I told you about the new pre-assembled Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA tinned-copper interconnects in my last "Today's Fresh Catch" post (HERE).
The new pre-assembled Duelund DCA16GA interconnects are notable for a couple of reasons, the first being that you can buy them pre-assembled from Duelund instead of having to build them yourself as in the past, secondly for being equipped with the new Duelund RCA plugs that replace the plastic used in their construction with the same sort of compressed vacuum impregnated paper material that is used in the outer ring of the Duelund CAST line of inductors and capacitors, and thirdly for the new DCA16GA tinned-copper wire that includes both conductor legs wrapped in a single outer sheath.
Note: After this article went live, Frederik commented that the inner construction of the DCA16GA wire used in the new interconnect utilizes two separate internal oil-soaked & baked cotton casings to keep the tinned-copper conductors from short circuiting, and there is an outer oil-soaked & baked cotton casing that encases the two inner casings to keep them together as a single cable. No shielding in used in the new DCA16GA interconnect.
Yesterday I told my Facebook friends that I had installed the new pre-assembled Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA tinned-copper interconnects into my living room system with the Duelund-Altec Project "Stokowski" Altec's, between my usual vintage McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamp and the Pass Labs XA25 stereo power amplifier that is in for review, and I promised to follow up with some "first impressions" of their performance after I listened to them for a while.
Duelund-Altec Project "Stokowski" Altec's
Pass Labs XA25 stereo amplifier with McIntosh MX110 tuner-preamplifier.
In the An Adventure in the Art of Tone with the Duelund Coherent Audio DCA Series of Tinned-Copper Cables article that I wrote for Positive Feedback, I urged my fellow hifi enthusiasts to experiment with different gauges of the DCA series of tinned-copper cables to find out what works best for their particular system components and personal voicing tastes.
Bottom to top: DCA26GA, DCA20GA, DCA16GA, and DCA12GA.
For my Duelund-Westminster Project Tannoy Westminster Royal SE loudspeaker's based system I've found my favored combination of DCA tinned-copper cables to be the DCA20GA used as interconnects and the DCA12GA used for speaker cables.
For my vintage Altec loudspeakers - the pro "Stokowski" Altec's, the pro Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre's, and the domestic Altec 832A Corona's - I've found my favored match for speaker cables to be the Duelund DCA16GA tinned-copper wire.
I've been using DCA20GA interconnects with the Duelund-Altec Project custom "Stokowski" Altec's and they sound mighty fine, but for the sake of experimentation I'd been wanting to go back and try DCA16GA interconnects with them, as I thought they might be a better tonal match to their current voicing with the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers that I am working on getting into their final form as I get them laid out on their solid walnut plinths, before installing them back into the high-frequency horn cabinets of the loudspeakers.
So the timing of the arrival of the new Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA tinned-copper interconnects with their plastic-free RCA's couldn't have been better.
In my DCA tinned-copper cable summary article I had the described the DCA16GA thusly:
"In the Duelund DCA line of tinned-copper cables, the DCA16GA is at the apogee of the tinned-copper characteristics of intensity of tone color, dynamic prowess, timbral realism, vivid presence, and a compelling portrayal of beat and tempos. The DCA16GA has the most tone color intensity, macro dynamic prowess, vibrant timbral textures, and vivid presence, of all the DCA tinned-copper cables."
I normally give wire products plenty of run-in time (100 hours plus) by playing NPR classical music on my tuner, and by streaming Jazz24 from my MacBook, before reporting my first listening impressions or making any judgements about their performance, but I deviated somewhat from that practice for this "first impressions" report.
The reason for that is because typically tinned-copper interconnects initially can sound a little "rough" and "edgy" until they run-in adequately, and that was what I was expecting for the new pre-assembled Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA tinned-copper interconnects as well.
To my surprise, even at the "zero hour" point, the new pre-assembled Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA tinned-copper interconnects didn't exhibit that initial edginess that every pair of Sn-Cu interconnects in my experience did until they run-in, and rather they sounded like my well run-in DCA16GA interconnects.
To figure out why I was hearing what I was hearing from them, I asked Frederik Carøe if he did any pre-conditioning before he sent the interconnects to me.
Frederik told me that he had done zero pre-conditioning of the interconnects, and that the difference I was hearing was due to switching from a plastic to paper insulator in the new Duelund RCA connectors.
Most of you know that the difference between a well run-in cable and an unconditioned cable is usually quite large, so to have a change from a plastic to a paper insulator in an RCA connector make that magnitude of a difference in performance by itself was quite a surprise to me.
Frederik has been on quite a roll with innovative high-performance ideas over the last few years, starting with the Duelund DCA line of tinned-copper cables, then the stunning performance level of the new line of Duelund CAST tinned-copper capacitors, inductors, and resistors, the introduction of the Duelund RCA's with their organic instead of metal handles, and now with the new Duelund RCA's having switched from a plastic insulator to the pressed paper insulator.
Well what do the new pre-assembled Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA tinned-copper interconnects sound like?
On the NPR classical station and the Jazz24 jazz stream, they pretty much sound a lot like my really well run-in DCA16GA interconnects do, excelling in their intensity of tone color, dynamic prowess, timbral realism, vivid presence, as well as a compelling portrayal of beat and tempos, and if anything they display a little more smoothness and organic-like richness than even my well run-in DCA16GA Duelund interconnects.
That level of performance at the "zero hour" point is definitely a flattering introduction to the new plastic-free Duelund RCA's, and it begs the question of what I'll hear from the new interconnects as the DCA16GA wire itself accumulates some run-in time, which of course will be the subject of a future post when they've accumulated 100+ hours of run-in time.
As always, thanks for stopping by Jeff's Place, and may the tone be with you!
