Which inexpensive speaker cables...


My listening room has now become a bedroom / listening room which needs to be baby proof as well.  I'm going to have to place my Denon PMA110 in my closet and run long speaker cables.  I am on a limited budget as well, think $200 ish.  Any ideas would be much appreciated!

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I have a set of older Cardas Hexlink 5C speaker cables (3 meters and professionally terminated with Cardas spade lugs) that I might be selling in your price range.  They're a very nice, warm cable with excellent bass.  Let me know if you might be interested. 

+1 BJ cables have been mentioned several times. If you want to save money (about 50%) and enjoy some DIY, here’s what you need:

Choose Belden 5T00UP (as used by BJ), primarily because it has the lowest DCR (0.001 ohm/ft). Ideally, you want the resistance to be 0.01 ohm or less, so a 10-foot speaker cable made of 5T00UP is right at that threshold. Also, it gets one of the lowest capacitance (26 pF/ft) preferred for optimal sound fidelity among the cables in the market. Pair it with Nakamichi plugs, and you’ll have a high-quality set of speaker cables for around $60 / pair.

The result sounds excellent—comparable to the solid copper AudioQuest cables I’ve owned for 25 years.

Belden 5T00UP 10awg bare high-conductivity ETP copper conductors

Belden 5000UP 12awg bare high-conductivity ETP copper conductors

Belden 9497 16awg stranded ETP high-conductivity tinned copper conductors

I agree with Canare or Mogami. I use Canare 4S11 in a 20K system and can think of no reason to change.

Canare 4S11 has been mentioned several times and seems a popular choice. I’m just curious how it stacks up against Belden 5T00UP. See below. Belden outperforms Canare in those attributes.

For a nominal amplifier output impedance of 0.05 ohms, using a 10 ft speaker cable, the total impedance seen by the amplifier is lower with Belden 5T00UP (0.06 ohms) compared to Canare 4S11 (0.076 ohms). This difference can have a non-trivial impact on the damping factor, potentially affecting the tightness and agility of bass response. You may not notice this difference in an ordinary system, but with high-end gear, it could be quite significant.

                                               5T00UP             4S11

  1. DCR (ohm/1000 ft)        1.03                  2.6
  2. Capacitance (pF/ft)          26                   45

I'm interested as well.

 

I did at one point have a 20 foot run of the Belden from blue jeans.  I locked the locking bannanas and the flexibility of the cable.  

 

Interested in the canare as I've not used that.

 

Lanx, thank you!

 

@airwatcher. Thanks for another canare vote

 

@sd. 3 meters is only 9 feet