I found the cables on the Amazon.co.uk website, so maybe the cables are available there:
Not doubting your findings at all, however, the 3 sets of cables mentioned above sit at the introductory level of clock cables. When I first purchased my Rossini the dCS distributor suggested the Geistnote Apogee cable as an immediate purchase. Compared to the included clock cables he was correct, and the Apogee’ served me well for several months.
My next step was a set of Black Cat Mini Tron cables from the late Chris Sommavigo. Several on the forum use Black Cat’s. In the world of high end cables they are not crazily priced (when compared to Transparent, Shunyata etc.)
To say they were an eye opener is an understatement. The difference was dramatic. Fellow forum member @all2ofme came over with another friend who designs and builds uber Stax headphone amplifiers (Eksonic.com). It took both of them not even 10 seconds to look up in bewilderment - that’s how much of a difference there was.
The Black Cats have served me well, perhaps they may continue to do so, however I am now scratching a new itch. A set of Siltech Silver clock cables will be arriving shortly to try with my new Vivaldi stack. Once again, in the high end cable sphere, somewhat reasonably priced. Let’s see how they do compared to the Black Cats.
No doubt your cable find can outperform Apogee’s, Blue Jeans, and the supplied cables. I am simply saying there is more which can come should one choose to go down that path.
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Thanks. You have been very helpful.
Unfortunately although they appear on the UK Amazon website, if you look at the vendor/sales information these are actually sold by Amazon USA. So they are imported . I have checked as far as I can with customer service and it is clear that they will not pay tax on items shipped from the UK to USA so I expect that the reverse is true.
However, the clincher is that 3ft is the maximum available. this is too short to reach from wordclock to Transport and possibly Upsampler in my rack.
Pete et al,
The whole point of my post was to alert this community that there may be a contender to de-throne the bottom-rung go-to upgrade-for-the-supplied-etc clock cable. My view is that this cable is a great value proposition and it’s too bad it is more difficult to share than I thought it would be.
I guess for physical properties and laws I don’t fully grasp, these emerging silver-plated teflon high-bandwidth designs for digital video transmission (driven by desire for clarity in security video) may be where value is these days for our digital audio needs.
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My understanding, gleamed from discussions with several knowledgable forum members, is that the most important parameter for clock cables (used with our dCS clocks) is that they strictly adhere to the 75 ohm specification.
Completely agree Gregg. In fact the same is true of any cable. Adherence to the relevant spec is absolutely my No.1 requirement. Many (most?) of the differences people report between cables are down to out-of-spec behaviour. I am not saying that differences can’t exist between two in spec cables, but those differences are IME lesser in magnitude.
As an aside, my own investigations (together with a friend who custom made my power cables for me) is that the SQ of a power cable has little if anything to do with the gauge of the conductors. Using thicker and thicker mains cables on source components brings no sonic benefits. It is all about the insulation and the geometry, probably (speculation, as we lacked the instruments to investigate thoroughly) due to their effects on capacitance.
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Thanks for reiterating my point about what we don’t now about the impact of material properties beyond the impedance spec.
@EricR I took up your provocation and tried out the El Cheapo cables. I’m afraid they are no match for the Black Cat miniTrons I just got from @all2ofme between my Rossini DAC and Vivaldi clock. Which is a pity, because I would dearly have liked to save that money for other things!
Hi Fred,
Thanks for taking the challenge and do message me if you want a reimbursement for your trouble.
I’m not convinced after lots of listening that the El Cheapo cables are all around better than the other entry-level contenders, just different. Right now my fave in the bunch is the BJC Canare L-4.5CHD for a full-bandwidth, articulate, musical and stable character over all sorts of recordings.
I am not going to go big $$$ on Black Cat, Shunyata, etc until I get one to try at length first. Meanwhile, I’m trying some other 75 Ohm BJC offerings to expand my survey. I’ll keep folks posted if there are some more durable finds.
Thanks again for checking it out. Sorry it was a bit of a wind-up.
FYI, Lina settings are DXD F4; DSDX2 F5; Mapper 3.
No worries, at that price, I’m happy to try things out! I have an old Black Cat Veloce cable I might try out, just to see whether the fancy miniTrons beat out his more garden-variety stuff.
Thanks for being a good sport!
Mini Tron’s are something else (!) - Ben did the demo at my house.
If my inbound Siltech silver clock cables cannot best the Black Cats I will buy a second pair of Mini Trons for my Vivaldi stack.
Compared to others they are actually reasonably priced
I would like to try the mini trons, but living in the uk is a problem as you don’t see them for sale. Unless i am not looking in the right places.
From memory I do not think Black Cat have or had a UK distributor. You would need to order direct from the USA. As I did in the past with earlier Chris Sommovigo designs.
The difficulty is buying blind. It is a risk. Another issue is shipping and customs issues. This may be OK if shipped USPS as it is handled by Royal Mail at this end. I have had all sorts of difficulties with other shippers.
I’m looking for recommendations for non-US clock cables. Most of the usual suspects seem to be US made or owned. With the current administration in place I’m not minded to buy anything from over there.
Any thoughts?
Siltech comes to mind:
Yes, buy before any retaliatory tariffs are applied 
.
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Hopefully I will be able to report on these in a few weeks. This exact pair was ordered and I will be comparing it to my Mini Trons
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I really look forward to your report!