Oh, BTW, what did you use for your signal conductor?
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!
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!
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- 103 posts total
Man, my amazing wife took the kids out and I’m sitting here listening.. these sound so good! I just want to settle on a final design and build them, but I definitely need to spend the time to find the right geometry & materials. Ah, the endless search for perfection. I will say, though, that I made a pair of jumpers from the silver plated 12awg and some gold plated brass nakamichi banana plugs I had laying around. They sounded ok, but I wasn’t that impressed. I was doubtful of the cables at that point. I decided to take out the bananas and just use bare wire. That made all the difference. I’m looking forward to the silver plated BFAs once I settle on a design.. |
@toddverrone - They get much better after 100 hours :-) BTW - I updated the web site to include my hypothesis as to why they work. It makes sense to me - finally (LOL) http://image99.net/blog/files/d048bbacfce9bcad4a025be804771d9a-76.html The Silver plated BFA's are amazing - but they also took a couple of days to burn-in and reach their best The silver plated 16 gauge Cryo Mil_spec I used for the signal is excellent - I see no reason to move to solid silver for the signal. Enjoy the music :-) |
Man, you and your blog! Chock full of info. It's funny, I found that before I ever got on Audiogon... I did notice that you mixed up your neutral and signal conductors in your parts list. You listed the twisted pair as your signal and the silver plated copper as you're neutral. Which is understandable since you busted that out in a day. Your reasoning for the performance of the helix cables seems spot on. I never thought of the first point.. |
- 103 posts total