best diy speaker cable recipe? (1 Viewer)

[JohnnyN]

Has anybody tried diy speaker cables? I need about 8 meters from my equipment rack to my front two speakers and would like to do better than 14 gauge home depot speaker cable, but can't really afford to spend 500 bux on a pair of 8 meter speaker cables...

I'm taking a look at the UBYTE, FFRC, and Cat5 Diy recipes... if you've tried any of these or any others, your feedback would be greatly welcome.

 

[Luitz]

Heres a nice page for ya
Have fun and good luck
http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

DIY speaker cables? What's that entail, stripping off a little insulation and installing your own banana plugs?

Just get some good 12ga. stuff; that’s all you need. If you’re looking for something that’s a cut above, take a look at Radio Shack’s 12ga. Megacable. It probably won’t sound any better than the Sound King stuff from HD, but it’s very finely-stranded, which means it’s very supple. Has a nice red stripe for polarity, too.

Regards,
Wayne Pflughaupt

 

[Chester II]

JohnnyN dude,

Wayne is right.....nice thick 12guage copper is all you need. Put some fancy connectors on the end and be done with it. Pocket the cash you saved and go buy some nice DVDs.......

Dude,

Chester II

 

[JohnnyN]

I can get 1000 ft of cat 5 cable for 49.99 at fry's. I don't mind twisting and braiding if it'll make my theater cooler... hehe, it's a labor of love. and if it really does sound better, all the merrier... keep in mind, I have an 8 meter run and a 7 meter run to my front speakers...

+ 49.99 for 1000' cat utp
+ FREE heatshrink to make cable look cool
+ 12.50 banana plugs

that's no so bad...

 

[Michael__M]

Pay attention to the brand on Cat5 he is using. The Belden name is thrown around quite a bit in the DIY cable threads I have read. Make them and let us know what you think. Then come on over and make me some. .

 

[Luitz]

Also look what wire the Retailers are using some use beldon 1506a wire for almost everything. Thay say its comparable to 500-1000 dollar cables wires..

 

[Mark Rich]

Luitz

Belden 1506a is not RG6, its RG59.
To the best of my knowledge no cable assembler is using it for speaker wire! If I'm wrong please provide a company name or link as I'd like to check it out.
Jon Rische's recipe uses Belden 89259 and its very good but not cheap.

JohnnyN
The Canare 4S8 or 4S11 is not bad for the money. It allows you to bi-wire if you would like to try doing so with your speakers.

 

[Chester II]

Dudes,

Lol

Dudes,

Chester II

 

[Kevin Deacon]

I'd hate to have you braid all that cable just to realize you used the wrong stuff.

 

[Chester II]

lol

 

[Kevin Deacon]

What's so funny Chester II?

 

[Phil A]

try double runs (which works out to be effectively 13 ga. not that I think ga. is the only thing that matters or that bigger always sounds better) of Belden 83030 and gets some techflex or expandable sleeving to run them thru. The cable comes in 10 colors. A 100 ft. roll of red and a 100 ft. roll of black will likely run just a few dollars of $100 will shipping. Will be beat many expensive cables, including $500 or $600 ones although not look as fancy. If you're looking for something a bit less exotic but a bit better than the Home Depot stuff get JSC 4x16 gauge (effectively 13 ga.) "Hi-Strand" stuff at: http://www.jscwire.com/

 

[Zen Butler]

Please don't shoot the messenger, but this guy is claiming he sells Belden 89259 @ $1.40/ft.



audio asylum classifieds

 

[Phil A]

Roughly $1.40 a ft. in indiv. lengths is not bad. That is around the cost (per ft.) of buying a 100 ft. spool. It can be had cheaper in bigger quantities. Sometimes haveinc.com has Belden cut cable specials priced by the ft. One also has to remember that $1.40 is for a single run of coax so if you are talking per pair it probably is the equivalent of $2.80 per ft. The biggest cost of esoteric stuff is the cost of the connectors.

 

[Chester II]

Kevin dude,

I was just laughing about all the time, money, and effort spent on speaker cable with space-age coatings, baked in cow-dung, or just the plain-old copper stuff which I'm convinced is all the material you really need.

Dude ,

Chester II

 

[Dave Koch]

Last year, I took the time to make these.

Did not notice the teflon thing at first.... so I even made them twice. Go ahead and laugh- my wife sure did!

Anyway, the first set- non-teflon,- sounded fine. About equal to the 12 gauge Home Depot I was using. The teflon sounded like shit. Really bad. Very harsh and high-endy. And I have paradigm speakers, so it was pretty pronounced. I e-mailed Van Helsing or whatever his name is, and he was very kind- said to give them about 100 hours to break in.

OK, I read here a lot- I know there are a lot of people who do not beleive in the cable voo-doo and break in and all that. I did a test, as best I could. I found one song that I used as a control. I noticed distinct- VERY DISTICT- similance in certian portions. I even recorded it, and reproduced it. It was there. I noted the volume level... and waited.

After 50 hours, still sucked.

But you know what/ Somewhere around that "magic" 100 hours, the cables DID mellow. The sibilance was gone.

Sure, maybe I got used to the sound... in fact, I would agree that this is exactly what happened. Except for the tape. The distortions I heard were definely gone.

So, there you go, take it for what it's worth. For me, I like them a lot. I would say that the teflon coated ones AFTER 100 hours are an improvement on 12 gauge HD. And for 35 bucks and a weekends work, that is worth it to me.

BTW, I made runs for both mains and the center. I still have 12 ga HD under the rugs to the surrounds.

Also, since there are 27 strands, I hooked all 27 to my rotel, but split them- 9 and 18- into the speakers (9 to the high end, 18 to the bass).

They look cool, plus my wife has a great story to tell friends!

 

[Chester II]

Dude,

LOL.......100 hours sounds about right to "acclimate" your ears and brain to the teflon-coated cables. The only true way of knowing is having your wife do a blind a/b switching of the two cable types. If you can honestly tell the difference between the two and vote for the teflon-coated wires then and ONLY THEN will you know for sure.

Dude,

Chester II

 

[Dave Koch]

Chester:

>>> 100 hours sounds about right to "acclimate" your ears and brain to the teflon-coated cables

I would have said the same thing- it does not seem logical (to me, at lkeast) that wires would get better/tune/whatever over use. A speaker, yes... just wires, I would not think so.

But i was able to note a specific, reproducable audio defect with the new cables. There was definite distortion/sibilance there. And yet 100 (actually, I do think it was mre like 120, but I was not keeping exact count... I was honestly expecting to throw the cables out) hours later, that distorion was gone. (EVERYTHING else remained the same, absolutely NO changes. I have a digital readout of volume level, and I matched it for every listening test)

Now I am still not a total beleiver that a break in time is needed for cables... but I would suggest there MAY be times that there is an effect. In my case, it was a beneficial effect.