Hookup wire upgrade while im in there. Yay or Nay?

[johnaec]

I ran out of cable.

I have a HUGE amount of Cat5 (E?) cable available for anyone who wants to try ZMC. Free for the cost of packing, (say, $5), and shipping. Reasonable amounts each, please... PM me.

BTW - I've got all this cable available because we upgraded our office to Cat6, for full gigabit network capability. Has anyone looked into the chance that the better Cat6 stuff might also be better than Cat5 for audio, or is it in an area that has no significance to audio?

John

[Zilch]

The construction of Cat6 is a little different.

I've never tried it; gotta use up all my free Cat5e here first.

There's also Cat7 in the works, and the Euro stuff is different, too.

[I ain't makin' this my life's work, nope, unless there's mega $$$ in it.... ]

[Gary L]

I just finished making up two pairs of (ZMC) Zilch Magic Cables from my Cat5E.
Yes folks, Zilch was correct in that they are a PITA to do!

They should make for a neat appearance when installed, not that anyone other then me will ever see them.
I can't wait to hear these babies sing

Gary

[spwal]

please let us know asap how it goes! Im gonna put some in my heresys as well!

[Zilch]

Ian's giving his ZMCs a respectable burn-in, apparently....

[spwal]

Please see this link for a beautiful pictureshow of Paul Coats handy-work as he brought these Altec Model 19 Crossovers (including the hookup wire) back to better than showroom new. Thanks again Paul!



http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...t=13670&page=2

[Wayne]

Ian's giving his ZMCs a respectable burn-in, apparently....

Hi Zilch

I see its been mentioned but have you actualy tried the ZMC from the amp to the speakers, say 2.5m lengths by means of twisting all 4 for +/red & another run again using all 4 for the -/black.
Then repeating the process above to the input of the cross-over & then to the woofer, might not look the best but for short lengths it would be possible to remove the strands from one length & feed it into the other, the mid & high would of course be done as shown by you.
Just curious if you had actualy tried & noted differances with doing this or if you found other cables for the L/F & Amp to speaker run better suited than the ZMC.

Cheers Wayne.

[Zilch]

I see its been mentioned but have you actualy tried the ZMC from the amp to the speakers, say 2.5m lengths by means of twisting all 4 for +/red & another run again using all 4 for the -/black.

The advantage derives primarily from using one member of the twisted pair for each direction of current; thus using separate Cat5e cables to increase the current capacity would not be a recommended approach.

Instead, I'd try connecting the solids vs. stripes of multiples together for that. Just two achieves resonable capacity for modest lengths; some practitioners go to what I would consider unwarranted extremes with it. I haven't researched lately, but there may be similar 8- or 10-pair cable available.

If you're biamping, a single 4-pair will likely suffice for mids and highs, where much less current is involved....

[Wayne]

The advantage derives primarily from using one member of the twisted pair for each direction of current; thus using separate Cat5e cables to increase the current capacity would not be a recommended approach.

Instead, I'd try connecting the solids vs. stripes of multiples together for that. Just two achieves resonable capacity for modest lengths; some practitioners go to what I would consider unwarranted extremes with it. I haven't researched lately, but there may be similar 8- or 10-pair cable available.

If you're biamping, a single 4-pair will likely suffice for mids and highs, where much less current is involved....

Thanks Zilch

Just got hold of some DAT5e, had some DAT5 only 4 cables in total not 8 as in the 5e, I see what you mean by going to extremes as shown in the links by Giskard.
I will solder the 4 solids togeather which will be +/red & the 4 stripes being -/black, run that from the amp to the speaker connectors, unless you feel utilising 2 instead of 4 would be a better option, from there into the cross-over & onto the woofer, mid & tweet still using the 4 solids togeather as + & the 4 stripes as -. I'am not biamping.
Sound about right.

Cheers Wayne.

[Zilch]

For the main lines between the amp and the speakers, you want 8 Cat5e conductors in each direction, minimum. 7x24 equates to 16 ga. 8x24 would be a bit better than that.

The individual conductors are 24 ga. in U.S. Cat5e; I don't know the specs for your DAT cable....

[Wayne]

For the main line between the amp and the speakers, you want 8 conductors in each direction. 7/24 equates to 16 ga. 8/24 would be better than that.

The individual conductors are 24 ga. in U.S. Cat5e. I don't know the specs for your DAT cable....

No worries Zilch

Thanks for clearing that up. Yip same Cat5e here to.

Cheers Wayne.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Ian's giving his ZMCs a respectable burn-in, apparently....

This is still a work in progress while I attend to other priorities

I will have a closer look at it over the weekend and report some details.

Ian

[spwal]

Zilch,

just got my ZMC minis for my Heresys... cant wait to pop them in.

quick question on soldering.... do i heat the squaker and tweeter contact plates then drip a bunch of solder onto the cable and the plate at the same time? I think that if i touch the iron to the delicate wires the shielding and the solder you put on there will go up in smoke...

please advise, impressions will come on the weekend!

thanks

sean

[Zilch]

You'll find the terminations I put on there are quite rugged. Certainly, there's no harm in putting the iron and solder on them, as that's how they were made....

[Ian Mackenzie]

I should have some feedback by tomorrow afternoon.

Initial impressions are interesting.....more to follow.

I didn't see the point of making any comments without some means of doing a comparison with a known reference cable.

The implementation as such was not straight forward. It required bypassing all the HF and UHF internal enclosure wiring (Supra Rondo) and the L pads. So I basically installed a new set of ZMC wire looms and L pads (which are located externally) for the horn and slot.

The system is essentially tri wired with seperate runs of Supra Ronda for the woofer and midrange and a common run of ZMC for the horn and slotfrom the power amp, a Passlabs X250.5. I figured the differences would be most noticable on the upper mids and highs and I may re wire the mids with ZMC depending on what happens with the HF an UHF signals.

This approach will enable swapping out the ZMC for the Supra Rondo on both channels with extended listening comparisons. I will also be able to do some quick channel A (ZMC)/channel B (Supra Rondo) comparisons with a dual mono signal using my new preamp, the Passlabs X2.5. The X2.5 enables precison programming and tracking of the levels as well as a full passive attenuation mode. A masterpiece of audio engineering. More on that in another thread to follow.

Ian