Back in the CAT5 days, the DIY SCs involved a lot of braiding, stripping, and bleeding fingers. As you pointed out one method could be to simply use them as-is, but it seems another opportunity might be to twist four individual CAT8 cables and then connect them in a star-quad geometry for lower inductance.
Using 22awg wire the individual CAT8 cables would result in a 13awg cable size per bundle, or 10awg if connected using star-quad geometry. This source would be enough for a pair of almost 30-foot cables for only $140 or, a pair of 15-foot, bi-wire cables (two full runs per side), each cable at 10awg.
Solid copper or stranded copper for speaker cables? What is your choice and why?
I had old copper speaker cable made by Audioquest (don't know the model). The cable contains only two solid copper wires, one is thicker than the other. As I recalled, Audioquest claimed back then that thicker wire primarily carries lower frequency signal and the thinner wire is responsible for the rest. I actually have not seen this type of design nowadays, BUT when listening and comparing it with the stranded wire (either 12 or 10 gauge) cable, I found the dynamic range is greater, and the bass is tighter and has more weight. What do you think?
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I still make my own cabling. I have specialized tooling to make cables of all types. My preferred base conductor material is round, high purity solid copper or silver 20 awg for analog. The Cu I like the best is OFC highly conductive, Ono cast (OCC),..... Silver is rated at "fine", no use in a higher purity silver. I have found I prefer the sound balance across the spectrum using 20 awg solid. The way the base material is finished will make a difference. Polished works the best, there are 2 choices: chemical or mechanical. I prefer chemically polished, less dust. The design I use is a gas suspension using polyethylene tubes that are sealed at the ends. For speaker cables I use 6 strands in separate tubes twisted around a seventh tube. I usually bi-wire my speakers. Hard to beat the performance at any price, but there is better. |
Thank you! Alex/Wavetouch |
My speakers are also low’ish efficiency that I drive with big power amps so my HT speaker cables are bi-wired Pro9’s with two full runs/side or 6awg to each speaker. How did your friend’s cables sound? I suspect pretty good. I have long suspected the advantage of stuff like OCC copper for speaker cables is virtually non-existent so the copper in CAT8 should be plenty good. The Monoprice CAT8 source uses polyethylene insulation, which is also good but maybe topped by a foamed insulation product like in the HT cables, although I doubt that benefit is clearly audible either. |
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