Buy Jena Cryo or Vampire

[MrFaust]

I was wondering about the wire myself. I've already bought 2 dock connectors and 2 canare f12 mini plugs. I was thinking of making my own "jumbo cryo" dock. I've never made a cable before but it doesn't LOOK that difficult. Thanks for the info. I would be interested in a couple feet myself if someone wants to do a group buy.

[barqy]

Originally Posted by hembergler

Certaintly aren't giving it away. To answer the other half of the question, you can buy Vampire wire at takefiveaudio.com , just select the color option Transparent.

what's the difference between the vampire wire and the jena labs wire?

they're both cryo treated, so I guess the $$ difference is a marketing thing?


i have read on head-fi that the cryo treatment is a bit of BS anyway or do people really do hear a difference..


id like to buy some myself to try too, to see if silver over cryo treated copper is better..

[ChickenGod]

I am exactly like MrFaust. I was thinking of making my own Jumbo Cryo Dock, because it doesn't LOOK that hard... We'll see because looks are deceiving

[hembergler]

Originally Posted by khbaur330162

Is that really that expensive? Recablers charge something like $150 for a cable which only consists of 3.5 feet or so. Are terminations and labor worth all that much?

It's expensive depending on who you are. For me, I think the price of $0.45/ft. Canare StarQuad is just right. You get good quality copper, shielding, and a nice jacket all for 45 cents. Or, you can go with the Jena Labs wire at $6.00/ft, and for headphone recables you need at least 4 runs of it, so that comes to $24/ft.

That's not to say it isn't worth it, (I have never tried it myself), but on my budget, it's simply impractical and not worth the added expensive. I'd love to try using it at some point, but it's beyond my reach for now.

[Jon L]

Just to add my 2 cents, I have both Jena cryo wire and Vampire continuous cast "magnet" wire and have made various headphone cables and interconnects with them.

I have also made them using the expensive Audio Consulting Silver Magnet wire.

I prefer the Vampire magnet wire, which happens to be the cheapest. I believe the cheapest price can be had from Percy Audio, where I bought mine. It has the best balance between detail, tonal balance, and warmth IME; just make sure you use smaller AWG ones (26-28 AWG) and at least quad-braid them...

It's possible that Jena wire becomes exponentially better when braided in HUGE number of runs like expensive Jena production cables, but then again, you could do the same with Vampire wire.

As far as major differences, Jena wire is stranded "hyperpure" copper in thicker "deflourinated" teflon dielectric. Vampire is solid core continuous-cast copper wire in extremely thin enamel dielectric.

[barqy]

[quote=Jon L;2628650]
I prefer the Vampire magnet wire, which happens to be the cheapest. I believe the cheapest price can be had from Percy Audio, where I bought mine. It has the best balance between detail, tonal balance, and warmth IME; just make sure you use smaller AWG ones (26-28 AWG) and at least quad-braid them...
QUOTE]

Is it really necessary to use such a small gauge for interconnects? I don't really see a major advantage to using smaller gauge wires over the larger ones (22-24)


thanks

[Jon L]

Well, for line-level (interconnects, mini), I have favored quad-braid of 26 awg Vampire wire. For more power-carrying applications, such as K1000 wire, I have preferred 21 awg (2 per leg).

Cable DIY is akin to cooking. There's different flavors one gets by using 26 awg x4 (quad braid) vs. 23 awg x 2 (twist) even though total awg may be the same.

For line-level, the smaller awg tends to give more treble extension and air as well as focus, but you start to subtract from midrange and bass warmth and density. You can go too far the other direction, getting thick, warm, rolled-off sound. Good compromise is to use multiples of small awg wire per leg; many high-end cable companies, in fact, use this approach..

[axiom]

Of course if it's stranded wire it's already small awg wire.
There are many things online debating which size is best, if you google "skin effect of wires" you should get plenty of stuff to read
Another thing to consider is braiding (although if you just use 3 wires it's pretty straightforward). Also a lot of reading for that if you want .
Here's a couple of interesting pages:
http://www.laventure.net/tourist/cables.htm
http://www.chimeralabs.com/diy_braid.html
http://www.vt4c.com/shop/program/mai..._id=9&hit_cat=

[hilikus]

Originally Posted by Jon L

Just to add my 2 cents, I have both Jena cryo wire and Vampire continuous cast "magnet" wire and have made various headphone cables and interconnects with them.

I have also made them using the expensive Audio Consulting Silver Magnet wire.

I prefer the Vampire magnet wire, which happens to be the cheapest. I believe the cheapest price can be had from Percy Audio, where I bought mine. It has the best balance between detail, tonal balance, and warmth IME; just make sure you use smaller AWG ones (26-28 AWG) and at least quad-braid them...

It's possible that Jena wire becomes exponentially better when braided in HUGE number of runs like expensive Jena production cables, but then again, you could do the same with Vampire wire.

As far as major differences, Jena wire is stranded "hyperpure" copper in thicker "deflourinated" teflon dielectric. Vampire is solid core continuous-cast copper wire in extremely thin enamel dielectric.

Ahh thank you. I found the vampire 20guage wire ken uses at ALO.
http://www.percyaudio.com/Catalog.pdf

[barqy]

so......did anyone ever end up buying some cryo wire to try out?

if not, i wouldn't mine buying several feet of cryo treated vampire wire to test out for making ipod line out docks



cheers