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!
toddverrone

Showing 1 response by steakster

timlub +1 I also enjoy my litz SC’s. Below are some wires that I’ve been using to tweak my 12vdc power supplies. I would think they could be braided (either separately or together) to make very interesting SC’s. My favorites so far are #1 & #2.

#1: 20 awg 6n OCC pure solid copper
This solid-core copper offers a nice balance of tone and clean energy.

#2: 20 awg silver-plated Copper Type E, 7 strand, PTFE, 600v, 200c
This 7 strand silver-plated copper is very interesting. It offers a very nice presentation for vocalists w/o any stridency. Yet, it still has clean, high energy. It’s very different from the more common wire of 20 or so strands.

#3: 20 awg silver-plated solid-core copper wire, PTFE, 600v, 200c
This silver-plated solid-core copper offers clean, high energy. But, it can be a bit much depending on the application. ymmv. For DIY experimentation, it is far more economical than pure silver.