@williewonka you like them enough to get rid of the gZero?! Man, I need to build mine! The neutral came in the mail yesterday.
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 - you know what it's like in this hobby - one past glory funds the next adventure :-) I didn't want to "colour" your own assessment of your cables by stating what I thought about my own DIY Helix cables, but suffice to say, they surpassed the gZero6's by a considerable margin and from what I recall they also outperformed their TOTL zPURITY8 speaker cables I still really like KLEI products and will continue to promote them to people not of the DIY mindset - I just found that my DIY's are better. So yes - I'm selling both sets - gZero2 and gZero6 speaker cables to recoup some of their expense. BTW - you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard them I hope you experience the same level of performance :-) Cheers |
@williewonka I bought the materials to make some silver helix ICs. Pure Harmony and solid silver with the OCC copper that @steakster posted for the neutral. I'm excited! Did you open up the helix at all after you wound it on the fiberglass dowel? I just made one double 12awg helix and it is surely not open enough to have 1/2" of space all around the signal. I think I'm fine with the spacing as it is, I'm just curious what you did. |
@toddverrone - Oooops! - I was not very clear on this, but I was simply talking about using two conductors the same length and running them side by side with a 1/2" air gap between them The neutral should be wound "snugly" around the signal conductor My apologies P.S. - I just got the bananas, so I can finally finish the cables. Second set is in progress Regards... |
@toddverrone - here;s a link to my Helix Speaker cables construction details http://image99.net/blog/files/d048bbacfce9bcad4a025be804771d9a-76.html Enjoy :-) |
- 103 posts total