Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwm.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!info-high-audio-request
From: KLUDGE@AGCB8.LARC.NASA.GOV
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: Re: Linn LP12 Upgrades (Re: Info-High-Audio-Digest #8.19)
Message-ID: <4895@uwm.edu>
Date: 7 Jul 90 23:12:19 GMT
Sender: news@uwm.edu
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Approved: tjk@csd4.csd.uwm.edu

Headphones:  The MDR-V7 seems to be a V6 upgrade, and the V5 appears to be a V4
  upgrade.  The drivers in the V6 and V4 were the same, but the mechanical
  shape of the earpieces made the sound much more different, and the V4 more
  uncomfortable.  Anyway, I paid $140 for the V6's when they came out and
  wished I had been able to wait a while (my Sennheisers had blown and I needed
  a pair of headphones that evening).

Cables:
  Use various shielded cables for interconnects.  Try your own configurations.
  Triax is worth playing with, either with the first shield tied to the second
  or tied to the center conductor.  Twinax is best used wired semibalanced,
  but is handy for balanced connections.  I've had trouble with foil-braid
  cable breaking down with frequent movement, and better luck with real braid.
  Impedance doesn't make a damn bit of difference; there is a heavy mismatch
  from source to sink anyway, and anyway, you are not dealing with lengths 
  which are an appreciabale fraction of the wavelength.  I need to power my
  amp, not my friend in Chicago's amp.  Also, folks have reported better
  results with Teflon cables (and it's more fun to solder anyway).  Myself,
  I tried just about everything and settled on plain old RG-58.  (NOT 58C!).
  For speaker cables, try using ribbon with even leads grounded and odd leads
  tied to signal.  Poor man's litz wire.  It is actually possible to generate
  an L-C circuit in the audio frequency with speaker cable, which makes it 
  rather important.  Loss due to R-C circuits is much more prominant, though.
  So use high-gauge cable or lots of parallel conductors.  My personal favorite
  is shielded multiconductor stranded cable, with half the conductors on ground
  and half on signal (shield on signal too).  It's fairly inexpensive, and if
  you strip the casing off in parts, it looks impressive.

  Whatever you do, use good connectors and Tweek.  I use the Switchcraft video
  RCA plugs with the nylon insulation.  They work, and sound good.  They don't
  fail.  I am not sure whether premium connectors will improve the sound, but
  I am certain that cheap ones will degrade it.  Your friendly neighborhood
  industrial electronics dealer will carry Switchcraft stuff.  At $1.50 per
  connector, you'll find it cheap.  When I go to buy 100 of the things, I
  consider it exhorbitant.  But once I bought a lot of 100 1/4" connectors
  which started to go bad after several months.  It took a year to get all of
  them out of the equipment, and there still may be a few lurking in the
  studio, ready to fail any minute.  It's not a good feeling.
--scott