General Asylum: REVIEW: Dogsplodge Dogsplodge Silver Litz Speaker Cable Cable by il toro

Model:	Dogsplodge Silver Litz Speaker Cable
Category:	Cable
Suggested Retail Price:	£140 GBP 2m pair
Description:	Eight conductor Litzhendrant speaker cable
Manufacturer URL:	Dogsplodge

Review by il toro on March 02, 2008 at 14:12:20
IP Address: 88.105.228.38 Add Your Review
for the Dogsplodge Silver Litz Speaker Cable

The high-end hifi fraternity seems to be increasingly divided into two camps: those who rely heavily on their dealers, and those who rely on the internet.

Those faithful to dealers tend to pay higher prices for their gear (sometimes outrageously so) but get the benefit of long home trials, access to events and invitations to manufacturer-sponsored evenings, and a degree of peace of mind from buying supported kit that manufacturers are happy to repair or take back in trade-in.

The internet brigade do it differently: home trial is usually done by buying something on ebay or a forum; if it fits, if it performs, it stays; if it doesn't, off it goes again, sometimes at a loss, sometimes a small profit. Cartridges come from Japan, tubes from the US, home-cooked phono stage projects from Italy, cables and interconnects from anywhere. It can be risky, but it's fun, and far, far cheaper (by an order of magnitude) to build up a well-specced, syngergistic system.

I'm firmly in the latter camp: I love to beat the system. You would NEVER catch me paying anywhere close to list for these sorts of component, for good reason: my point to point silver wired Audion two-box preamp, for instance, has a list price of £2600. I paid less than £500 on eBay (the seller didn't have a clue what he had and woefully under-described it). My speakers, 96db Fostex-based Tom Zerowski zHorns, are a suceessful project by a serial speaker builder who needed a quick money fix to fund a new speaker project using Oris horns and home-made horn loaded bass cabinets - they use the same drivers as £4000 Beauhorn B2s, are beautifully constructed of solid ply with hand-machined solid aluminim baffles, and sound awesome with my Audion 300b SET monoblocs (another ebay bargain) cost me all of £300. An so on - 47 Labs transport at under third of UK retail, Chord DAC64 likewise.

Then there is the whole question of speaker cables, interconects and power chords. eBay again threw up a bargain in speaker cables: Russ Andrews 8TC, copper litz cables, ideal for my all-valve setup, £500 worth and very much looking the part. These were a vast improvement on my previous Oelbach silver plated cable, which in turn improved markedly on some old 1980s monster cable I had been using since Dire Straits were still cool and Nigel Kennedy had acne. I bought them because I had read about the RFI rejecting principles of Litz - and overall the effect was impressive.

But we always look for more, and I had read about the special properties of silver. The trouble was, to get a 3m pair of Audionote silver litz speaker cables, terminated, would cost upwards of £2500. I couldn't justify that, and unfortunately Audio Note gear holds its second hand value too well for me to seriously go after it. But how on earth to see whether silver litz would live up to its promise?

Enter Michael Shelley, who trades as 'Dogsplodge' on eBay, selling speaker cables and interconnects direct. A 3m pair of 8-conductor, solid silver litz braid for around GBP £200 ... this isn't much more than a layman can buy the materials for. Eight conductors is less than the Audionote version but uses a fairly hefty weight of silver cable (0.6mm diameter). Along with the Litzhendraht brading, the other key element here is the dialectric - the clear PTFE (Teflon) is a loose fit around the silver wire giving a predominantly air dialectric, which is ideal in delivering both RFI rejection and the low capacitance needed to work well with valve amplification.

The result - on my system - of moving from the copper litz to silver has been a stabilisation of the imaging capabiity of my horns; also an improvement in clarity of tone and impression of 'speed' across the midrange and up into the higher registers. Bass in my system is supported by a pair of subs (my horns are very light below 60hz) , so I can't really describe any impact on bass weight but bass clarity and focus certainly improved. Would I go back to copper? No way. Not on this 18watt, all valve system. It would be interesting to test them on solid state but I feel that for £200, I have well and truly beaten the system.

I have since purchased 'Dogsplodge' silver litz interconnects, and hear that a solid silver mains cable (move over Audio Note .. this will be a Nordost competitor!) is in the works. I'll write some more on these later (given my experience already this mains cable needs to be tested ...). For now, the recommendation on this silver litz speaker cable, at least for tube systems and efficient speakers, is unequivocal. Get some. This is without doubt the audio bargain of the moment.

Please note I have no connection with the supplier other than as satisfied customer.

Product Weakness:	No branding so resale potentia issue (but v cheap to begin with)
Product Strengths:	Litz RFI rejection with additional characteristics of silver wire, clear mids and sparking highs

Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: Audion Silver Night 300b monoblocs PSE
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): Audion Premier two-box with MM
Sources (CDP/Turntable): Linn Sondek LP12 analog, 47 Labs Shigaraki Transport/Chord DAC64 digital
Speakers: Tom Zerowski zHorns (fostex 168 sigma full-range) + BK Electronics XLS200 subs (pair)
Cables/Interconnects: Dogsplodge Silver Litz Speaker Cables and Interconnects
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Baroque, Chamber, Classical piano
Time Period/Length of Audition: 2 months
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner

Amplifier:	Audion Silver Night 300b monoblocs PSE
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Audion Premier two-box with MM
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Linn Sondek LP12 analog, 47 Labs Shigaraki Transport/Chord DAC64 digital
Speakers:	Tom Zerowski zHorns (fostex 168 sigma full-range) + BK Electronics XLS200 subs (pair)
Cables/Interconnects:	Dogsplodge Silver Litz Speaker Cables and Interconnects
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Baroque, Chamber, Classical piano
Time Period/Length of Audition:	2 months
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner