Speaker cables from foil

[Mikeeo]

Hi All,

Had many moons ago planned to test speaker cables made of copper/silver foil and a construction based on Allen Wrights ideas. The rolles of Mundorf copper foil have been sitting in my diy cabinet for over a year. As I've been working heavy lately so I just took the day off and told my self that now it is time!
It is not an easy construction so it took me more than 5 hours to complete. I have a lot of practice from making cables with foil but only 1 m length for low level signal duties.
This time the foil is 28x0,07 mm and I made 2 m lengths. The + and - is as tight and flat together as possible with only 0,042 mm of polypropylene tape in between. Same tape is on the the outside of each foil. 
I soldered on silver plated beryllium copper bananas and thats it!

How does it sound?

Well, as I had hoped for due to earlier results with silver foil, excellent!

Another brake was released (recent brake release was with the 7.1.3) even more ease for the music flow, tighter and better resolved bass, more air around everything, micro details etc etc. They definitely beat the Ansuz C speaker cables I tested (retail GBP 5400).

Any one else tried foil based cables?  

A little picture with the glowing foils doing there stuff!

/Mike

   

[Music or sound]

I made some interconnects almost 20 years ago with Ag foil from Allen Wright and also some Cu foil speaker cables but found these designs having too high capacitance. Presently I am using Ag ribbons from Duelund (naked) as speaker cables for my mids/highs . Each ribbon is slightly twisted and inserted in a teflon tubing and 2 of these again slightly twisted and thus have a much lower capacitance. Quite happy with these for my application but not the ultimate for bass!

[Mikeeo]

I made some interconnects almost 20 years ago with Ag foil from Allen Wright and also some Cu foil speaker cables but found these designs having too high capacitance. Presently I am using Ag ribbons from Duelund (naked)  as speaker cables for my mids/highs  . Each ribbon is slightly twisted and inserted in a teflon tubing and 2 of these again slightly twisted and thus have a much lower capacitance. Quite happy with these for my application but not the ultimate for bass!

Hi,

Interesting what you say about high capacitance, but more so, how did this come out as a negative impact on SQ, or was it the amplifier that couldn't take it? 
In my case with Devialet, I have no negative effects SQ wise however I do not know how the amp will react.
At the time long before Devialet when I was getting into foils I tried Duelund as well but preferred Allans foil and construction.

About bass, I didn't lose any just got better definition.

Perhaps Dev deals better with capacitance!?

/Mike

[Divasson]

It is good to find people here that know the late Allen Wright! I have copied some of his cable designs (and I got two Sony players upgraded by him). His cable cookbook was very interesting read.

By the way, for the sake of the discussion on capacitance on flat stacked cables: due to laziness, instead of going the full DIY way, I used some old Goertz MI2 cable with the Devialet. (Goertz ribbon copper is the matter Townshend Isolda and Electrofluidics is made of!!). By far the best result I have ever had with Devialet, and no problem with capacitance (since Devialet is not too much based on NFB). The best naturalness and musicality, also tridimensionality. I'm not even using the zobel networks provided.

Next, I have sent a couple of cables to Frozensolid.co.uk to have them Cryo'ed. (which is the main difference then with the Isoldas). There was an article by Keith Howard in HFNews in 2001 about Cryoing Isolda cables and comparing them back and forth, and the difference was "astounding". You can get and extract of it midway the page here:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/...pic=9648.0

Frozen solid "cryoes" for Townshend and also Russ Andrews too. But their main business is automotive racing parts!

I have not received them back - will report when I get them!

[Music or sound]

Actually I met Allen Wright about 25 years ago and had some nice conversation about his cable designs. At that time I had a Pass Labs 0s amp and I they were stable with that capacitance but sounded better with lower capacitance cables. May be I should revisit foils as a woofer cable.

[Kunter]

I used Isolda cables for my setup for a long time and they were simply the best in the price range (and may be 2-3 times more range). Very good and defined bass, sweet highs.. And incredible midrange.They are still in use in my secondary system, a great coupling of KEF LS50's and, wait for it, Yamamoto A-08S, a 1.4 watt all tube design using 45 output tubes... and they help produce wonderful music.

[Divasson]

Hi All,

Had many moons ago planned to test speaker cables made of copper/silver foil and a construction based on Allen Wrights ideas. The rolles of Mundorf copper foil have been sitting in my diy cabinet for over a year. As I've been working heavy lately so I just took the day off and told my self that now it is time!
It is not an easy construction so it took me more than 5 hours to complete. I have a lot of practice from making cables with foil but only 1 m length for low level signal duties.
This time the foil is 28x0,07 mm and I made 2 m lengths. The + and - is as tight and flat together as possible with only 0,042 mm of polypropylene tape in between. Same tape is on the the outside of each foil. 
I soldered on silver plated beryllium copper bananas and thats it!

