The first RCA I used that was not of the "normal design" was the original Eichmann Silver bullet, which I added to a pair of Stager Silver Solids IC’s
The Silver bullet was a significant step up performance wise from the RCA’s that came with the Stagers and I also found they were better than the Furutech FP-126 RCA’s.
The Silver Bullet’s only drawback - the small pins were difficult to solder without melting the housing
ONE TIP: when soldering wires to the pins of any plastic bodied RCA’s like the Harmony line...
- if you have an old component with RCA’s or an RCA socket - plug the RCA into the socket to conduct excess heat away quickly, preventing the housing from melting
So, I wrote a review on my blog about how good I found the Silver Bullet to be on the Stagers and was subsequently contacted by Keith Louie Eichmann, asking to review his new Copper Harmony compared to the Silver Bullets when mounted on the Stager’s. I found the Copper Harmony was noticeably better than the Silver Bullet. The rest is history :-)
As you step up through the Harmony Product Line, you get improvements across the board each step of the way, but the cable has to be able to resolve to the same level. I found using solid silver signal conductors to provide the best result - but the neutral only needs to be made from a high quality copper conductor. For best results I found using 28 gauge solid silver for the signal and 20 gauge copper for the neutral conductors not only provided the best sound quality, but it made the cables more affordable
I have toyed with the idea of using 32 gauge solid silver signal and 18 gauge copper neutral also, but figured it was time to focus on the music and let another DIY-er try that one ;-)
The Harmony line proved to be much better than the Silver Bullet and the new design incorporated much larger pins to solder too.
I tried using the BL/1 after a long period using the Van den Hul D102 III Hybrid cable. There was really not much difference and the BL/1 was more affordable.
The BL/1 is pretty good, but the Stagers really improved SQ performance.
I haven’t tried Mogami, because the BL/1 perfprmed so well. My move to the Stagers was promted more by their twisted pair geometry as opposed to the more standard "two conductors side by side", as in the BL-a and many other cables for that matter.
Cable geometry (or architecure) plays a huge part in improving performance of any cable, as opposed to just using better quality copper or moving up to silver. As proof of that I made up a pair of IC’s in the helix geometry using CAT 6 throughout and they performed better than the Van den Hul D102 III and the BL/1 IC’s, both of whish use silver plated conductors
It’s a slippery slope once you get bitten by the bug - but totally worth it
Cheers