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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
 
@williewonka I bought the materials to make some silver helix ICs. Pure Harmony and solid silver with the OCC copper that @steakster posted for the neutral. I'm excited!

Did you open up the helix at all after you wound it on the fiberglass dowel? I just made one double 12awg helix and it is surely not open enough to have 1/2" of space all around the signal. I think I'm fine with the spacing as it is, I'm just curious what you did.
williewonka
3,082 posts
 
@toddverrone - Oooops! - I was not very clear on this, but I was simply talking about using two conductors the same length and running them side by side with a 1/2" air gap between them

The neutral should be wound "snugly" around the signal conductor

My apologies

P.S. - I just got the bananas, so I can finally finish the cables.

Second set is in progress

Regards... 
williewonka
3,082 posts
 
@toddverrone - here;s a link to my Helix Speaker cables construction details

http://image99.net/blog/files/d048bbacfce9bcad4a025be804771d9a-76.html

Enjoy :-)
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
Damn, you're fast! Great write up.

I made my first iteration last night. I wound mine by hand.. should have used a drill! The first iteration has the 2 x 12awg silver plated copper in teflon as the neutral and one run of cat 5 cable as the signal. The combined cat 5 equates to 13awg. Next I'll try 12awg Romex as the signal, to compare a signal made from many individual insulated strands to a solid signal conductor.
Unfortunately I haven't really had a chance to listen to this first version properly, just a bit last night at low volume. My kids are off school now, so my 6 hours of blissful quiet each day where I could sneak in a listening session are over until August. But what I did hear sounded fantastic..

As of now, I'm planning on 12awg x 2 and 14awg x 2 silver plated copper neutrals on each cable, then a run of 14awg silver in Teflon and a run of 12awg silver in teflon as the signal conductors, so I can biwire. The 14 gauges will go to the mids and tweeters and the 12 gauges will go to the woofers. But, I'm going to experiment a bit with gauge size and whether to go individually insulated strands, stranded, or solid for the conductors. If solid isn't as good, then I'll have to change up my signal conductor plans.. but, as long as I can make it work, I'll biwire. 

BTW, did you solder the BFAs on? They don't look crimped. Which is nice.
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
Oh, BTW, what did you use for your signal conductor?
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