speaker cables

[Scottmoose]

Hi Nick. Why the wire? 3 main reasons. Firstly, variety -I like to try something a bit different. It's means less soldering and one less component too, and if there's one thing I hate with wire, it's connections. They cause more problems and losses than 99.9% of wires ever do. Also, the wire provides resistance which should vary with the load in the LF like a low DF current source, while a ceramic is ~constant like a high DF voltage-source, until it suddenly clips. Poor analogy that last, but the best I can think of on the spur of the moment.

[attilio7]

Originally Posted by Scottmoose

if there's one thing I hate with wire, it's connections. They cause more problems and losses than 99.9% of wires ever do.

Ditto, is tinning an acceptable practise to bare speaker cable? to stop the ends from fraying and oxidizing. If you keep cutting back eventually your cable will be to short.

attilio

[Scottmoose]

Makes sense to me.

[Gerry]

Rather than a new thread!

I've just moved house and need longer speaker cables.
They need to be low capacitance so the TNT CAT5 won't work.
Anyone any suggestions?

Regards

[alnewall]

Gerry.

I've found that the Audio Innovations 100 silver plated multistrand stuff, from Richer Sounds @ £4.99m works well.
I'm using it at the moment, whilst trying to repair my cat5 cables.
I could live with either. It's easier to hide as well.

[Scottmoose]

Here's a few ideas.

1) Get down the local B&Q or your nearest independant electronics store, & buy some solid core twin & earth mains cable. Simple, unpretentious, cheap and works a treat.

2) Visit Maplins, and buy a couple of spools of the heaviest gauge enamelled copper wire you can get. Largest available is 14AWG if memory serves. Then use that. Again, you might be suitably surprised.

3) Order some Belden 5T00UP 10AWG wire, or one of Vandamme's many different wires. This is what many big studios use, and if it's good enough for recording, surely to God it's good enough for playback.

[Max N]

Hi Gerry
I've used mains cable as a stop gap in the past, and there's not much wrong with it. I think the main thing you need for a long run is low resistance - mains cable will get you that cheaply. It'll get you up and running, and you can use it as a reference in the future if/when the time comes to try something pricier - ie if it doesn't beat the mains cable, save your money.
Max

[andrew ivimey]

Ordinary 13amp mains cable (stranded) is one of the very few things I have wired speakers up with that I can actually hear that it is 'not very good at all really' I haven't tried the solid core stuff.

There is an apocryphal story about the Quad boys at one Heathrow show leaving their crystalline labidomide sulphide high tensor helium filled twin overhead cammed cable (with fuel injection) back in Huntingdon and Peter Walker sending one of the juniors to the local B&Q for some snazzy orange 13amp stuff..... maybe!

I like twisted twins and even untwisted; a single run of CAT5 with four of the internal wires for + and four for - is just tasty peanuts. Maplin Sharkstuff seems pretty good too.

[dave dove]

why won't long runs of cat5 do?
i've been using 12M each side for years
and it sounds much better than twin and earth
unless you use naim or something like

dave

[hal55]

I used household mains cable many years back, didn't like it very much and it was easily bettered by the budget Esoteric Speedcable that I had before. Ortofon SPK200 biwire has seen me through about the last decade, a really good cable at a sensible price - sadly no longer available I believe. Anyone tried Mogami's speaker cable offerings?

Hal55