kennsawjet: unless millercarbon has made his own speaker cables out of 14 or 12 gauge solid copper or solid silver wire, twisted - he has no idea how good it can sound.
Got to love that, "twisted". In my best Walter White I say, "You got me!"
As. If.
Not only have I tried DIY speaker cables, I've also built interconnects and power cords. Always based on what seemed really solid advice and top notch methods and materials. All were much better than ordinary lamp cord, patch cords, freebie power cords. None were anywhere near as good as even very inexpensive professionally made products.
But by far the greatest most experienced cable maker was a friend of mine who has been making his own for way over 30 years now. Not only has he built pretty much everything you can find on-line, he's even gone so far as to tear down and reverse-engineer and compare his DIY with some truly mega-buck cables. He's got a whole room, impressive work bench, all devoted to DIY cables.
Results? I never was impressed, not in the least. Maybe that is why one day he calls me up all excited to PROVE to me he has finally made one just as good as this $4k cable he copied. So identical he cannot hear the difference. So he brings it over. Yes I have told this story before. Should be pinned to the top of every make your own cable thread for all time.
So on my system we use one and then the other. The instant his DIY goes in, well you should have seen the look on his face. Poor guy is crushed. In despair he is telling me it really did sound the same... in his system.
But in mine? In mine it was so obviously inferior it was painful. Literally painful. You could see the pain on the guys face. He was adamant how great it sounded at home, totally at a loss for words why it was so obviously crap now. Tried pulling some cheap old random cable from my collection, thinking maybe his might at least sound better than what you could buy for $75. But no, even my worst oldest cheapest was light-years better than what he had made. What he had spent hours and a lot of money making. Not to mention decades of his life. To have something that sounded like pure crap. Which even he now had to admit was the case.
And oh by the way to those shouting "System matching! System matching!" nope, sorry, but "system matching" is BS invented by people who can't figure out how to make a good cable to save their life. So instead of solutions they sell band aids. The whole theory behind system matching is your system is too much this way, so patch it up with some crap that is too much the other way. Next time you feel like saying, "system matching" try saying, "hiding crap with even more crap."
Because this is exactly how you wind up with a system like my friend, one so awful its almost impossible even to use it for comparing. Because it imposes so much of its own sound. When the goal should be a system that has no sound. Which if you keep covering up problems with problems how are you ever gonna get there?
That. Will. Never. Happen.
Not like I don't have any sympathy. Its not easy sifting through the vast piles of wanna-be wire looking for the rare few that really work. (Although maybe not so hard, if you try Synergistic.) As said before I have put plenty of my own time into trying this stuff. I do not shirk from mods, have done a lot. Almost every piece of gear in my system has been modded in one way or another. I have Active Shield-modded cables, and have modded Active Shielding and other power supplies. Which is how I know which things are worth doing, and which are a waste of time. DIY cables are top of the list, with a bullet, of time and money wasters.
Devil's advocate: if you enjoy doing it, do it. Just don't kid yourself or anyone else that you're saving money, or even making anything anywhere near as good as what you could just go and buy for the same or, more likely, a lot less money.