How does it sound?

Well, as I had hoped for due to earlier results with silver foil, excellent!

Another brake was released (recent brake release was with the 7.1.3) even more ease for the music flow, tighter and better resolved bass, more air around everything, micro details etc etc. They definitely beat the Ansuz C speaker cables I tested (retail GBP 5400).

Any one else tried foil based cables?  

A little picture with the glowing foils doing there stuff!

/Mike

Mike, can you tell us where you sourced the polypropylene tape, and part number? Although I have Allen's book, I would like to make sure I get your fantastic aspect! The foils are even thinner than Goertz's - this can only be good!

By the way, which Mundorf inductances are you using to get the foil? As you get only the inductance value, you can't estimate what's the cable length in each...

[Mikeeo]

Hi All,

Had many moons ago planned to test speaker cables made of copper/silver foil and a construction based on Allen Wrights ideas. The rolles of Mundorf copper foil have been sitting in my diy cabinet for over a year. As I've been working heavy lately so I just took the day off and told my self that now it is time!
It is not an easy construction so it took me more than 5 hours to complete. I have a lot of practice from making cables with foil but only 1 m length for low level signal duties.
This time the foil is 28x0,07 mm and I made 2 m lengths. The + and - is as tight and flat together as possible with only 0,042 mm of polypropylene tape in between. Same tape is on the the outside of each foil. 
I soldered on silver plated beryllium copper bananas and thats it!

How does it sound?

Well, as I had hoped for due to earlier results with silver foil, excellent!

Another brake was released (recent brake release was with the 7.1.3) even more ease for the music flow, tighter and better resolved bass, more air around everything, micro details etc etc. They definitely beat the Ansuz C speaker cables I tested (retail GBP 5400).

Any one else tried foil based cables?  

A little picture with the glowing foils doing there stuff!

/Mike

Mike, can you tell us where you sourced the polypropylene tape, and part number? Although I have Allen's book, I would like to make sure I get your fantastic aspect! The foils are even thinner than Goertz's - this can only be good!

Hi,

Well I am not in Sweden at the moment but I will send the info asap I am back as I do not remember. 
Indeed I have the cookbook from Allen. I think the main idea behind the construction is that the foil is 'thin' ie 0,07 mm (and wide to get enough cross section) and also that dielectrica should be of ok low E and as thin as possible. And thin means that the conductors would be as close as possible.Instead of keeping conductors as far away as possible Allen flipped that concept and put them as close together as possible. I do think Allen said that thin was more important than E ie polypropylene was ok due to the thickness that could be had. I  also think it wasn't that easy to find that thin teflon with an adhesive.
So I bought into his theories and started looking for a thin as possible tape and I found a German made PP tape thinner than the one Allen used so I thought that would be a good start. I made several signal cables with silver foil and they trashed any other cable tested in my system (pre Devialet) and I even hardwired my tube preamp with these foils.

For a complete 1 ch cable I only use 3 runs of tape, 2 outer and one in between so that should result in minimal usage of an insulator.

The cable in the picture is more of a first tester, I'll make another soon and will dress that better and perhaps put a tight cotton mesh around it, do some better soldering job and add ons for stability and longevity. Perhaps even buy some wide silver foil or maybe Mundorfs silver/gold foil.

/Mike

[Mikeeo]

Mike, can you tell us where you sourced the polypropylene tape, and part number? Although I have Allen's book, I would like to make sure I get your fantastic aspect! The foils are even thinner than Goertz's - this can only be good!

By the way, which Mundorf inductances are you using to get the foil? As you get only the inductance value, you can't estimate what's the cable length in each...

The tape I use is: KIP Packband 839 (www.kip-tape.com).

What do you mean by: "..which Mundorf inductances are you using to get the foil".

My cable measures about 1,90 m after adjustments and termination.

There are thinner foils on the market have a look here: http://www.solidcoreaudio.com/doityourself.html

I'll probably order some silver/gold fold from Mundorf just for curiosity. Also toying with the idea to try Mundorf 44 mm wide foil.

Best/Mike

[f1eng]

Having a capacitor of indeterminate value shorting the connection between your amp to your speakers may be an interesting, if bizarre experiment, but referring to it as a speaker cable is going a bit far.