That's what drew me to the idea of the cat 5 in the first place. The reports I keep reading of solid silver in a loose dielectric are universally positive, with many saying it's the best they've heard. But damn, silver wire isn't cheap. But none of the higher grade materials are. I guess that's why this is a step up... Better materials cost more.
Help me build speaker cables please!
Howdy!
I’m looking for input on some home brewed speaker cables. I’m currently using cables I made from braiding 8 lengths of CAT 5 plenum cable together. They’re terminated in silver plated BFA bananas and set up as a biwire configuration at the speaker end. I love their sound, but think I’m ready to try something made from higher grade metal. I’ve been doing a lot with silver in my system and have loved the change in sound almost every time I’ve gone from Cu to Ag. The only place I like Cu better is in the PCs for my amps. That said, I’m leaning heavily towards making a set of solid silver speaker cables, using .999 silver wire from Rio grande. I’ll insulated them with teflon spaghetti tubing and possibly terminate them with silver plated BFAs.
Where I’d love some input is here: do I do one run of 10awg, or biwire 12awg to the woofers, 14awg to the tweeters and mids? I’m using a dared tube preamp and monoblock Ghent audio class D amps (500w into 4 ohm) which drive floor standing RBH 1266 SE/R speakers. They are 4 ohm and have side firing 12" speakers. They like a lot of juice and sound their best when given what they want, hence my desire for large diameter cables.
Cost wise, it’s only $50 more expensive to biwire. I liked the change in sound when I first biwired, but I also went from blue jeans twisted pair 12 awg to my braided CAT 5, which has a combined 9 awg. So I’m not sure if it was the biwiring or all the other differences that improved the sound.
Also, any other ideas for superb sounding DIY SCs are welcome.
Danke!
I’m looking for input on some home brewed speaker cables. I’m currently using cables I made from braiding 8 lengths of CAT 5 plenum cable together. They’re terminated in silver plated BFA bananas and set up as a biwire configuration at the speaker end. I love their sound, but think I’m ready to try something made from higher grade metal. I’ve been doing a lot with silver in my system and have loved the change in sound almost every time I’ve gone from Cu to Ag. The only place I like Cu better is in the PCs for my amps. That said, I’m leaning heavily towards making a set of solid silver speaker cables, using .999 silver wire from Rio grande. I’ll insulated them with teflon spaghetti tubing and possibly terminate them with silver plated BFAs.
Where I’d love some input is here: do I do one run of 10awg, or biwire 12awg to the woofers, 14awg to the tweeters and mids? I’m using a dared tube preamp and monoblock Ghent audio class D amps (500w into 4 ohm) which drive floor standing RBH 1266 SE/R speakers. They are 4 ohm and have side firing 12" speakers. They like a lot of juice and sound their best when given what they want, hence my desire for large diameter cables.
Cost wise, it’s only $50 more expensive to biwire. I liked the change in sound when I first biwired, but I also went from blue jeans twisted pair 12 awg to my braided CAT 5, which has a combined 9 awg. So I’m not sure if it was the biwiring or all the other differences that improved the sound.
Also, any other ideas for superb sounding DIY SCs are welcome.
Danke!
