Belden CAT6 Question - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

dcheming · 10-01-2006, 03:29 AM

I'm in the process of doing various mods to my Xiang Sheng 708B amp. I've had it for about a week now and have already replaced all the signal wire with Belden 7882A CAT6 as well as the RCA jacks. This wire uses FEP which has almost identical electrical characteristics to Teflon. Which brings me to my question. I'm noticing that the upper treble is quite harsh, especially on cymbals and distorted guitars. My hearing is getting fatigued after only about an hour of listening to normal levels. Do you guys think it could be the wire causing this? Has anyone noticed this with any of the other various twisted-pair data cable? I've used this exact wire in various IC's and have not had this problem when using them going to my KRK monitors.

I have three different types of shielded coax to chose from that I'm considering replacing this wire with instead. I just wanted to get some more opinions before I do this. The pics are to give an idea of what my setup is. Thanks for any suggestions.

Garbz · 10-01-2006, 07:03 AM

Many people here would doubt the wire can change the sound at all.

dcheming · 10-01-2006, 07:33 AM

I was just worried about the high capacitance of this style of cable and was wondering if anyone else has experienced similar results when using it in a tube headamp...

dsavitsk · 10-01-2006, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by Garbz

Many people here would doubt the wire can change the sound at all.

I do think wire can influence sound, but I think it is generally about the least important thing. I would be looking at all of those cheap electrolytics first, perhaps D1 and D2 second, and maybe the tubes third. Oh, and perhaps the volume pot and the other resistors in the signal path fourth. When all of that is done, maybe the wire will matter, but I doubt it.

dcheming · 10-01-2006, 08:37 AM

I agree on the low quality crap in the signal path. I made an order with PC on Thursday for the following:

RIKEN carbon films for the input resistors and all the cathode bias resistors

Auricaps for the interstage coupling caps

Mundorf M-Caps for the power supply bypass caps

ALPS Blue Velvet potentiometer

So I guess I will just have to try these parts and see if this amp has any potential to sound good. If I can't get the sound I'm looking for then I'll just keep it around as cheap preamp for a second system and move on to something better.