Coax as speaker cable. Breakthrough Idea or stupid idea? (1 Viewer)

[Jason_A]

I don't know where to really put this. Ok for you techy and otherwise smart electronic people is it possible to use coax cable as speaker cables?

Don't get me wrong I said speaker cables I understand coax can be use for Satellite, Cable, and RCA Cables.

To me it would seem it would be possible. The only thing is connectors and how to do it.

Would you just sodder(sp?) wire to the end of a coaxal cable and put to the speaker?

Anyhow Just a thought I came up with cause coax is used for RCA audio or digital audio cables.

Jason

 

[PaulT]

There is no reason why you couldn't do it but many reasons why it is not such a good idea. The main point would be the centre conductor on the coax (in my estimation) would be on order of 18AWG. Considering most would have you use 10AWG wire for speakers, then you would be running a bit thin....

You could solder a banana plug to the centre conductor and another one to the braid which has been twisted together into a more sold mass.

 

[Mark Rich]

Not a new idea and if done correctly it works very well. Jon Rische has a very popular design that offers a high level of performance using Belden 89259 cable. His design is a cross connected setup where the shield of one cable is connected to the center conductor of the other. The two cables are then lightly twisted together. Details, reviews, instructions can all be found on the Audio Asylum web site.

 

[Jason_A]

I was thinking about using two coaxial cables one being positive and the other negative. Would that be bad or interfere with each other? Or would my Idea be to much of a problem to mess with?

Jason

 

[Chu Gai]

It would be...
1) very inflexible
2) heavy
3) expensive
4) time consuming
5) likely raise the capacitance of the cable which for some amps and receivers can result in instability problems.

Just because the web is filled with umpteen recipes for making speaker wire only means there are umpteen recipes. It doesn't necessarily mean the differences are audible. Of course if you're running 100 feet and your load is a speaker that dips to around 1-2 ohms around 15-17 kHz, then you might want to take a look at low inductance cables.

 

[Mark Rich]

Jason,

Do a search on the cable asylum site and you will find the info you seek:
http://64.154.92.195/audio/cables/bbs.html

FYI I've made the JR CC89259 twisted coax design speaker cable and they are very, very good. The Belden 89259 is not cheap though. If my memory serves me correctly they come out to around 13AWG.