$10 / foot speaker wire

CDC:

Did you ever try the magnet wire?

I just finished a set of speaker cables which are single runs of Chimera Labs 25.5 gauge magent wire running through 18 gauge Teflon tubing. The wire was inexpensive (purchased a 100 ft. roll) and the Teflon tubing was under $10 (@ Fryes Electronics) for a 35 ft. roll.

They sound very nice (not quite as good as the 47 Labs OTA, but still in the same ballpark).

I also made an IC from the Chimera wire (CD player to preamp) which I am breaking in right now. The IC is a simple single run "nude" design. RCA's are Radio Shack (8 for $2.99) that have had their metal mass further reduced (cut off the strain relief tab and part of the outer metal housing which makes contact with the outside of the female RCA). An additional treatment is to polish and clean the contact areas of the RCA's. A lot of work, but it goes fairly quickly once you do a few.

The Chimera wire is a bit difficult to work with if you do not own a solder pot (I don't), but I was still able to achieve good results by stripping it with a butane lighter, polishing/cleaning the bare surface and then tinning the same with Chimera Labs solder. To be on the safe side I wrapped the ends of the wires (in the area where the insulation and the tinned surface join) with Teflon plumbers tape in the event that the coating was not completely intact in the transition area.

Sean:

I have only compared the cheap modded RCA's (in DIY designs) to my 47 Labs RCA's and to some that were Kimber, I think.

I forgot to mention that I also ditch the plastic screw on covers. Perhaps you are confusing these with the RS Gold RCA's which do sound like crap. These are not gold plated and once I get through with them they contain very little metal.

Try them modified as I use them (in a simple single run nude design and with HQ 25.5-26 gauge solid core wire) and they do not sound horrible as you describe it.

The downside however is that the designs are very fragile (you can fry gear if you are not very careful) and they do not offer shielding and/or RFI rejection. As I do not have an RFI problem I am willing to take the risk with the rest of it. I once tried a pair of completely nude silver IC's (zero insulation) which sounded incredible, but the much higher risk factor involved with these was too much for me to continue their use.

No one could sanely market such designs as looking @ them makes it obvious that they can be made up in a matter of minutes from basic materials (plus they will fall apart with general use). I sold all of my commercial IC's (other than the simplistic 47 Labs stuff) a few years ago and never looked back (the one exception being a Mapleshade digital IC that I did like the sound of, though without a DAC on hand it doesn't get much/any action these days:-).

CDC:

12 ft. is the maximum length recommended by Mapleshade, otherwise the (+/-) leads need to be separated by 6" to 12" for it to sound as intended. Pierre once offered to supply the cable to me in this form (non-twisted), but this was some time ago.

I have read much of the same info as you, but in practice I have found much of it to not effect the sound of simple solid core (non twisted/braided) wire in the manner described. I have been using single runs of 26 gauge speaker cable for quite some time now (with various setups) and it sounds wonderful. 22 gauge also works, but my experiment with 18 gauge was a disater (same as yours I guess) as were single runs of 30 gauge solid core.

If such light gauge wire is too scary for you to try @ this time, perhaps look into the new cables advertised here (Bogden or Bogdan) as they are receiving some favorable feedback and they are in your price range. Try searching the name here and @ AA for more info.

As far as round solid core speaker cable goes the best connector is no connector @ all, IMO.

Miser:

It's difficult to say as you have had results that are probably fairly close to mine with the cheap non plated RS RCA's.

I wonder though if we are all talking about the same RCA's. The ones that I use come in an 8/pack (small plastic bag) and the plastic colors are Red/White/Blue & Yeallow.

These cheap RCA's when slightly modified sound not that different from my 47 Labs RCA's. I do prefer the 47 Labs, but can no longer afford to replace the ones that I have broken (5 center posts to date), which is why I came up with an alternative.

The Bullet plugs look interesting (approx. $33 for a set of 4) and if you can solder the flimsy RS non-plated RCA's you should have no problem with the Bullets.

Here is an old post (@ AA) by Mr. Risch in regard to more traditional RCA's that he likes (might be helpful).

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=cables&n=16479&highlight=Risch+and+RCA's&r=&session=

Sean & Wise:

The ones that I use are #274-321, however they look different than the part depicted @ RS online (the plastic cap is a different shape anyway).

I have never seen the ones with the soft plastic strain relief.

I hope now that I will be able to find more of the type that I have been using as they are needed for a few projects. I just gave two of them to the new kitten as "tings" to play with (might be crawling around on my hands & knees looking for them in a few days:-).

Miser:

I was able to locate two packages of the RS RCA's that I use yesterday. The price has gone up $1 per pack and the stores said that they do not know which version will arrive with the next shipment from their warehouse.

Both shops had stored the cheap RCA's in black plastic sliding drawers (I had to ask for them). Don't know how standard this is from one RS to the next, but they were no longer hanging on the peg board in either of our local RS's as they used to.

Less contact area makes sense to me (the same principal as replacing the heavy jumper bars on biwirable speakers with wire/cable) and the end/all is the elimination of unecessary chunks of metal in the signal path. Sounds good in theory and according to the experiments that I have made it also sounds good in reality.

Hi Lee:

I leave small 1/8" tabs on opposite sides which can be pinched "in" prior to attaching the RCA in order to increase the grip.

I am not even certain if this makes a difference in the sound (as I have not A/B'd like IC's with and without this mod), but usually do it anyway in order to further maintain the concept of reducing metal mass in the signal path.

Perhaps this is something that you can experiement with when you have time to kill?

Polishing/cleaning the contact areas is easier and it definately does improve the sound.

I am in the process of switching over from 47 Labs cable/RCA's to my DIY cables so it is difficult to judge things on a whole @ this time. Currently I have one channel wired with the DIY cables while the other channel is still wired with the 47 Labs cable and their RCA's.

This may seem a bit odd, but I did so specificaly in order that I may compare the two cable types with mono source material over the next week. If the DIY cable is good enough I may end up selling the 47 Labs cable as I am in the process of downsizing (will just be keeping the bare essentials for decent/involving sound).

We seem to have sidetracked CDC's thread to a certain extent, so if you wish please feel free to email me directly in regard to other simplistic DIY cable designs (ones w/o shielding/braiding/twisting, et cetera).