Furutech Discussion

I use the Oyaide R1. It sounds wonderful and just right.

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Yes, the base metal seems to have a large impact. Phosphor Bronze isn’t a great base metal but its impact on sound is related to what its plated with. With rhodium its a big no no, the rhodium is too revealing, typically when people complain rhodium is too bright/harsh when using a phosphor bronze base metal its the base metal that’s the source of the problem, not the rhodium itself. Gold, being less revealing helps to mask these issues, so its not as critical.

Cardas is a rhodium/silver blend over beryllium copper, not sure how this copper blend compares to phosphor bronze. Cardas use to be extremely coloured/dark sounding, while at shows/dealers, it was always a big red flag for me if a system was wired with Cardas, as it meant they were trying to tame a bright sounding system. Over the years their sound has gotten much closer to neutral (& more so the further you move up the line), they have switched to using rhodium for many of their connectors.

I use to use the cryo Hubbells & not sure I could ever go back, they add a harshness to the sound that the GTX-D NCF cleared up.

Side question, is your listening space acoustically treated?

Yes - with plenty of records :laughing:

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Sending you an email now

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Another side question: are those Stenheim speakers? If so, how to they compare to Kudos Titan? I’ve yet to hear comments about Stenheim from anyone on this forum.

Yes - they are Stenheim 5SE’s.

The first batch of Kudos Titan T88 consisted of 5 pairs - I owned one of those so effectively I have run Titans from the get go - since 2010. Once I left Naim and my 552/500 to build out my new system the last part of the puzzle was replacing speakers.

DarTZeel used Stenheim speakers in development - one of the reasons I had reason to look at them. My Titans were great - especially with Naim. Stenheims are really great - most likely because they also match well with DarTZeel

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Okay, thanks. Certainly both companies are Swiss, it makes sense. I’ve never heard Stenheim in person, but at shows and on Youtube they are usually demoed with simple, staid, “safe” music, resulting in a lack of excitement.

I still love this photo!

Thanks @daren_p for your comment and recommendations. I’d really value your (and any others’) further feedback on the specs and what things I should be looking for as an improvement (noting with thanks your specific Furutech cable recommendations). I’ve listed them below and added some comment.

-Phosphor Bronze ( 92% Copper 8% Zinc and Phosphorus ) conductor
[I assume I should be looking for pure copper?]

-24K Gold Plated 3μ Conductor Power Cable
[Noted already your comments on the plating/choice of material]

-Maximum Voltage rating: 15A
[should this be 20A?]

-3 X 6 mm² OFC 99.99% Power Cable
[(1) gauge - this seems to be pretty wide at 5AWG (but please correct me if I’ve made an error here), noting that the Powerline is 12AWG and it appears most of Furutech’s are 11-14AWG.
(2) OFC versus others - this appears to be an area full of all sorts of confusing info, at least to me. There’s OCC, Audioquest’s own secret PSC, Furutech’s Alpha Nano AG-Au and OCC DUCC etc etc…]

-Braided tinned copper wires, minimising distortion and preventing the ingress of EMI/RFI (with drain wire)
[I have little info on this aspect]

-High Quality 3% Solder Silver ( Cardas Audio : Quad Eutectic Silver : USA )
[again, I have little info on this aspect]

Any advice is as always much appreciated. Thank you.

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I recently moved my records out of our basement guest room, as it’s now our daughter’s room. The space is about 12’ x 12’, and the records occupied most of one wall. It’s shocking how different the space now sounds with just normal speech - very “zingy” and echoey, quite cold and unpleasant. Our main living space, where my system lives, though far from perfect, is vastly better.

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Awesome pair of speakers !! I heard them w the linn 800 monoblocs and the klimax at my dealer’s . fantastic sound :muscle:t2: and , love your Rossini … am contemplating on the all in one Rossini , but before that , Valhalla 2 SC next in line

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Great looking space! Unfortunately I don’t believe records count as proper acoustic treatments :smiley: (though no doubt far better then bare walls)

Intended as a joke (as per the smiley)

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I hope you have a lot of CD’s - if not you may wish to get the DAC only version.
Transports break :laughing:

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Yes that’s the only “downside” with the transport which I am still thinking about it.

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As mentioned above, like most things in audio, you can’t just buy items on specs alone. Sure, certain specs are good to look for but that won’t specifically tell you how it will sound or how the combo will sound when put together or how it will work with the rest of your kit. We also all have different reference points based on our current cabling (what one person might think is a bright sounding cable, another may think is neutral or dark sounding). So from specs alone we can’t say what your current cable will sound like. For eg the previous cables on my DAC & phono were made from Neotech OCC copper with Furutech gold plated ends. I swapped to Rhodium FI-50 NCF ends & Furutech S55N ends & didn’t loose any warmth in the process (many would hear gold vs rhodium ends & just assume the rhodium cable is brighter sounding).

In regards to your comments, yes while it may not specifically tell you how the connector will sound, a pure base metal is better then a blended metal, especially when plated with rhodium.

Current rating is the max current the cable is rated to safely handle. So if its used with a 15A plug you need atleast 15A rated cable & in turn, 20A rated cable for a 20 amp rated plug.

6mm2 should be between 9-10awg, not 5awg. Believe Powerline is 4mm2 or ~11awg, Furutech generally range from 10awg-14awg.

Copper, there are all sorts of types, OFC (oxygen free) is typically your entry level “audiophile” copper with OCC ohno continuous cast generally regarded as top tier. I believe there are only 3 manufacturers worldwide who can do OCC. I was told one of the manufacturers was either stopping producing OCC or no longer manufacturing it for other companies so that’s why brands are having to come up with other processes to get more performance out of more basic copper. Furutechs Alpha Nano adds gold/silver to the copper which appears to greatly increase its performance, as said works very well with the FI-50 NCF R ends, performance vs $ will be very hard to beat & overall a cable that has some warmth to it. As for Audioquest, I’m not really sure where their copper stands & if its anything special/proprietary or their just using fancy names for your standard types of copper.

Then there’s shielding, dielectric, jacketing, conductor spacing & arrangement, etc, etc. All has an impact on sound but not something you could typically judge the sound based on specs alone.

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Fully understood :+1: (as per my smiley :grinning: )

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This thread is good. One can learn a lot from here :clap:t2:

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100% agree with you.

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Totally agreed

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