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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!
128x128toddverrone
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
838 posts
 
@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..
tsugury
208 posts
 
toddverrone, Yes I needed a longer run,20' due to change in rooms. I think they sound excellent considering the price.Much better than zip cord that's for sure. Although I am partial to JPS in my system.YMMV, TG
williewonka
1,826 posts
 
@toddverrone - a very quick burn-in update..

At the 12-18 hour mark the cables threw a bit of a "wobbler" - they presented some noticeable anomalies...
- the image became unbalanced...
- certain instruments appeared to come directly from one of the speakers rather than behind the speaker with the rest of the image.
- instruments moved towards the front within the image as the track played, where they had been more towards the rear.
- there was slight distortion in the upper register of higher pitched instruments, like violins and oboes etc..

This "wobbler" resolved itself by the 24 hour mark and they are now sounding very balanced and cohesive.

I believe the movement issue is due to cables affecting the phase of the left and right channels

Since you are trying different gauge signal conductors either
- complete your assessment before the 16 hour mark
- or go past the 24 hour mark

I actually streamed internet radio continuously to push the burn-in along.

These anomalies are consistent with what I observed with the Helix IC’s I have built

That’s it for now - keep me posted as to your progress

Cheers
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
838 posts
 
Still waiting for wire. I'm going to experiment without connectors at first, then add them once I've settled on a design. Once my neutrals burn in I can listen to each iteration without waiting for burn in since I'll be using an older set of cat 5 cables as donors for the signal wire.

Fun!


williewonka
1,826 posts
 
@toddverrone - another very quick burn-in update..

They say "man should learn something every day"

So here's what I learned today...
- In an earlier post I mentioned the effect of phasing on instrument placement i.e. changing position in the image
- what I forgot about was the effect phasing would have on bass
- since we all know if you connect the speakers out of Phase then bass suffers

So after about 48 hours of burn-in I noticed a marked improvement in bass performance
- much more full bodied and much deeper
- still very controlled and very dynamic

It will be very interesting to hear your observations of the effect of different gauges of signal conductors.

If I had to guess I would say the finer gauge would provide better details and more clarity - but it would be just that -  a guess 

I don't know if gauge has an effect on bass performance, since my bass has improved significantly.

Gotta love this hobby - especially when things go as planned :-)

Chat Later


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