Hi everybody,
Here is a report on a little upgrade proving to be quite big.
For the last nearly three years I was keeping my gear on top of a big cabinet housed in our living room. Previously I have had three decent quality racks, but believe it or not, because of lack of space in our 25x15 living area, I had to get rid of the existing last one.
Recently, I again got myself a rack made, completely of teak wood with 5 shelves, all sides open. But we can only keep it at a place (by the side of the main cabinet) which is tremendously asymmetric with respect to the two speakers. Hence my VDH Clearwater speaker cables (2x3 m) fell short for the right speaker at least by one meter.
I was more or less decided on the VDH CS122 cable when Sridhar offered an old cable from TDK which ARN Systems, Bangalore acquired recently. This is a PCOCC pure copper cable where a single crystal of copper can be as long as a few hundred feet and as a result a signal does not have to encounter a few thousand to several hundred crystal boundaries usually occurring in usual copper or even OFC grade copper for about a meter of cable length.
This cable is called TDK Super Accurate Cable CA-QL601 (made in Japan). The cable was most probably made by Hitachi for TDK.
Day before yesterday I got these cables and then in the evening after returning home my son and I decided to put all my gear (except the TT for the moment) on the new rack and try out the new speaker cables with my HK6300 amp and Canton speakers.
For the first half an hour or so, the sound was bit veiled. After that it started opening up. The first thing I noticed was the soundstage which became significantly bigger and wider. If you read my post detailing my Quad pre/power audition, you would know that I found the soundstage of my Nad amp to be much wider than the HK amp (the HK amp is much better than the Nad in every other aspect). That conclusion was obviously drawn with the VDH Clearwater speaker cables. But now with these new TDK PCOCC pure copper speaker cables, my HK amp also produced a huge soundstage.
In addition, unlike a more-or-less 2 dimensional soundstage before (both for HK and Nad amps with the Clearwater), the soundstage now is very very clearly 3 dimensional.
As the times went by, I discovered that the new cable has a very good (macro) dynamic range, much improved from before.
With more time on them, even the micro-dynamics and sound clarity has come to a stage I did not think my 19 year old HK amp was capable of delivering. As a result, even listening at quite low a volume has become a pleasure.
Last night I was listening to a few French composers on an imported CD-set (EMI), and to tell you the truth I was completely bowled over. It was as if I rediscovered my speakers and the amp. The sound was powerfully assertive whenever the need arose, yet very detailed and filled with micro-dynamics, very subtle as well as musical throughout the frequency range.
So far I have put about 7-8 hours on them. According to reports, the sound will keep improving for the first 50 hours or so. It is as if layers of veils are being moved away from the speakers as the hours pass by.
For such a small money (relatively of course), I reckon these speaker cables have brought about a significant upgrade in my system. They are really tremendous VFM, I think.
Oh, I forgot to mention about the bass improvement. According to some reports, the VDH cables (at least the mid-fi range) do not put up a great show in the bass region. In addition, I also thought my HK was a reasonably clean amp, but just a little lean perhaps (as commented in my post describing the quad audition). But with the new cables, it's a full tonality, nothing lean and presence of bass (including mid and deep, remember my speakers go down to 22 Hz) is remarkable. It is also getting tighter with time.
My wife generally does not comment on these things my son and I are passionate about, or (just may be) she quietly enjoys everything but does not want to openly encourage us too much (because that indirectly is an encouragement for more spending). But she had a little session with the "Taal" CD (AR Rahman) yesterday and actually acknowledged the improvement. This is an achievement!
Actually she raised another interesting point with my new amp quite visible (perhaps next week). She wondered if the sound can get any better!
If one is experimenting, also try toe in in front of the listening position, toe in depends on numerous factors - from off-axis pattern, to how far from the side wall they are, to the absorption coefficient of the side walls and so on. 