Showing 43 responses by toddverrone
@sfall - I checked it clear day when I started researching silver cables. They are a great price, but not quite as thick as I want. I think they were 14 gauge.. my DIY cost for 10awg cable is about the same as the cost of their finished cables, whatever gauge they are. The silver I'm considering is the same type clear day uses: .999 dead soft. Thanks for the heads up. I heard great things about them, which is what lead me in this direction in the first place. |
@timlub @steakster thanks gentlemen. When I was researching 'recipes' I did come across mentions of the high capacitance of cables made from many individually insulated wires. Neither of the class D amps I've used the CAT 5 cables with have had a problem with that. And steakster, I remember reading something you wrote (I think it was you..) extolling the virtues of using 20awg wire to make PCs. If it wasn't you, then there's someone else out there with your love of 20awg! Thanks for the links. |
Thanks gentlemen. @williewonka I’m sceptical of using such a small signal conductor.. but I was thinking about a helix type design to save the cost of a silver return conductor. @czarivey was there any particular solid conductor wire you found better than any other? Or are you not that bothered with endless messing about and just want to listen to the damned music already? :-) |
Wow, some great ideas in here! Willie, damn you! I was all set to buy some silver, make some cables and call it done for a few years. Now you've got me thinking and wondering about all kinds of possible ideas. Though, to be fair, in a cable discussion months ago we talked about helix speaker cables.. I just never got around to it. Alan - I would love to hear that set up. I will call when I'm back in Boulder. Your wiring solution sounds very non typical and interesting, but is 6 times my budget, so that's not an option. Maybe one day, after I hear it, I'll sell my children for funds. |
Thanks! I will keep you posted. I understand the big neutral conductor. Makes sense. I'm just so sceptical of going less than 12 gauge for the signal. I could do 12awg signal then 2x12awg for neutral.. thoughts? And I'm glad I'm experimenting again with cheaper materials. I just blew my budget for silver wire on records and pool chemicals. Ha! |
Steve - I understand. I’m aware that 18 awg is plenty to handle the current of most amps.. but from past experience, fat cables sound better in my system to me. However! That may be because of the fatness of the neutral.. I’m willing to keep an open mind, but I tend to keep operating based on what has worked in the past until I’m satisfied that the new way of thinking is legit. I’ve no reason to doubt you, my mind just works that way. Alan - I find your solution very interesting, in that just a 1’ piece of wire could make that much of a difference. And I’m happy you’ve found something that works for you and is unique. I definitely don’t judge you or think poorly of you for spending what you have on cables. I just don’t have that kind of budget right now. Thanks for the input though.. I keep hearing great things about Jenna.. |
What's with all the posts removed? Thanks Steve. I'm aiming to buy wire today. I like the wire steakster posted as well, but I'd have to braid it because it's small. Then I'd be mixing architectures. Which could be good, but also confusing trying to figure out what is impacting the sound. Hopefully nothing! Ha! |
Ok here's my plan: I'm going to buy some of the take 5 audio 12awg cryo'd silver plated OCC wire. I'll be using this as my neutral conductor, two runs of it per cable. Then I'm going to experiment with some cat 5 cable to find the optimal combined gauge for the center conductor. I've really been enjoying the sound from the last two sets of cat 5 speaker cables I made and think that a signal conductor made of braided, individually insulated solid wires will be most to my liking. Or, if I change my mind, I could always go one solid silver conductor instead and keep the neutral coil. Feedback please. |
My helix PCs are all 6', so I'm not worried. With regards to the neutral, you've suggested it's not necessary to wind it as closely spaced as for the PC. What do you think, 4 wraps per foot? Or shall I space them closer, like every inch? Thanks for the input. My only problem at the moment is that I won't be able to do a biwire configuration. There's no way I can get 2 12awg wires plus 2 14awg wires all into the same connector at the amp end. |
I was thinking of actually doing the math and calculating how much neutral I'll need. I'll be assuming a radius of 1" for the helix.. and yeah, I was thinking of just make jumpers out of whatever wire I end up using in the end, since biwire is not practical with this design I'll definitely be leaving a nice straight end for each conductor. You can see how I terminated my current cables on my system page. |
Steve - great minds! My current cat 5 speaker cables are terminated with those exact same bananas. I bought some copper crimp sleeves from Lowes to put over the bananas, as I prefer a crimp connection to a solder when dealing with many individually insulated conductors. I think, though, this time I’ll terminate the speaker end in spades and use the bananas to make jumpers, since biwiring is not an option. |
