Does anybody have any suggestions for an alternative to Witch Hat Phantom? Or does anybody know exactly what it was made of?
I have one set of Phantoms that I’m happy with but need a second pair as I have an active system that uses 2 pairs of speaker wire.
I currently have Phantom on the tweeters and Nac A5 on the mids which sounds good although the mids a bit closed in and muddy, the other day I thought I’d try them the other way around with Phantom on the Mids and A5 on the tweeters and it sounded bloody awful.
The mids/bass was a lot brighter and clearer (less muddy) with the Phantom but the highs were pretty much unlistenable and harsh with the A5.
I think Phantom was (plain) non OCC Copper that was then plated, but not sure what it was plated with.
I did have some Spectre on order but we all know what happened with that…
KS-1’s conductors are 19 strands of silver-plated Oxygen-Free Copper (OFC) insulated with Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene (FEP) run with a slow twist and all surround by a hard PVC outer for protection. physical damping and simplicity of use.
FEP shares PTFE’s ideal low dielectric constant but is a little softer for improved mechanical damping. The choice of 19 strands is not random: there were multiple listening tests carried out to identify sonic differences from the number of strands changing while keeping the overall conductor diameter the same. Nineteen proved to be the ideal.
Sounds like it might be similar to the Witch Hat Phantom.
The KS1 is very good, and you can get two pairs for less than the cost of the Spectre. I got them to replace Phantom and was very pleased with them. Dealers are quite happy to fit Naim plugs on the amp end too.
19 just happens to be an extremely common number of strands in wires, because it creates a neat hexagonal cross section (1 surrounded by 6 surrounded by 12 = 19 strands)
Edit: I’m pretty sure NAC A5 is 19 strands. I’m not cutting mine to check! But I bet it is:
Strange thing is that after A/B testing some old Nac A4 and Phantom using just my CB Nait 2 I can’t really hear much difference between the two cables.
Maybe there might have been a more noticeable difference between my Nac A5 and Phantom.
Rest of A/B test system is the same as my main system so Innuos Statement > Mutec MC3+ USB USB-SPDIF converter > Sean Jacobs Silver 5 pin din to RCA > (old) NOS R2R (silver wired) Abbas Dac > CB Nait 2 > (speakers) Living Voice OBX RW or Neat Ekstra’s.
My Mutec is upside down because the USB is upside down on the back.
I’ll redo the A/B tests again when I have the time and willpower.
If it was just off the internet maybe on some forum I’m not sure I’d trust it 100%, Witch Hat were fairly secretive about discussing their products in detail.
It may be true but I’m just saying I’d be suspicious unless I knew the source was trustworthy.
I phoned them yesterday and spoke to (not David) some guy who makes the speaker cables and he recommended the MCRU Ultimate speaker cables but didn’t say exactly which cable it actually was but did say it was OCC Copper and on the page it states it’s a Japanese cable.
From their defunct web site, I remember very clearly they advertised 6mm² for both Phantom and Spectre, which is more like 9.5 AWG. N2 was 4mm² which is very close to 11 AWG.
