There's been some big changes in my vintage Altec 832A Corona based bedroom system recently.

It started with me loaning my treasured Almarro A205A Mk1 EL84 single-ended-pentode integrated amplifier to my buddy Chad to use for a couple of months in his cabin system up on Lake Chelan as his cabin amp was on the blink. 

 

Shortly after loaning the Almarro A205A Mk1 integrated amplifier to Chad, I got a new desk for my guitar room, and so ended up moving my McKinnon equipment cabinet into my vintage Altec 832A Corona based bedroom system, along with my beloved Leben CS600 that has so reliably provided me an engaging music and film adventures in my vintage Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre based AV system.

I stream Jazz24 from my Apple iMac to the Mhdt Paradisea USB DAC via a Polestar USB interconnect as my bedroom source, and that combination has provided me many hours of listening pleasure. The Mhdt Paradisea USB DAC connects to the AC with an Acoustic Revive power cord.

I've been wanting to try the new Duelund 600V DCA16GA tinned-copper cables with its CAST-like dielectric and compare it to the original DCA16GA tinned-copper cables with the baked oil-soaked dielectric, so this seemed like a great time to give that a try.

The new Duelund 600V DCA16GA tinned-copper wire is intended to be used for hookup wire in electronics (thus the higher 600V rating), but an easy was to get a handle on its musical & sonic properties is to use it as speaker cable.

This afternoon I trimmed four equal lengths of the new Duelund 600V DCA16GA tinned-copper cable off the spool to use as speaker cables, stripped the ends, and put some red Peavey microphone tape on the positive cables.

I then hooked up one end of the wires to my vintage Altec 832A Corona loudspeakers ... 

... and the other end up to the Leben CS600 integrated amplifier.

Interconnects are Belden 8402 microphone cables terminated with RCAs. The power cable is an old favorite, the Sablon Audio Robusto (which also happens to be a favorite of my buddy Doc Leo, he's got a number of them in his systems). 

The boxes on top of the Corona's are a custom pair of Spec RSP-AZ9EX Real Sound Processors (impedance compensators) that Yazaki-san made specially for my vintage Altec Corona 832A loudspeakers, and are connected to the Corona's with vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire.

I'll provide an update on the new Duelund DCA16GA tinned-copper wire as it settles into the system and gets some run-in time on it.

Next I'll take the Sophia Electric EL34-ST tubes out of the Leben CS600 and try them in the new Leben CS600X that's in residence in my Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre AV system.

There's lots of cool things coming up for 2020 that I want to tell you about, and I'll do that in the 2019 in retrospect, my 2020 New Year's Resolutions, the year ahead, and other stuff! Part 4. post I'm working on now.

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