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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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In Reply to: Re: Some more Cable/Plug and other thoughts..... posted by Doc B. on May 11, 1999 at 17:16:41:
Regarding teflon vs. polyethylene, mu own personal observations, comments and opinions.Having made a huge number of controlled and single variable comparisions of coaxial and twisted pair cables, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the PE vs. teflon thing.
When I first started listening to the cable materials, I wasn't that thrilled with the sound that teflon seemed to have, whether solid or foamed, it didn't seem to be as involving at first.
After hearing it on other systems, and becoming a little more familiar with what could be called more neutral sonics, I realized how the PE was euphonically coloring the sound. First, it was a familiar sound, as many cables have PE in them, and I was used to this as the sound of a cable, right or wrong. Second, PE tends to emphasize the bass, making it sound stronger and more present. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of accuracy, as it also tends to cover up bass pitch definition, and tends to warm up SS gear to be more bearable. The PE tends to have an overly strong bass, which I attribute to the difference in DA between the two dielectrics, as the DA effects are more in the bass than in the highs.
PE also seems to make the highs sound a tad too strong, even a bit tizzy and tinklely. In both the bass and highs, PE sounds as though it rolls-off at the far frequency extremes.
To those used to hearing PE cables, and equating this with the proper sound, the teflon will sound thin in the bass, and even a bit soft on the highs. But when you do something like a straight wire by-pass, it becomes obvious what the cables are doing, and while teflon is not perfect, it still comes closer to neutral than PE to my ears.
Note that the above comments hold true within the Belden cable models, as the purity and minor formulae difference between the brands can and will cause some of these comments to be off or different for other brands and purities of plastics. Sometimes the teflon is done so poorly, that it sounds worse than solid PE, much less foamed PE. Air channel construction is the way to go, or the wrap of a spiralled tube of plastic around a center wire, that ends up with mostly air around it. This type of construction begs for a coated wire, but I am not fond of enamel (or what is really used for "enamel" magnet wire, polyurethane which is a terrible dielectric for audio), and I do not know of anything else that would be a lesser evil.
Jon Risch
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Follow Ups
- Re: Some more Cable/Plug and other thoughts..... - Jon Risch 20:17:01 05/11/99 (2)
- Re: Some more Cable/Plug and other thoughts..... - Thorsten 12:45:04 05/12/99 (0)
- Re: Some more Cable/Plug and other thoughts..... - Doc B. 09:16:52 05/12/99 (0)
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