Interesting. With all the cables I've built, the most challenging and fun part is figuring out how to finish them so they look good, are sturdy, and the geometry isn't compromised. I ordered 50' of 12awg silver plated copper in Teflon. I am going to see about still trying to biwire. I have an idea to make the connectors work. But I'm starting with a single run.. Interested to hear about what you hear.. I thought that twisted pair cable looked like it might be a bear to wrap. I bet having to go around its own radius also made that twisted pair use up is length pretty quickly. |
@tsugury that's funny. That was one of the first articles I read on DIY speaker cables when I first started making them about a year ago... Never tried them though. I doubt that same extension cord is still available. I like fancier designs anyway. Thanks for the share though. Have you tried them? @williewonka excellent! I'm excited to experiment with mine. I'm interested to hear what gauge signal I like best. I have a feeling it's the bigger neutral that makes the most difference and that having a large (10-12awg) signal conductor will also sound good, as long as the neutral is double the signal. But we'll see! Or hear.. |
Just took another look at signal cables.. they actually look like very good cables, especially for the money. I'm sure you've seen that their silver cables are half stranded silver and half stranded copper, I believe the idea is to help keep the sound relaxed versus having all silver conductors, which can be bright from what I've heard. They're 10awg, which for me, is great. But I'm about to experiment and see whether a large signal cable is best or if it's just the fatness of the neutral that matters. I have heard great things about signal cables, and, if you're not OCD like me and aren't into DIY, they seem like a great solution for speaker cables. |
@williewonka I bought the materials to make some silver helix ICs. Pure Harmony and solid silver with the OCC copper that @steakster posted for the neutral. I'm excited! Did you open up the helix at all after you wound it on the fiberglass dowel? I just made one double 12awg helix and it is surely not open enough to have 1/2" of space all around the signal. I think I'm fine with the spacing as it is, I'm just curious what you did. |
Man, my amazing wife took the kids out and I’m sitting here listening.. these sound so good! I just want to settle on a final design and build them, but I definitely need to spend the time to find the right geometry & materials. Ah, the endless search for perfection. I will say, though, that I made a pair of jumpers from the silver plated 12awg and some gold plated brass nakamichi banana plugs I had laying around. They sounded ok, but I wasn’t that impressed. I was doubtful of the cables at that point. I decided to take out the bananas and just use bare wire. That made all the difference. I’m looking forward to the silver plated BFAs once I settle on a design.. |
Damn, you're fast! Great write up. I made my first iteration last night. I wound mine by hand.. should have used a drill! The first iteration has the 2 x 12awg silver plated copper in teflon as the neutral and one run of cat 5 cable as the signal. The combined cat 5 equates to 13awg. Next I'll try 12awg Romex as the signal, to compare a signal made from many individual insulated strands to a solid signal conductor. Unfortunately I haven't really had a chance to listen to this first version properly, just a bit last night at low volume. My kids are off school now, so my 6 hours of blissful quiet each day where I could sneak in a listening session are over until August. But what I did hear sounded fantastic.. As of now, I'm planning on 12awg x 2 and 14awg x 2 silver plated copper neutrals on each cable, then a run of 14awg silver in Teflon and a run of 12awg silver in teflon as the signal conductors, so I can biwire. The 14 gauges will go to the mids and tweeters and the 12 gauges will go to the woofers. But, I'm going to experiment a bit with gauge size and whether to go individually insulated strands, stranded, or solid for the conductors. If solid isn't as good, then I'll have to change up my signal conductor plans.. but, as long as I can make it work, I'll biwire. BTW, did you solder the BFAs on? They don't look crimped. Which is nice. |
Man, you and your blog! Chock full of info. It's funny, I found that before I ever got on Audiogon... I did notice that you mixed up your neutral and signal conductors in your parts list. You listed the twisted pair as your signal and the silver plated copper as you're neutral. Which is understandable since you busted that out in a day. Your reasoning for the performance of the helix cables seems spot on. I never thought of the first point.. |
Yeah man, the space that has opened up with these cables! I love electronic music and I've recently purchased an ambient album of particularly good sound quality. The mastering was spot on and the vinyl pressing is impeccable. One track in particular absolutely envelops me in sound now. The artists are lav and purl and the track is 'absorbed serenity'. So good! I'm listening to an old pressing of 'uprising' by Bob Marley now. Thanks for getting me in an irie mood! |
