Vari-Core

Why is Dielectric Involvement Important?

The electrical behaviour of the dielectric (insulating material) is much more important in low level cable (e.g Interconnects ). Dielectric involvement (the way in which a particular material absorbs and releases energy), has a profound effect on an audio/video signal. Air has the best dielectic involvement, there is none, but, you have to use an insulator (you cannot completely hold the conductor in air). We have found, P.T.F.E or Teflon, is the ideal insulator presently, having the least dielectric involved distortion.

Vari-Core Litz?

"Vari-Core" literately means 'varied solid core'.
"Litz" type cable construction was invented long ago for the purpose of preventing skin-effect induced power loss in high-frequency applications. Conventional litz construction uses multiple individually insulated strands arranged so that no matter how big the cable, skin-effect is only that effect which would be associated with a single strand.

Vari-core is an extremely effective way to reduce distortion signatures and better preserve a natural homogenous harmonic balance across the entire frequency range. By using a multiple of different size conductors whose character flaws are similar but slightly different, the "visiblity" of any one character flaw is greatly reduced. In order to optimize this defocusing of awareness, the conductors sizes must be close together. If they are too far apart, then the cable simply has multiple compound character flaws. Vari-core does not do the impossible: it does not eliminate this type of distortion. We cannot actually strip the undesirable artifacts, but we can make them virtually inaudible.

Judge with your EARS.

Isn't Silver solder best?

The Solder we use is lead-free solder. Silver solder has to have lead in it but lead is a nasty heavy sounding metal(it is great in roofing and x-ray rooms but not in hi-fi). We use lead-free solder (99.7 tin/0.3 copper) which takes a hot iron to use. It is great for this application (with cables) but not sensitive components (resistors etc). It is very important to get a good connection before using solder as the mechanical bond. Where we can use crimped plugs before soldering, we do try to use so that the metals form into one.