Cable FAQs

What's Old is New

Our Wind River interconnects are minimalist designs which follow classic Western Electric design principles:  ultra low capacitance, minimal use of plastic, and no Teflon.  Of course, Teflon hadn't been developed yet 😉

They are extremely labor intensive to build (about 4 hours to build a 1m pair).

Our Wind River interconnects use cotton sleeving in place of polyester braid.  We'll have more to say about this in a moment.

To meet a lower price point, our Headwaters interconnects are jacketed, but the plastic used is the much more audio-friendly PVC.

All cables designed by Galibier come with a 30-day trial and satisfaction guarantee.

Cotton Plant

Cotton - For the Win

Cable Selection Strategy

Cables are funny beasts, and we've learned quite a bit from customer feedback and demos in the past several years.  

Depending on the power and or speaker cable in use, the same interconnect can sound either bright or full-bodied. 

How can this be?  

This blog post proposes an answer, along with what we believe to be the most efficient strategy in which to approach your system cabling - a strategy we think will save you both time and money

Whether you agree or not, we think it will stimulate thought.

Galibier Design - Goldilocks

Goldilox & the Three Cables

Length Matters

In this blog post, we cover considerations on cable length and one strategy for optimizing your cable runs.

Galibier Design - Ruler

Length Matters

Too Many Choices

We think it's incumbent on a manufacturer to make difficult choices for the customer.  

Too many choices create FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), with no clear benefit to the customer.

This is why we've limited our Galibier cable line to two products.

Having said that, our Wind River speaker cables have two variations:  the Wind River and the Wind River HC (high-current).

Puzzled Look

FUD

Why?  When paired with high efficiency speakers, or when linking the upper module in a bi-wired system, the Wind River delivers all of the nuance of its high-current sibling (the Wind River HC), and at a reduced price.  

Also (because vinyl reproduction can be "tricky"), we've added a few selections to this category as well.

About Capacitance

The professional audio world knows the importance of low capacitance cables, but it’s generally glossed over in most manufacturers’ specifications.

This is only part of the story.  Low capacitance doesn’t guarantee good sound, but high capacitance is most certainly its enemy.

Teflon - Just Say "No"

It's not in our cookware, and it's not in our cables.

While having very low capacitance, our experiments with Teflon insulation yielded comments from our listening panel which included words like:  “sanitized”, “threadbare”, “uninvolving”, and “it sounds like hi-fi instead of music”.  One individual commented that the presentation reminded them of an over-damped listening room.

We had similar observations about the use of Teflon during development of the NiWatt amplifier, and we eliminated both Teflon jacketed wire as well as capacitors from our design during early prototyping stages.

Teflon Frying Pan

Teflon is bad for you

Cotton Jackets

If you’re using cable lifters to good effect, we suspect you'll hear the same characteristics with our cotton-sleeved, Teflon-free, polyester-free interconnects and speaker cables.

Cotton is the next best thing to air in terms of its dielectric qualities. 

When comparing two otherwise identical cables, not a single person in our listening panels preferred the sound of the polyester braided jackets over those with cotton.

Polyester jackets are stylish (unlike the fellow shown here), but they add a “gritty” overlay to the upper frequencies.

You don't know it's gone, until ... it's gone.

Click the thumbnails for more on this topic.

Galibier Design - Cotton vs. Polyester

Cotton vs. Polyester Braid

Photo of Leisure Suit

Polyester Leisure Suits

Litz Wire

Due to its construction, litz has extraordinary high frequency performance, and when used in the appropriate gauge, transmits full bandwidth.  

You’ve likely read about skin effect, so we won’t repeat ourselves, but a good overview of litz can be found here if you’re interested.

The only negative is that it is extremely labor intensive to work with and very difficult to fabricate in longer lengths.

Having said that, the results are worth it for interconnects.

Galibier Design - Litz Wire

Litz


Tin Plated Copper Speaker Cables

No, our wire is not made by Dueland.  We specify it for ourselves.  As much as we like litz, it’s not the right solution for speaker cables.

Tin plated copper responds well to both mechanical (crimped) as well as soldered connections.

With crimped terminations, the tin prevents the copper from oxidizing.

Connectors

Material selection for connectors is as critical to the end results as is wire and architecture, and as with any other "recipe", these selections are not universal, but are rather an integral part of the cable design.

Connectors can dramatically influence the presentation, and for this reason, we've vetted several options for our Galibier designed cables.

Speaker Connectors by Furutech

We're not fans of bananas, and we know we're in the minority.

At present, the Furutech FT-212 banana is the first one we found we could live with.  Over time, we may discover others.

The ergonomic design of Furutech's locking banana mechanism is a bonus that’s not lost on us, but it would be meaningless if they didn’t deliver the “sonic goods”.

Cardas

Need we say more?  OK, we will ...

Cardas cables are known for their balanced presentation, and their connectors are part of the recipe.

While in general, we embrace the low mass concept in RCAs, Cardas's solution to the problem is worthy of consideration.

With their higher mass and a "lesser" base metal, you might eliminate these connectors from consideration.

You would be misguided if you did.  The proof is in the listening.

Galibier Design - Cardas RCA: GRMO

Cardas GRMO

ETI

ETI is the least well-known of our selected connectors.

Their lineage dates back to the original Eichmann RCA Bullet Plug which was designed by the engineer who currently works with ETI.  

ETI subsequently licensed the concept from Eichmann and set out to further develop the design, beginning with Kryo RCAs. 

Currently, Eichmann operates a separate company, which was rebranded "KLE" (Keith Louis Enterprises).  

Kuzma specifies KLE RCAs on his 4Point and Safir tonearms.  

Both the KLE and ETI RCAs are evolutions of the original Bullet Plug, and their current offerings are more alike than they are different.

ETI's Kryo connectors are fabricated from Tellurium copper with silver plating.  

The ground pin on these RCA connectors is a harder copper, to provide durability and a more secure connection.  


Galibier Design - ETI Kryo_RCA Plugs

ETI Kryo RCA

Their engineering team turned their attention to XLR connectors.  

Where common industry practice is to use rolled brass sheet to form the female pins, ETI choose tellurium copper as a base metal.

Tellurium copper has a weaker mechanical strength, which necessitated a complete re-thinking of the XLR design.  

The female pins are CNC machined (at no small expense) from tellurium copper bar stock, which provides the necessary mechanical strength, while retaining the advantages of tellurium.

The careful viewer will note the use of Teflon in these connectors.  Much as we don't like it, the overall superiority of the design outweighs this.

Galibier Design - ETI Kryo_XLR Plugs

Kryo XLR

ETI didn't stop there, and they've recently released a Legato line of power connectors as well as wall outlets.  

Needless to say, the mechanical construction is second to none, and the performance matches it.

Galibier Design - ETI Legato IEC Connector

ETI Legato

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