Ha! Yeah, I do have the pink vinyl. It's the only one they did. You should be able to find their stuff on Bandcamp in a variety of download formats including alac and wav. I love Bandcamp for that. Unfortunately I miswired one of the helix RCAs I built. And of course this is the first DIY cable I didn't test, so it killed one of my amps. Which sucks, because I have almost all the parts needed for my speaker cables now.. alas. So it'll be a bit before I can report back. 😛 |
Steve - my amp has risen from the dead! And the new ICs sound great! Full story - I was making the helix ICs at 1 am and accidentally soldered the ground to the signal and the signal to the ground. It wasn’t an accidental short in terms of a stay wire touching something it shouldn’t. I just plain screwed up. Upon installation, my system just started making a clicking noise. I pulled the ICs and tested them for continuity, realizing I miswired them. I fixed my mistake and upon reinstalling found that the amp the mistake was plugged into kept dropping out and distorting. There next day it would barely put out any sound. I was ready to buy new monos and thought I’d double check that it was the amp. I put the amp back in the system and it all works fine. I did disconnect everything from the ICEpower board and reinstall it all. I don’t that was what helped, but I don’t care, it works! I’m still listening to them, but initial findings on the helix ICs are incredibly positive. More of the helix magic: less noise, greater clarity, better separation of sound sources. Good stuff! |
Interesting indeed. My industrial electronics buddy thinks reversing the wires loaded a capacitor in the reverse direction, causing the amp to go a bit crazy until it discharged.. the problems I had sound like extreme versions of what you were describing: the bass dropped out and the highs were a distorted mess.. As for digital cables, i have nothing yet. I have an old AA Dac in a box, but that’s optical in and RCA out. Though I probably will rebuild those cables as helix. However, I do have an AA DTI, kind of like a reclocker, that needs a new power supply. Once I have that, I’ll need a digital cable, as the DTI only has a digital out. So I’ll keep that in mind. With regards to the speaker cables, I tried Romex, but it was such a pain in my butt that I decided to not even bother. After some thought, I just ordered some of the silver plated copper from take 5. It’s enroute as of now. If I find the sound to be too brittle, as we say, even after prolonged burn in, I’ll then have to decide if I want to go solid silver or back to copper, but higher quality than cat 5. Though I still think cat 5 has some nice copper in it. We’re leaving to Europe for a month at the end of July, so I want to get these done before I go. I decided to go with a biwire design, 2x12awg and 2x14awg for the neutrals and a 12awg and 14awg for the signal. I’ll twist the signals together. The neutrals should pretty much cover the whole signal cable! |
Well, I've already purchased everything for the biwire.. But yeah, I hear you, it would be great to be able to test all these designs. It wouldn't be too expensive to do in regular copper, I just lack the time. So, you really think the twisted signals and combined neutrals could contaminate one another, even though they're carrying the same signal? I could see that the speaker crossovers would cause different frequencies to flow in the cables differently, I just figured it was the same signal so it shouldn't impact phase.. though now that I'm thinking about it more, I'd imagine the current flowing through the neutrals would be less aligned than the signal... |
I’m back. And have finished, mostly, my cables. I missed your last post before building them, so I ended up doing the kinky signal, counter rotating helixes. Unfortunately, the signals became less kinky as I worked with the neutrals, so, if these don’t live up to my expectations, I’ll be taking out the signal conductors and putting a few layers of techflex on them. As it stands, though, the signals are not uniformly laid next to one another, so hopefully that works out for me. One thing that I keep thinking about in regards to the signal.. if it was one run of cable, wouldn’t the worries over noise be the same? Or would that not be an issue because it’s full signal, and the jumpers would only be susceptible to induction? I’ll post some pics on my system page.. I still need to put connectors on the second cable before I listen. Hopefully I’ll have more to report with regards to sound tomorrow. |
So far, they did superb! The same black background as the single helix with cat 5, but more clarity from top to bottom. There's not more bass, it's just a bit tighter and clean. The mids and highs have greater clarity and come further out from the background, with a better separation of sounds. I'm very happy with them. They aren't too bright or brittle sounding, which I was afraid of. I'm interested to hear if/how they change. I've neve noticed burn in before, so we'll see.. |
