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!
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
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. |
Todd, that sounds like a very good plan. The CAT5 is a known entity for you and will let you hear the benefits of the Helix geometry. Replacing the signal cable at a later date will build on what is hopefully a very good speaker cable. This is very similar to my own approach when I made the helix IC’s and mains cables. When I made the IC’s I started with the silver signal conductor and then refined the the number of individual conductors using CAT5 in the helix neutral. I then replaced the CAT5 with a higher quality conductor. How many 12 gauge conductors are you planning for the neutral? How long are the cables you are making? On the power cable I just finished instead of 2 x 12 gauge i decided to try 3 x 14 gauge - which came out to 9.262 AWG as opposed to 9.011 AWG for the 2 x 12, but much easier to work with. Here’s a link to a useful wire gauge calculator https://www.v-cap.com/awg-calculator.php For the speaker cables I am going to build I’m trying a twisted pair for the helix neutral and a single 16 gauge mil-spec from TFA. It’s more to try the twisted pair as the neutral. Regards - Steve |
- 103 posts total