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FraGGleR,

You have to keep in mind that not everybody have the DIY skills to make a proper interconnect cable. But even if I knew how to construct one, I wouldn't do it myself and there is a simple answer to that. I wouldn't know what geometry, how many strands, what dielectric, and what plugs would make a natural and neutral sounding cable. Should I choose 0.4mm or 0.8mm solid concductors? Solid core vs. multi-core? WBT plugs? What solder?...

If you look at the Ultimate Silver Dream interconnects, they are using 8 conductors per channel. Also, it uses mainly air as a dielectric : they put their silver conductors in a loose teflon jacket (which takes time to do I guess). So even if the raw materials do not cost more than one third of the price, I am happy to pay the premium for the research done and time spent making the cable.

So why the Artisan Silver Cables can beat some cables priced at $1000+? In my opinion, it is because many cable companies sell marketing hype about complex geometries and/or shielding when it is possible to make things simpler. Are the Artisan Cables perfect? probably not since I didn't listen to all the cables in the world but what I can tell is that compared to other cables that are sold at a lower or higher price, they provide an excellent value for the price.

Finally, FraGGleR, if you the DIY skills go for it! If I had the DIY skills and knew what combination of conductor/dielectric/geometry/plugs would work I would do it to. Unfortunately I (as well as many) don't have those skills so we are stuck buying stuff that are already made and that are known to work. I have read many reports of people complaining about the leaness or harshness of silver based cables, so I guess not everybody can do it right and putting high purity OCC silver and $100+ WBT plugs doesn't guarantee you get a well balanced cable from the first try.

By the way, I checked the Homegrownaudio website. And the cable that has same geometry (8 conductors) as the "ultimate silver dream" cable is sold for $245 for 1 meter. However, it uses an inferior design since it uses a FEP dielectric (not even real teflon PTFE) instead of the mainly air dielectric used in the artisan silver cables. However, they have an interesting cable, the DNA, that uses cotton dielectric (which is better sounding than teflon) but it costs $525 for 0.5m.

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According to tosehee:

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The cable should have 8 cables per channel. The price seems to reflect the cost of the product, and I thus believe in their honesty.

The silver in Artisan Cables costs us close to your figure of $5 per foot (silver is more expensive to buy in the UK than the US). The Ultimate Cable has 8 conductors per side (so 16 conductors in a pair). We are generous with our lengths, so a one metre cable ends up using about 3.5 feet per counductor. With 16 conductors, we have a total of about 56 feet of silver used for a one metre pair. 56 x $5 gives a figure of $280 worth of silver in a one metre pair of Ultimate Silver Dreams. Add to that 56 feet of teflon tubing, 4 RCA connectors, labour costs, postage costs (we offer free World Wide shipping), advertising costs, tax payments, web site costs etc and you can see that our margins are pretty modest.

Have a look at the construction of the Kimber KCAG at KCAG : Cancel RFI with this all-silver intercon...
It has 3 multistrand silver conductors, wrapped in Teflon and some cheap RCA plugs.

The KCAG is currently selling here in England through Russ Andrews at £714 for a one metre pair. A typical profit margin for a high-end cable is at least 8-10 x the cost - often it's MUCH more. We set out to offer better value than that. Our prices, when all costs are taken into account are less than 2 x the overall cost - which any businessman worth his salt would be horrified at! We are able to maintain this by selling direct only: normally there are big distribution networks, with various middlemen, who all take their cut.

The simplicity of construction is there, because complex shielded cables tend to sound much worse than shielded ones - unless they're VERY expensive. I don't pretend to understand the technical reasons for this, but everyone who gets to listen always confirms it.
The reviewer at 6moons compared ours to Kimber's KS-1030 (a complex shielded cable) which retails at over £1800 for a one metre pair here in England in a very high-resolution system and found ours to be incredibly close and bought the review pair.

Obviously, you have the knowledge, expertise and equipment to make your own cables - and of course a DIY-er can make them cheaper. Most people would not be willing tackle that job - they just want to buy an upgrade that gives a good improvement in sound and is decent value. It's true that we can't match the value of one guy making up leads on his own, but we can and will continue to offer MUCH better value than any other high-end silver cable manufacturer.

Interesting Silver Dream headphone cable review.
I search all over the internet, found only interconnect and speaker cables,
not the headphone cable. Please send us the link. Thanks a lot, Slim.A

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Artisan Silver cables discontinued the version I am currently using and they are working on a replacement (a v2). The difference will be that the new version will be reinforced with Kevlar so it should be more resistant/durable even in harsh conditions.
I will post a link whenever they release the new version.

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After a little bit of delay, the "Silver Dream" Sennheiser Headphone Upgrade Cable Mark 2 is finally out : ARTISAN SILVER CABLES "Silver Dream" pure silver Sennheiser Headphone Upgrade Cable

Here I was expecting to debunk the IC and coax cable myth but to these ears there's definitely a change in sound with my recent cable upgrades. The differences are subtle but they are in areas that matter, and in many of them. Good stuff.

