Summary of my thoughts on ZEROs and speaker cables

OTL Asylum

OTL, Output Transformerless Amplifier User Group.

I don't have all the answers, but I fear the different fragmentary postings will lead to some confusion.
I have a very clear experience of the improvement in timbre (the "tone" of an instrument or person's voice, not the note it happens to be playing) and "air" (in my mind, due to coherent high frequency extension) when I first replaced my old Litz speaker cables with Silver Audio Silver Symphonies, and again three days ago when I clipped the leads from the Original Recipe ZEROs and reattached my (by now well broken-in) Silver Audio cables.
The unbraided Original Recipe ZERO leads have at least four problems as far as good speaker cable design is concerned:
1. The conductors are too big in diameter which makes them subject to skin effect at audio frequencies;
2. The conductors are stranded, tinned copper (solid, unplated copper or silver would be preferrable to avoid 'strand-jumping' and dissimilar metallic interface effects);
3. The conductors are insulated with what appears to be PVC, which has serious sonic penalties (Teflon is the next best insulator to air); and
4. The conductors are not braided.
The latter is a problem for those whose setup creates large loops from the leads near magnetic materials, since the inductance of the loop can become large and nonlinear if the magnetic field gets into iron rebar in the floor, nails, equipment stands, etc. Loops near conductors in general will result in eddy currents and power losses at certain frequencies, and nonlinearities of these if the coupled conductors contain dissimilar metal junctions, etc.
If you use leads from ZEROs in place of speaker cable, please try simple, reversible experiments before doing anything drastic. Try twisting the leads if they are not twisted now. Try rearranging the leads. Try lifting them off the carpet with something made of glass or ceramic. Try placing something made of iron (a big Crescent wrench, for example) in the loop formed by untwisted leads.
If you hear sonic differences from doing these things, then your amp and speakers will probably work better if you clip the leads and replace them with appropriate speaker cable. I recommend placing the ZEROs as close to the speakers as possible, and running a good cable to them. Solder is better than a mechanical joint, since the leads are already tinned. Silver Audio is my cable, but I have not experimented with other designs and there may be cheaper cables that would work for you.
I would love it if someone were to design a good cable to be properly terminated by the ZEROs. Even though the length is short, reflected signals can get into unwanted places in the audio chain and cause audible artifacts. I understand Ralph is experimenting along these lines.
I'll be out of touch after today until next week.

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Schiit Audio

Topic - Summary of my thoughts on ZEROs and speaker cables - Al Sekela 09:58:16 01/07/03 (0)

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