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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
williewonka
3,082 posts
 
Todd - thanks for the info on the IC's.

If you should get currrrrious - I would recommend putting the Absolute Harmony on your IC's

Once the new Bad-Ass Bi-Wire's  are fully burned in and your ears get acclimated to the wonderful clean, dynamically crisp sounds you won't have any trouble hearing the improvements those RCA's will make :-)

Agreed - It's been a great experience - thanks for all the feedback

Until next time - Cheers
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
@twoch - I’ve finally come to that realisation within the last 8 months or so. I don’t look at the cat 5 or THHN experiments as a waste of money though. I learned a lot building those cables with materials I could afford to screw up with.
Also, I began the cable journey as a curious sceptic; there was no way I was going to buy solid silver wire for $10/ft. After all my experiments, I’m no longer a sceptic, but there’s no way I’d be here if I didn’t get to mess around with the cheaper materials. Now I’m constantly looking for high performance to price materials and, thankfully, there are many good, inexpensive suppliers with quality materials.

I can’t wait until I get to build a DIY graphene cable of some sort..!

@williewonka I was torn between the pure and absolute Harmony when purchasing RCAs.. one day I may go after the absolute. But then I think I'd be building those solid silver SCs at the same time.. ha!
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
Update: the brittle sound has arrived. There’s still loads of clarity and bass, but just a bit over the edge with sibilance. I’m guessing I never noticed this during burn in before because I’ve never previously integrated any silver in my speaker cables. The new helix ICs are burning in as well, and I’ve also never installed new ICs and SCs at the same time. Double burn in! Sorry I can't comment on hours of burn in. Keeping track of that would make this not fun. I'm guessing I'm at 20-30 hrs..

Still, plenty pleasant to listen to and only a slight edge that I’m expecting to disappear.. right before I leave to Europe for a month. Ha!
😝
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
And we're back to smooth, liquid sound... 

Still, I can never tell if it's me (tired, overly sensitive, in a good mood, etc.) or if it's the break in. This is why I never make my final decision on a component, cable or tweak until I've had it in my system for a month or two. Then my excitement over the new has dissipated enough to truly decide if what I'm hearing is an improvement.
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
Oh man, these things are incredible. It’s not that I’m hearing things I haven’t before. The cat 5 braided cables these replaced were surprisingly good.

What I am hearing, though, is a smoother sound, a greater separation of sounds (I don’t say instruments because I listen to a lot of electronic music, so it’s more about each sound and its relation to the whole) and a cleanliness that does not take away from my system’s power but sounds more like an increase in dynamic range.

I’m taking a break and having a beer, so this is the first time in a couple of weeks I’ve really been able to sit down and listen. We’re about to go to Europe for a month. I’ve been busting my butt getting stuff done so our house sitter has an easy experience. Sitting here for a half an hour session is exactly what I needed and to have these cables stepping up and performing like they are makes me a happy human!
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