Despite the wide availability and low cost of petroleum sourced synthetic materials, are natural materials provides better sound quality when used in speaker cables and interconnects?
By: Ringo Bones
Maybe there’s something to this using natural materials in
hi-fi speaker cables and interconnects that could result in sound quality
despite the alleged hype surrounding the practice. Believe it or not, around
the middle of the 1920s when the first commercially produced electrical music
recordings became widely available, audio power amplifiers that use the PX-25
vacuum tube has wiring that’s more likely than not insulated using cloth or
gutta-percha – as in a tough plastic substance from the latex of several
Malaysian trees of the sapodilla family resembling rubber but containing more
resin and used during the early days of electrification as a electrical wiring
insulation in household electrical wiring and in dentistry. But does using
natural materials often sourced from plants instead of crude oil / petroleum –
truly result in better sound quality in audiophile applications? Or is it just
a marketing ploy for a period-correct zero feedback single-ended triode vacuum
tube hi-fi audio amplifiers that were originally designed around the middle of
the 1920s?
Millennium cables and accessories and the Yamamura /
Churchill hi-fi products, designed by Be Yamamura in Italy and manufactured in
Japan has been admired for their exceptional sound quality in comparison to
comparable mainstream hi-fi products that use crude oil / petroleum sourced
synthetics in their insulation. The Millennium line is distinguished by its use
– when possible – of such natural materials as lacquer, linen, paper, silk and
cloth for insulation and shielding instead of the more commonly used petroleum
/ crude oil sourced synthetic materials.
One of Mr. Yamamura’s design goals is to eliminate the
effects of stray capacitance from his cables. For that he uses a proprietary
material called Trigard – a paper impregnated with the purest form of carbon
Yamamura could find, which turned out to be charcoal manufactured from coconut
shells. The wire itself is made of ultrapure copper. During the second half of
the 19th Century, coconut shell charcoal produced in the Philippines
was admired by artisans in the region as a matt-black pigment used in paining.
Even Dr. Jose Rizal at the time was searching for other more useful
applications of coconut shell sourced charcoal.
Yamamura’s Millennium line also includes Ciabatta (which
means “slipper” in Italian) mains boxes; passive line conditioners that make
extensive use of Trigard to shield the plug / jack interface from RFI (radio
frequency interference) and to absorb stray capacitance. Each Ciabatta mains
box contains four AC jacks which can be configured for analog or digital
sources. Does it also come with gutta-percha insulated audiophile AC chords
that block mains-born RFI?
5 comments:
Before Be Yamamura was "perfecting" his coconut shell charcoal impregnated paper called Trigard, the Philippine national hero Dr. Jose Rizal was experimenting with advanced medical and chemical applications of coconut shell charcoal - as in a low-cost effective activated carbon based water purifier - near the end of the 1870s.
Imagine if the Philippine national hero Dr. Jose Rizal was into "Victorian era hi-fi" and collaborated with Thomas Alva Edison to improve the audio fidelity of his wax cylinder recorders - our current high fidelity audio systems would be way, way better than it is today.
Speaking of Dr. Jose Rizal's experiments on coconut shell charcoal - he might have tinkered with his own version of a working carbon granule microphone.
Anyone out there with material pertaining to Dr. Jose Rizal's research, experiments and studies about coconut shell charcoal that were way ahead of its time, please drop us a line.
Does this mean that Dr. Jose Rizal was the first ever Filipino audiophile?
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