to try to detect diff after the process, because there must be changes/improvement and they are easily audible.

Will you "load' the output side too, to simulate a real working condition?

Well I had some time this morning to listen to two LPs and check in on any changes. I'm at approximately the 80 hour mark of continuous "burn in" now. And, I'll be damned. There are noticeable changes since last weekend.

Most notably, the sound has blossomed and fills the room more than it did. The sound is more grandiose. The complaint/distraction I had with dead space is not what it was previously. There's still a great sense of air as before, but now everything takes on a larger scale and seems to fill in some of the previously empty nooks and crannies of the stage. I no longer hear large black voids on Eric Clapton's Unplugged, whereas before it was if I could walk around inside them.

Secondly, and I don't know if I'd call this good or bad, but it is an audible difference: There is a tad bit of new smoothness to edges, and micro detail is slightly less prominent and more nuanced now. Just a tad more relaxed overall. I suspect most people would find it preferable now, and I could be convinced that it is more "refined" than before burn in. But I'm not entirely sure if I prefer it this way. Either way, the crispness and detail still surpasses what I had with the copper AVC.

No changes in terms of overall timbre or tonality that I can detect. No new fullness, richness or anything like that. (None desired either). And no changes in terms of dynamics that I hear.

So I don't know if there will be any further benefit to continued burn in at this point, but next week I suppose it can't hurt to let it keep going when listening time evades me.

 

[analogsa]

Everything I've been able to uncover in researching the topic indicates that silver oxide has excellent conductivity and virtually no effect on the sonics, unlike copper oxide, which is a poor conductor and a semiconductor of sorts, with some negative sonic consequences. So while the silver will presumably develop surface oxide eventually, it's not likely to be a problem.

It would indeed be great if silver behaved and only oxidised. Sadly, sooner or later a sulphide also forms which is non conductive, physically very hard and black in colour. No idea how it sounds on the surface of wire, but it can and does stop relay contacts and silver switches from conducting.

 

[bazelio]

Well, most likely my passives will require servicing every so often. Rewiring the whole thing takes under an hour.

I don't know how Bespoke gets around it. It's very clear that they're using hookup wire with a porous insulator - either silk or cotton. It's most likely the Jupiter wire.

 

[CKKeung]

Well I had some time this morning to listen to two LPs and check in on any changes. I'm at approximately the 80 hour mark of continuous "burn in" now. And, I'll be damned. There are noticeable changes since last weekend.

Most notably, the sound has blossomed and fills the room more than it did. The sound is more grandiose. The complaint/distraction I had with dead space is not what it was previously. There's still a great sense of air as before, but now everything takes on a larger scale and seems to fill in some of the previously empty nooks and crannies of the stage. I no longer hear large black voids on Eric Clapton's Unplugged, whereas before it was if I could walk around inside them.

Secondly, and I don't know if I'd call this good or bad, but it is an audible difference: There is a tad bit of new smoothness to edges, and micro detail is slightly less prominent and more nuanced now. Just a tad more relaxed overall. I suspect most people would find it preferable now, and I could be convinced that it is more "refined" than before burn in. But I'm not entirely sure if I prefer it this way. Either way, the crispness and detail still surpasses what I had with the copper AVC.

No changes in terms of overall timbre or tonality that I can detect. No new fullness, richness or anything like that. (None desired either). And no changes in terms of dynamics that I hear.

So I don't know if there will be any further benefit to continued burn in at this point, but next week I suppose it can't hurt to let it keep going when listening time evades me.

Please keep on your burn-in process and update us again at 300 hours.

BTW the connectors & hookup wires of each input need burn-in oo.

 

[DaveC]

Well, most likely my passives will require servicing every so often. Rewiring the whole thing takes under an hour.

I don't know how Bespoke gets around it. It's very clear that they're using hookup wire with a porous insulator - either silk or cotton. It's most likely the Jupiter wire.

There are MANY cable companies that sell cables that will corrode or will break if bent repeatedly.

I don't need to say what I think of that again...

 

[bazelio]

There are MANY cable companies that sell cables that will corrode or will break if bent repeatedly.

I don't need to say what I think of that again...

Well it's internal hook up wire, so it's not going to be bent except into its original shape to route in the chassis.

I'm also curious about the way they simply route left and right channels next to each other in a bundle like this...

 

[DaveC]

Personally, I'd separate L and R channels and run twisted pairs.

IDK what those black boots are, but they seem unnecessary unless the contacts are really close together.

 

[bazelio]

IDK either. But per mil spec, solder joints should be exposed and not covered by an insulator.

 

[analogsa]

I'm at approximately the 80 hour mark of continuous "burn in" now. And, I'll be damned.

The fact that you have obtained a notable improvement without any meaningful loading of the output is interesting. One possible interpretation is break in within the dielectric, rather than the conductors. It would be interesting to continue the break in using a kiloohm range load.