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Great comments and observations

Not that it means much, but my findings agree with everything Jon shared above.

With that in mind, my opinion is that Jon's twisted pair IC design using the solid conductor as the hot is a noticeable step up from the 89259 by itself. In raw form and to my ears, 89259 sounds somewhat lean, bright and smeared up top. If one is happy with the 89259, you'll really be overjoyed with some of Jon's twisted pair designs : )

Using the center core of 89248 as the "hot" and the center core of 89259 as the ground* tends to soften the top end a bit and adds some bottem end weight. Most of this is probably due to the heavier gauge solid core of the 89248 center conductor, but i also think getting rid of the stranded braid on the 89259 helps clean things up too. In this configuration, the cable is very smooth and seductive sounding. To my ears though, there is a very slight trunctuation of the top end compared to the best cabling that i've used.

The use of 1506A opens things up just a bit on top, making this an even better cable with slightly better overall transparency. Some may prefer the 89248 / 89259 in their system, some may prefer the 1506A / 89259. Either way, i would HIGHLY recommend either of these designs over the use of 89259 in coaxial form or with two 89259 cores arranged as a twisted pair.

While Jon recommends heavy twisting of the conductors, i'm of the opinion that this methodology has more potential drawbacks than benefits when building an interconnect. Reducing the twists per foot of an interconnect not only lowers capacitance, but it also causes less metal fatigue in the conductors and reduces the potential for microphony i.e. fewer twists makes the cable less rigid. This also requires less burn-in time, which is moot point if you have a Mobie or something similar. As far as "burn in time", 30 days on a Mobie ( or equivalent ) can make most any cable better. The benefits are easily audible in my experience and well worth the wait. There really is NO comparison between burned in cables vs unburned cables in my opinion. Just bare in mind that not all "cable burners" work the same way / offer the same benefits.

As such, I would suggest using a moderate amount of twisting and avoiding the shielding unless absolutely necessary. Shielding can work well if properly implimented, but it is hard to achieve optimal results in a DIY design without a LOT of care. Moderate twisting of conductors can work wonders in terms of increased rejection to RFI & EMI and if you pay attention to cable routing, shielding becomes less critical. If you live in a HEAVILY populated area in close quarters, shielding may be necessary though.

Use the best RCA / XLR connectors that you can afford and good solder i.e. Wonder Solder, Cardas, WBT, etc... Kester can also work well, but it is very "smokey" and can leave a lot of flux residue behind. This is due to using a higher ratio of rosin, which works well with less than clean mating surfaces. In my opinion, it is better to start with clean contact areas than to try and rely on the use of rosin to make a good connection.

Obviously, these are just my opinions and i hope that Jon doesn't mind my intrusion into this thread and the sharing my opinions. I'm a great fan of Jon's work and we are lucky to have folks like him on this forum. Many of his posts opened my eyes to variances in cable design and material usage, paving the way for my own education on the subject. Sean
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* I prefer to use the solid conductors for hot and stranded for ground. Some may prefer the opposite arrangement i.e. solid for ground and stranded for hot.

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