woo, well, erm, now. ok.
some of you, all zero people who read this not-a-blog, know that I am inclined to occasionally dabble in things that are (usually technical) experiments to see if I can do stuff…erm… differently to the norm. In this case, I recently became a convert to the power of the so called High End cabling on hifi systems, power, speaker, interlink, you name it. I’ve become a convert, based mostly on the power cable that my friend Dennis lent me.
Ofc, I am also a cheap cunt, so even though looking at audiophile websites offerings of cables makes me moist, it also makes my wallet wince, twitch, fart, and all kinds of other things it normally doesn’t do, not to mention stimulate my disbelief of things that may or may not be marketing. Long crystal ultra pure oxygen free yadda yadda schmadda schmadda. Sure. Well, almost sure. This would be so easy to dismiss were it not for the borrowed power cable in my system that is certainly making it sound better. In fact, for even more jollies, imo it is also giving me a better picture on my TV, and that’s not even hooked up to the cable! O_0
Ok, while talking about the cable to a friend, I was pointed to a website called audiofriends where there was a collection of interesting tips, pictures, you name it, and also a couple pages on why ultra-high-end cables are for fools (my words, not theirs). Literally music (sic) to my ears you could say, and I read the pages with avid curiosity. In these pages I was introduced to the Aircom Plus co-axial antenna cable which is a monster (10.8mm!!) cable with an equally monstrous core of 2.7mm. Like, wow! So, twitching to experiment as I was, the Aircom turned out to be not that disgustingly expensive at about 4 euros per meter. Not bad, as the cable I had been considering getting was a scary 27epm or about 570e more expensive for the fearsome 24 meters I would require to make two three-meter bi-wire cables to connect my amp to my speakers. Holy shit!
Before I knew it I had actually bought some of this cable, and sat back to suck it up and wait. Soon it arrived, and I set about making the imagined product. This is what 25 meters of Aircom look like:
I set about turning this monster in to 8 three meter pieces, stick them in some confectionery, strip them and finally hook them up to my hifi set. To do this I used a fine hacksaw to cut the cable into manageable chunks, and a very sharp knife to dress the pieces, While working on the cable segments I had to resharpen the knife several times, which should give you an idea just how tough this monster is.
In the above pictures you see the eight segments. Assembling the segments into two red pairs and two black pairs. Assembling and dressing the red and black pairs. The amp side of one bi-wire pair. Please excuse the quality of the images, my phone camera isn’t that great 
What are my thoughts about the Aircom?
Well, firstly let me just say that about half way through making this home brew cable I had to take about two hours break because I really didn’t feel like continuing. Ofc in my defence I was somewhat ill at the time with a tummy bug, just so you know. After the break I felt a lot better and continued to finish the two cables in one go. If I had to do it all again, I would put a lot more thought into working out beforehand how the cables would connect to my amp, and especially how they would sit in relation to my speakers’ cable terminals. These babies are not particularly flexible and once you have four of them in a cable sleeve together they’re even less so, also doing fine mechanical fiddly things like connecting them to my Elac 243 LE’s when the cable lengths are -just- off is certainly not a joy, which brings me to my next point, which is measure three -not two- times and cut once hehe
Sound wise they are, imo, very neutral. They conduct the audio from my amp to my speakers with ease. They’re clear, precise and quite detailed. My reference cable, which is a generic house brand from an electronics shop of which a friend was kind enough to once gift me several meters has been re-designated “less-than-poop”. Currently I am extremely curious how they compare against proper high-end cables, as compared to the reference I had they are mind bogglingly amazing.
I did note that they had/have a burn-in period. The first cd I dropped in my player sounded pretty poor in the beginning, very flat with almost no bass (much to my dismay after a couple hours work on the cables I must add). During the course of playing that cd, the sound audibly became better and better to the point where the dynamics and bass had returned. Dropping in another cd the trend continued to the point where I already can no longer hear it getting better. I’m under the impression if I am not hearing something now, the issue lies in a different place than my amp, speakers and the connection between them. Atm I am slightly (only slightly) obsessing about getting a “proper” cd player to put sound into my amp hehe.
Tonight was the first proper test of the cables: I listened to Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport, Wintersleep – Welcome to the Night Sky, Broken Records – Until the Earth begins to part, Radiohead – Amnesiac (SE) and now Mogwai – Young Team, which I must say is sounding particularly awesome. On the whole I am well pleased with the outcome of my little experiment
Products used:
- Aircom Plus cable, 25m
- cablesleeve, black, approx 6m
- insulation tape, black, one roll
- shrink wrap sleeve, red
- shrink wrap sleeve, black
- viablue bananaplugs, three sets
Tools used:
- hacksaw, fine
- swiss army knife
- scissors, small
Costs:
- about 230 euros, 100 for the cable, 100 for the confectionery, remainder is postage and packaging
- about 6 hours to make the cables, given that it was the first time I had ever done something like this