@williewonka out of curiosity, do you keep detailed notes on break in behavior? It would make sense, given your blog posts, I’m just curious. I have noticed system anomalies before, after new cables, but chalked it up to my mood. With regards to my cable details: Signal - 1x12awg 1x14 awg kinky ’helix’ in opposite directions, both are silver plated copper in ptfe from take five audio. Neutral - 2x12awg silver plated copper in ptfe inner helix, 2x14 awg silver plated copper in ptfe outer counter rotating helix It seemed to work better with the thinner neutral wire on the outside since, once I created the helix with the fiberglass rod, I had to wrap it by hand around the inner helix, one twist at a time. The thinner wire was easier to manipulate and even out. That truly was the most difficult part: getting the outer helix evenly spaced. Using teflon insulated wire definitely helped, since the inner and outer helix are able to slide a bit more easily over one another. Now that they’re built, though, everything is solid. And feel free to use my photos. If you want more, just ask. Also, I couldn’t get all 4 neutrals at the amp end into the BFAs, so I put a few strands between the outside of the BFA but inside the copper crimp sleeves I use. I crimped these as well. I think solder looks better, but I feel like the crimp connections are sturdier. But that’s just my preference.. |
steve - use whatever you like, as long as you don't misrepresent me, which i'm 99.99% sure you won't.. feel free to correct bad grammar ("..they did superb!" i swear i graduated college!). i'm fine with audiogon member toddverrone. though that doesn't protect my anonymity very well.. take a wild guess what my name is. ha! ICs - signal wire: OCC solid silver 24awg in cotton. 3' per cable https://www.vhaudio.com/wire.html neutral: OCC solid copper 20awg magnet wire. 2 x 9' per cable http://www.ebay.com/itm/112418636937?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT connectors: KLE pure harmony solid silver https://www.vhaudio.com/harmony-rca.html the white tube is a foamed teflon flexible tube that i ran the signal through. it's pretty amazing. it doesn't kink at all. it's called hyperflex tubing from vh audio https://www.vhaudio.com/wire.html this has been great fun, i'm very happy with both my ICs and SCs. thanks so much for rolling up your sleeves and getting dirty with me! your helix design is quite the accomplishment. thank you for sharing your knowledge. |
@twoch - I’ve finally come to that realisation within the last 8 months or so. I don’t look at the cat 5 or THHN experiments as a waste of money though. I learned a lot building those cables with materials I could afford to screw up with. Also, I began the cable journey as a curious sceptic; there was no way I was going to buy solid silver wire for $10/ft. After all my experiments, I’m no longer a sceptic, but there’s no way I’d be here if I didn’t get to mess around with the cheaper materials. Now I’m constantly looking for high performance to price materials and, thankfully, there are many good, inexpensive suppliers with quality materials. I can’t wait until I get to build a DIY graphene cable of some sort..! @williewonka I was torn between the pure and absolute Harmony when purchasing RCAs.. one day I may go after the absolute. But then I think I'd be building those solid silver SCs at the same time.. ha! |
Update: the brittle sound has arrived. There’s still loads of clarity and bass, but just a bit over the edge with sibilance. I’m guessing I never noticed this during burn in before because I’ve never previously integrated any silver in my speaker cables. The new helix ICs are burning in as well, and I’ve also never installed new ICs and SCs at the same time. Double burn in! Sorry I can't comment on hours of burn in. Keeping track of that would make this not fun. I'm guessing I'm at 20-30 hrs.. Still, plenty pleasant to listen to and only a slight edge that I’m expecting to disappear.. right before I leave to Europe for a month. Ha! 😝 |
And we're back to smooth, liquid sound... Still, I can never tell if it's me (tired, overly sensitive, in a good mood, etc.) or if it's the break in. This is why I never make my final decision on a component, cable or tweak until I've had it in my system for a month or two. Then my excitement over the new has dissipated enough to truly decide if what I'm hearing is an improvement. |
Oh man, these things are incredible. It’s not that I’m hearing things I haven’t before. The cat 5 braided cables these replaced were surprisingly good. What I am hearing, though, is a smoother sound, a greater separation of sounds (I don’t say instruments because I listen to a lot of electronic music, so it’s more about each sound and its relation to the whole) and a cleanliness that does not take away from my system’s power but sounds more like an increase in dynamic range. I’m taking a break and having a beer, so this is the first time in a couple of weeks I’ve really been able to sit down and listen. We’re about to go to Europe for a month. I’ve been busting my butt getting stuff done so our house sitter has an easy experience. Sitting here for a half an hour session is exactly what I needed and to have these cables stepping up and performing like they are makes me a happy human! |
perfectpathtech - hahaha! quite the zinger. thanks for your warning and genuine concern.. i'm waiting for an easier form of graphene to work with. the powder just seems to much of a mess. i recently saw an article on my newsfeed (which i've yet to read) announcing the development of a graphene foam. that seems interesting, but probably not accessible for a few years. and who knows.. maybe we'll have bundles of nanotubes available in some form. if i ever decide to work with the powder, it would not be in the house at all. |