2. cables
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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
 
perfectpathtech - hahaha! quite the zinger.

thanks for your warning and genuine concern.. i'm waiting for an easier form of graphene to work with. the powder just seems to much of a mess.  i recently saw an article on my newsfeed (which i've yet to read) announcing the development of a graphene foam.  that seems interesting, but probably not accessible for a few years.  and who knows.. maybe we'll have bundles of nanotubes available in some form. if i ever decide to work with the powder, it would not be in the house at all.  
perfectpathtech's avatar
perfectpathtech
236 posts
 
Actually I am taking it easy,  When it comes to safety there is zero room for joking!
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone OP
840 posts
 
Especially when children are involved. It's bad enough screwing yourself up. Don't take your children with you.. 

I'm just excited about graphene. I don't want black lung.
williewonka
3,082 posts
 
@toddverrone...

Oh man, these things are incredible. It’s not that I’m hearing things I haven’t before.
Well - The improved clarity is due to the precise phase alignment of the signals of each sound as it occurs, between L and R channels, which in turn places each sound in it’s very own "space" and improving it;s clarity

The noise in the old cables causes mis-alignment in the L/R channel phase and places one sound on top of another - voila - a very muddled sound - i.e. to the human ear!

If you are now hearing this, your cables are about to reach yet another new turning point - you will start to hear more body and warmth in the mid’s and a fuller bass together with a smoothness in the higher frequencies like a violins upper register and for voice - the soprano - both will start to sound very smooth and rich

I couldn’t tell you this before, because I’m only a few days ahead of you in my burn in process and just noticed this at the end of last week - LOL

but sounds more like an increase in dynamic range
Again - its due to the precise phase alignment of the left and right channels improving the clarity and making individual sounds louder - again, as perceived by our ears.

BTW - remember that what you are experiencing is the combination of having Helix cables across the entire system - try replacing a power cable or an IC with any commercial product and see what happens - you will return to a muddled presentation - maybe not AS-MUDDLED - but definitely not as clear and not as dynamic.

One thing I noticed today - my Powernode 2 is now operating cooler, so I guess it was a product of the burn-in process that caused the small increase in temperature.

Anyhow - it’s gonna be very interesting to see how these cables progress over the next few weeks - I’m now thinking these will need 300-400 hours before they get to their very best.

Have a great time in Europe :-)

Regards - Steve



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