LAB: Comparing Dielectric Effect Distortion to Jitter

October 28, 2015 by

Paul Speltz, President of ANTICABLES, Electronic Engineer & High Fidelity Enthusiast compares Dielectric Effect Distortion to Jitter
Talking with customers at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest show a few weeks ago, I found myself repeatedly talking about the time-domain of music reproduction. When I was a kid, frequency-domain was focused on, but now obtaining a full frequency range is a relatively easy thing to do. Time-domain is where it is at now, baby.

Jitter is a time-domain issue in digital audio, and Dielectric Effect is a time domain issue in components and cables. The effects of dielectric effect distortion sound quite similar to me as the effects of jitter distortion, which is not surprising, since they are both time based distortions.

When the music signal flows through a cable, the dielectric material (insulation) around the wire absorbs some if this magnetic energy, but then re-releases it back into the wire slightly later in time. This time smearing of the music signal is called dielectric effect distortion. Both this and jitter distortion collapses the sound stage, makes the music sound hard and closed in, and reduces dynamics making the music sound lifeless and un-involving.

ANTICABLES use a very thin yet durable red coating to insulate the copper wire. This red coating is only 0.001 of an inch (0.025mm) thick. Beyond this extremely thin red coating, there is nothing left but air, and air is an ideal insulation dielectric material because it causes no dielectric effect distortion. Just one of the many reasons they are able to “hit the proverbial nail on the head” (Audiophilia, October 2105), when it comes to speed, neutrality, vibrant transparency, correct timber and last but not least, dynamics.

Filed Under: All News, ANTICABLES Lab

LAB: World Class Sound

August 21, 2015 by

lab-rcaPaul Speltz, President of ANTICABLES, Electronic Engineer & High Fidelity Enthusiast shares his NEW RELEASE, Level 6.2 ABSOLUTE Signature RCA Analog Interconnects.

The Level 6.2 ABSOLUTE Signature RCA Analog Interconnects, pictured above, are what I have been running in my reference system. They are even better sounding than our previously top-of-the-line Level 5.2 PURE Reference RCA ICs.

What Makes These Better
These cables use the newest Keith Louis Eichmann’s Absolute-Harmony RCA Plugs, which I believe are the best sounding RCA plugs in the world. These RCA plugs are so much better then Mr. Eichmann’s PURE-Harmony plugs, I was inspired to push my technology to the maximum to match their musical ability.

Instead of using the red coated elongated coil copper wire to serve as both the returning ground wire and the shield wire (as with all my other RCA cable designs), these RCA Interconnect uses two additional ACElectrum™ Silver/Gold Alloy wires as the return signal path. The red colored elongated coil copper wire serves only as the shield wire, and sports twice as many shielding loops per inch then normal.

This configuration provides an even greater picture of each instrument in the recording, and the harmonic beauty of the music. There is better focus and yet another layer of vail (which previously was not even noticed), is now removed.

These were JUST released yesterday, and limited quantities are now available.

 

Filed Under: All News, ANTICABLES Lab, New Products

LAB: Everything Matters

July 21, 2015 by

Paul Speltz, President of ANTICABLES, Electronic Engineer & High Fidelity Enthusiast shares a new theory he is beginning to test, that the directionality of a cap is similar to wire.  Read on…

The past few years ANTICABLES has been working hard on new product development and I have adopted two new sayings to develop by, “The delight is in the details”, and “Everything matters”. I have found that seemingly every conceivable variable makes an audible difference when designing speaker wires, interconnects, and more recently, power cords and USB cords.

As the performance and resolution of a playback system improves, it becomes much quicker to hear these differences, and more importantly, if the change is better, worse, or just different. In other words, did the change bring us closer to, or further from, the music?

In the never ending quest for improving our main reference system, to help us develop better and better sounding products, I have been upgrading the caps on both my large full-range dipole speakers and my 15″ dual concentric speakers. Knowing that “everything matters” and that “the delight is in the details” (of the design), I auditioned each capacitor for proper directionality.

All caps I have tried sound different in one direction over the other. Be aware, it is a bit tricky to do if the caps have not been burned-in, because one needs to be able to disregard the bad sounding dielectric effect distortion, and listen for the directionality characteristics. I can also safely say that given the same cap design, smaller value caps have always sounded better than larger value of the same brand and type.

On both brands I recently tested, there is not consistent directionality from value to value. When looking at the printed label, one value may sound best from left to right. A different value sound better from right to left.

IMG_3376-2On to my point. I think there is a common belief that the sonic directionality in capacitors has to do with which lead is terminated to the outermost foil in the cap. My theory is different. I believe the directionality of a cap is similar to directionality in wire, because of similarities in the “backwards” sound between them. It has to do with the non-symmetric grain structure of the conductive metal as it was drawn or formed into shape.

ANTICABLES employee Ralph Marquart and I have worked out a procedure that will help prove if this is the case or not. Hopefully, I will be able to give further insight to this topic in an upcoming newsletter, stay tuned!

 

Filed Under: All News, ANTICABLES Lab
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