Άνθρωπος Ορήχστρα

Ίος Jul 2006

Periklis Gourdouparis

Periklis Gourdouparis:As of the sound of the CCC wire, it simply doesn't exist. Though it is hard to braid I have made many interconnects of different geometry, balanced, unbalanced, balanced to unbalanced, phono cable, internal wiring, etc.The CCC wire is very neutral sounding and well extended from low to high frequencies, it is the cheapest high quality interconnect I have try so long, it fairly compares with Audio-note silver and Audio Quest silver cables. I like it very much and where I use it I know that it is not the cable if something goes wrong.
Steve Harrison: Audio System: AKSA 55 Nirvana monoblock amplifiers, BAT VK 30SE preamp, BAT VKD5SE CD player, Marantz 8260 SACD player, self designed 2.5 way speakers using Seas W18E woofers and Hiquphon OW1 tweeter.
This past June I purchased an interconnect cable kit from Chimera Labs. At the time I was perfectly happy with the cables in my audio system, Coincident CST and Cardas Hexlink Golden 5-C. However, I had been involved in DIY audio projects for the previous year, and cables were the next areas of my involvement.I was attracted to the Chimera cable from research on several audio forums, as well as the information on the Chimera Labs website. Simplicity and cost were two leading considerations that rated highly with me. Performance of the cables was said to equal or surpass many of the high priced cables available on the market.I purchased a kit as it contained all of the necessary items for cable construction. Dennis emailed me detailed information and instructions at the time of purchase before the parts arrived. This gave me needed time to study the construction techniques that would be required for cable construction.Once the parts kit arrived I was able to construct the cables on a Saturday afternoon and evening. These are braided cables, and it took some time to be comfortable with the braiding that was required. Termination and finishing also took a bit of “practice”.Once constructed, the true test of course was to plug the interconnect into the audio system and listen. I used this cable between my CD player and preamp. Both components are from BAT and are fully balanced with balanced cabling. Thus I was able to compare the balanced Coincident cable with the Single Ended Chimera cable in an A/B comparison with adjusted volume on the preamp inputs. The cables were comparable in sound from the first moment. There was a small difference in presentation due to the difference between balanced transmission and single ended transmission. But overall, I found the two cables to be equal.I was quite pleased with this cable. In fact, I was so pleased that within a short period of time I purchased additional parts from Chimera to make more cables and to fully use Chimera cable as interconnects in my entire audio system. Within this same time I also commenced construction of a pair of monoblock amplifiers, and I decided to use the Chimera cable for all signal wires in these amplifiers.Once this was accomplished, I felt confident enough in braiding technique to take on the task of constructing speaker cables. The speaker cables consisted of 16 braids of wire, (8+ and 8-), and not a simple task for a beginner. These speaker cables replaced Coincident CST-1’s with equal musical transmission from the very beginning.Once this was accomplished I commenced rewiring the insides of my speakers with the same wire configuration as had been used for the speaker cables. The wire leads from the high pass filter to the tweeter were reduced to 4+ and 4-.Now the entire audio system was fully wired with the Chimera Labs wire, from CD player output to driver terminals. System synergy was fully implemented!I completed this entire task in mid September. As this all had transpired over the course of the summer, I then just listened to the system for quite awhile to let all cables fully adjust to the audio system. Dennis had informed me that about 50 hours of cable run in time was needed for the cables to be fully acclimated to the system.I actually found the cables to be superb from the very beginning. Any improvement that may have occurred during the time of system operation has been extremely subtle to me.This cable is extremely true to the musical signal that it is asked to transmit. It is an extremely neutral sounding cable, with no colorations or added effects to the music.One striking feature of this cable is the skinny look. All cables, even the 16 braid speaker cables are enclosed in _” tech-flex. There is no metallic shielding or other dielectric materials to be encased, thus the skinny cables. The wire braiding eliminates any extraneous noises that may attempt to enter the cable. I find this design to be fully successful.The wire itself in fully enamel coated. This coating fully insulates the wire strands very successfully. One does however have to remove this coating for termination purposes.The easiest way to do this is with a solder pot. However, this is a bit of an expense, and unless one wishes to make cables for all of ones audiophile friends and acquaintances, it is not all that cost effective to purchase a solder pot. I found it a bit time consuming to remove the enamel coating, flashing off with a small flame and light sandpapering, but it worked well.As for the wire braiding technique, I highly recommend beginning with a simple interconnect as even 4 braids can take some time to master for a beginner. However, the braiding technique is exactly the same with a larger number of wire braids. It does take some practice to really get comfortable with the braiding techniques that are required. Dennis does supply very excellent instructions and helpful hints to help one along.I used mostly Vampire OFC connectors as terminations for my cables. These are among the finest available. These are the ones Dennis uses in his finished products, and the ones that he supplies with his kits. I did make one interconnect with Eichmann Bullet Plug connectors, another highly rated RCA connector.In conclusion, I have to say that I am very, very pleased with my audio cables that I constructed from Chimera Labs. I would not really want any other cable in my audio system.