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!
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!
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- 103 posts total
@toddverrone - irie mon ! break out de Red Striiipe :-) How About... The Golden Age of Wireless by Thomas Dolby - a-m-a-z-i-n-g ! Business as Usual by Men at Work - super-fast dynamics and superb clarity Any track by Police and U2 - so crisp All are on vinyl ;-) But the digital stuff sounds great also. I never appreciated just how well recorded Fleetwood Mac is - until now! I’m very glad you are hearing the same improvements as me - especially since you are using different conductors I think it "proves" the geometry is the key "ingredient". - The type of conductor would probably allow/deny small refinements in details. Lav and Pearl - did you get the pink vinyl ? - it’s reeel purrrtie :-) I downloaded the MP# and it sounds pretty good - I’l have to to try get a high res version. Best analogy I can think of - - with my old cables - it’s like drinking filtered tap water - with the Helix cables - you’re drinking flavoured Perrier Chat Later - Steve |
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. 😛 |
@toddverrone - Ouch! - how did incorrect wiring an IC kill your amp? That's interesting - did it short the input to the amp ? most amps can handle that. Unless you shorted the pre-amp output? Also, doesn't sound as though you were using a Harmony RCA - because it's almost impossible to create an accidental short condition with those (one of the things I really like). Hmmm - what did you do? Finally, I have a Blusound Powernode 2 amplifying my TV, so I gave it the speaker cable upgrade... - These cables really do show just how good the new amplifier designs really are - The Powernode 2 is 50 watt per channel into 8 ohms, class D - into a pair of Tannoy Mecury F4 - 91dB 8 ohms 34Hz - 20kHz Since the Power Node 2 only has an Ethernet cable (for music) and an optical cable for input for from the TV, the only copper cables in the audio pipeline are my DIY speaker cables. Immediately, the dynamics, deep bass performance and bass control improvements were very noticeable. Perhaps the biggest and most noticeable improvement is the clarity. The diminutive Powernode 2 now exerts complete control over the Tannoys with lots of power to spare and the TV sounds the best it's ever sounded, except there are no rear speakers anymore - a choice I made when downsizing the A/V system to fit the new house. Even the shortest Helix speaker cables I have made is on my mini system (around 15" each channel) ,also yields significant improvements. So it does not seem to matter how long you make them - the appear to work very well. Regards... |
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! |
- 103 posts total