That being said, I can't say I'd recommend these cables for the price. It was worth the cost for me, but I would understand those who would disagree. I maintain that one should upgrade their transport/DAC/amp/headphones before cables.

Cosmicmindwarp,
a very good reply and very honest. SlimA said it all did'nt he.

A lot of those who get involved in modding gear and making their own cables lose sight of the simple fact that as SlimA said - there are many who don't have diy skills, so are happy to pay someone who is.

They cannot step outside of their particular box and then make silly pronouncements.

Cosmicmindwarp - I have spent over 3 years developing my i/cs and could have saved myself a lot of time and money if I had really taken onboard the simple maxim that 'air is the best dialectric'.

The same quality of wire wrapped (commercially) in Teflon or Kapton (mil spec) simply does not compare to the same wire being bare - it is as simple as that.

I have used quality silver/plated OFHC wire and am now trying UP-OCC (6N) and Mundorf silver/gold wire.

I have to say that the s/plated copper wire is outstanding but SlimA if you hav'nt replicated the i/c as signal wire inside your amp - you don't know just how much better the sound can truly be.

I use double sheilding which must be kept a minimum distance from the signal conductors and a novel return wire system.

Like the Silver Dream - IF I go commercial they cannot be cheap, simply because of the materials costs. As for those multi $thousand types - they may use sexy coverings, there are plenty of smucks who will pay plenty for visual bling - let them, it's their money.

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I had already thought of replacing the internal wires my DAC/headphone amp but since I have zero soldering skills I decided to not touch inside them.

In fact, the importance of the wires is one of the reasons I sold my old audio-gd dac19mk3/c2c and replaced them with the new combo dac19dsp/c2. Besides the better digital filter in the DAC, the main difference between what I had and what I am getting is the ability to use the ACSS (CAST) transmission between the DAC and headphone amp. While most audio gear transmits signal in the voltage mode, the ACSS technology allows the signal to be transmitted in the current mode. This supposedly reduce (but doesn't entirely negate) the effect of the cables. If the current connection proves to be better, I will have the rca connectors of my ultimate silver dreams converted to ACSS (CAST). Hopefully, that techology should minimize the effects of the internal wiring as well.

Hi Slim,
you will have seen my post on your thread. I use s/plate OFHC copper with double sheilded air dialectric.

I am about to build some i/cs using UP-OCC silver and will make up an identical pair and also an unsheilded pair.

Take not of what I said about replicating identical signal wiring inside your amp/s as you use for i/cs - it's the bare wire (sheilded) that makes a huge difference.

If you like your i/cs now you will love what changing your amp internal signal wiring will do.

Let me know if you are interested.

Regards - Stuart

I just remembered that I forgot to mention that Artisan Silver Cables sent me last week their Mark 2 Headphone Upgrade Cable. I received it Saturday and all I can say is that I am very impressed by the build quality. It is as good as the Moon Audio Blue Dragon and better than Stefan AudioArt Equinox. The worst looking cable (besides the stock one) is their Mark1 cable (the one that I am using). But I kept using it because it sounds so good compared to all the other cables I have tried so far.

As for the sound quality, I haven't done any serious listening so far. I will post my impressions later and I will also have the opportunity to compare them to a Revelation Audio Lab cable that rosgr63 is going to send me.

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Hi Stuart,

I will definitely put the replicating of signal wires inside the amp/dac on my to do list. Your experience confirmed what I was already suspicious about. Now, I will just have to source some of the Artisan Silver Dream cable but they seem to have discontinued selling bulk wire in their website.

Thanks.

Just for a 'reality check' I decided to replace the sheilded s/plated copper signal wires with the UP-OCC silver wire unsheilded inside my h/amp.

Initial impressions are the same as for i/cs made the same way - at this moment, early days I know but the focus, soundstage and detail are not there and the quality of the bass is all blowsy.

The sheilded wiring was so much better at this stage - vamos a ver/ let's see what more burn in will do.

At this time the s/plated OFHC copper is way ahead - quite a surprise!

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Hi slim.a,any further impressions with the mark 2 cable?

Just received mine and although it is early days i quite like what i am hearing.Need to let it play for a while before i can say anything definate but the high frequencies sound cleaner,i think copper is a smidgeon grainier in this respect.

Nice build quality too,almost identical to the blue dragon except for the hint of red through the cable instead of blue.

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Let us know how it goes on after burn-in.


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Glad that you liked their upgrade cable. As for me, I am still in the process of burning-in the Mark2 cable. So far I like the sound a lot as it is close to the Mark1 cable. I am also trying the Revelation Audio Lab cable that rosgr63 sent me.

I intend to write a full review on the Mark2 with comparisons aginst the Mark1, stock cable and Revelation Audio Lab cable (which uses cryo silver) in the next 2 weeks.