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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!
128x128toddverrone
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
I'm making 6.5' cables and will be using two runs of the 12awg per speaker for my neutral.

I've been using the wirebarn combined gauge calculator since I started in with cables. So handy! Thanks for the link to yours as well.
williewonka
3,082 posts
 
Todd, 6.5ft is pretty manageable with the helix geometry.

It starts to get cumbersome around 8 ft. You just need a long room or hallway to keep the conducts from tangling.

Regards
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
My helix PCs are all 6', so I'm not worried. With regards to the neutral, you've suggested it's not necessary to wind it as closely spaced as for the PC. What do you think, 4 wraps per foot? Or shall I space them closer, like every inch?

Thanks for the input. My only problem at the moment is that I won't be able to do a biwire configuration. There's no way I can get 2 12awg wires plus 2 14awg wires all into the same connector at the amp end. 
williewonka
3,082 posts
 
Todd - I was so pleased with the performance of a single run of the gZero2's on my Bi-wired Tannoys that I just put quality jumpers made from a similar gauge/type wire as the cable,s at the speaker end

I'm guessing, but I think the Helix cables (using conductors you've selected) in a non bi-wire approach will deliver a similar level of performance  as my gZero2 cables (but with more bass) , so you should be very pleased.

I think one wrap per inch will suffice for speaker cables - since the signal in the cable is not amplified any further, the need for 100% screening is not as great..

I've ordered 10ft of signal and 20ft of neutral so I can let you know how many wraps per inch that comes out to.

FYI: I plan to leave about 6" of the neutral straight at each end for easier connection, as in the photo in this link
http://image99.net/blog/files/category-klei-gzero6-sc.html

Hope that helps =- Steve

toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
I was thinking of actually doing the math and calculating how much neutral I'll need. I'll be assuming a radius of 1" for the helix.. and yeah, I was thinking of just make jumpers out of whatever wire I end up using in the end, since biwire is not practical with this design

I'll definitely be leaving a nice straight end for each conductor. You can see how I terminated my current cables on my system page. 
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