As I mentioned in a post about 3 weeks ago, I built up a set of 1.5 meter Duelund DCA26GA interconnects terminated with Switchcraft RCA's.

I've been listening to the Duelund DCA26GA IC's with the Switchcraft RCA's on my OPPO UDP-203 Blu-ray player, and I've been impressed with how good they sounded in that application.

I had presumed that DCA26GA would be kind of small for line level signal amplitudes, but I'm glad I gave them a try that way, as they sound great as line level interconnects on the OPPO.

But how well would they work as line level IC's in my main music system with the Westminster's?

So this afternoon I decided to install the DCA26GA interconnects in place of my DCA20GA interconnects between my vintage McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamplifier and my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers.

As a reminder, the Duelund DCA26GA wire uses 1 strand of 0.40mm diameter tinned-copper wire, and the Duelund DCA20GA cable uses 26 strands of 0.15mm diameter tinned-copper wires.

I had been listening to Bill Evan's Some Other Time album with the DCA20GA IC's this afternoon when I made the switch to the DCA26GA IC's.

I thought I knew what would happen, which is that the DCA26GA interconnects would sound very spacious, but a little bit lean, but that's not what happened.

If anything the DCA26GA interconnects sounded a little bit warm and rich, which is not at all what I was expecting to hear from them.

I think everyone knows by now that the Duelund DCA20GA makes for ridiculously good interconnects, and I've been using the shielded DCA20GA interconnects from the Arai Lab MT-1 SUT (in for review, and up next) to my vintage MX110Z preamplifier with superb results, and as unshielded interconnects from my MX110Z to my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers with equally superb results.

Eric Johnson's Europe Live album sounded spacious, silky, warm, natural, detailed, and transparent with the Duelund DCA26GA interconnects, and very, very, musical in the way that dynamics, tempos, and melodies were presented.

I haven't had enough time to make any detailed comparisons of the DCA20GA vs. the DCA26GA as interconnects, but I thought both of them sounded great.

Given the DCA26GA is only $5.50 USD per meter, and Switchcraft 3502AAU RCA's are just $3.99 each, you could make up a pair of one meter DCA26GA interconnects for less than $40 USD, which is an incredible bargain.

I like what I'm hearing so much that I'm going to build up a set of shielded Duelund DCA26GA interconnects to try between the Arai Lab MT-1 SUT to MX110Z preamp connection so I can hear what the DCA26GA sounds like in that application.

Time to put an order in with Parts ConneXion for some more shielding (TCBRAID-70765) and cotton tubing (COTTUBE-72532) so I can make up some shielded DCA26GA interconnects!

As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!