I couldn't stand it. As I looked up from playing my guitar and saw that lovely spool of the new 600V Duelund DCA12GA PolyCAST tinned-copper tone wire, I just had to do something!

The new 600VDC Duelund DCA12GA tinned-copper tone wire!

I decided I really needed to cut a set of 2.5 meter speaker cables off the spool, and then try them as speaker cables connecting my vintage MC30 monaural amplifiers to the Stokowski Altec's.

I have been using the original Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu wire with the baked oiled-cotton dielectric as speaker cables ever since it arrived here (first with the Westminster's and now with the Altec's), so I thought it would make for an excellent comparison to drop the new 600V Duelund DCA12GA into the system in their place.

The new Duelund PolyCAST dielectric of the 600V DCA12GA Sn-Cu wire is to the soft and pliable side of life, so it's easy to imagine it would have effective damping properties on the Sn-Cu conductors, and as a side benefit it makes it flexible and easy to route.

The casing is a little more challenging to strip than the baked oiled-cotton dielectric of the DCA12GA signal wire (which slides off easily), as the PolyCAST hangs on pretty tight. The trick to getting it off without drama is to cut it around its circumference with an X-Acto knife where you want to strip it, then cut the section you want to strip down its length, which makes it easy to peel off.

It's a little hard to see, but along the side of the casing in gold lettering it says "Duelund Coherent Audio DCA12GA 600VDC CAST Dielectricum Tinned Copper" - a classy touch.

When I hooked up the new 600V Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu tone wire between my hot-rodded vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers and the Stokowski Altec's, I oriented the wire so that the way you read the lettering flowed towards the loudspeakers so I could keep the directionality consistent.

The new 600V Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu tone wire as speaker cables.

As is my custom, I put the 600V Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu tone wire up on Acoustic Revive cable lifts (above).

The new 600V Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu tone wire as speaker cables.

Then it was time to warm the vintage McIntosh gear up and listen to a little music. It takes about an hour for the vintage Mac gear to settle in for its full tone, so I caught up on a few things while everything was warming up.

For the first few hours or so the 600V DCA12GA Sn-Cu wire sounded a little rough, which I've come to recognize as typical with Sn-Cu wire when it's fresh off the roll, and then it smoothed out, just as with the other Sn-Cu cables in my experience.

Now fast forward through a few days of listening time. In my Positive Feedback review of the Duelund DCA series of tinned-copper wires in Issue 92 I described the Duelund DCA12GA as ... "having a big, rich, smooth, and nuanced presentation" and that's pretty much what the new 600V version of the DCA12GA sounds like as well, which I would sort of expect given they both use the same 65 strands of 0.25mm diameter tinned-copper wires. 

At the moment, the 600V Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu wire sounds a little less airy and spacious than its baked oiled-cotton dielectric brethren, but it's still early in the run-in period, so that may change as I get more hours on them.

I'm not sure my comparison of the two Duelund DCA12GA wires as speaker cables is all that relevant for the 600V Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu wire's intended purpose, which is higher voltage applications like power cords where you really can't use the Duelund DCA12GA baked oiled-cotton dielectric wire for reasons of safety, but it's nice to know that the 600V Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu wire still has that great big, rich, smooth, and nuanced presentation of the original DCA12GA with its baked oiled-cotton dielectric .

Depending on your personal aural tastes and the components in your system, you might even prefer the voicing option you get with the 600V DCA12GA Sn-Cu wire as speaker cables, and given it's about half the cost of the baked oiled-cotton dielectric DCA12GA you might want to order up enough of both to do your own comparisons. 

Ok, that's it for now, and I'll report back as I get more time on the 600V DCA12GA as speaker cables, and eventually I'll try the 600V DCA12GA in power cords, but that may be a while because I've got quite a few other things in the queue ahead of it that I have to get done first.

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