Home Depot Ext. Cord for Speaker Cable


I was wondering if anyone who has actually tried this themselves could comment on the results. I currently use 14g Monster wire with mostly McIntosh tube gear.

What might I expect to sound different?

Is it the "Rigid" brand that Home Depot sells that people use?

What do you do with the third wire?

Any other constructive feedback will be appreciated as well. Thanks,
Bill
bcollins
I made a pair, with the Rigid brand extention cord. They worked fine, I for one have never been able to "hear" a difference between speaker cables once I got away from "rca zip cord" and cheap monster cable.
The third wire should be clipped back as far as you can in the covering, the cognicetti "in the know" about the differences of speaker cable say it then acts as a diletric, transducer what ever...:)
I use it for my outdoor speakers. It is waterproof and works fine there. I just snip the third wire at each end and ignore it.

But I wouldn't think of using it inside, not when there's relatively inexpensive alternatives that make sense. Like Speltz cables and such. (I DIY my own stuff, which sometimes can end up more expensive than buying.)

But try it, and if you don't like it just throw them away. Not much lost.

Enjoy,
Bob
I have a pair that I sometime use. Mine are "Commercial Electric" branded from Home Depot. It is the orange cable with thick black line running the length of the cable.

I connected the black and green wires on both ends together and use it for the (-) side. I use the single white run as the (+) side. It sounds pretty good and only cost about $15 for the experiment.

Enjoy,

TIC
I played around with several variations of this "Halloween" cable before settling on one that I'm still enjoying after more than a year. I use the stuff shotgunned -- all three conductors in the forward/+/red direction and another three in the reverse/-/black direction, terminated in serious spades at the amp end and Eichmann bananas at the speaker end. I've encased the cables in black Techflex so they doesn't scare the children. And I'm using two more identical pairs into the bottom (subwoofer) connections on my Gallo Ref 3s.

Works for me, and replaced some pretty pricy cables. One of my friends found that they sounded substantially better than the $1200 cables (which will be unnamed but starts with "V") he was using at the time. Another friend thought they sounded like hell in his system. So it's a system-dependent crapshoot, but what's to lose -- for 20 bucks you can make up 4 8-foot links and have some to spare, and see what you think.

BTW, the bananas on mine are so I can switch polarity easily (well, comparatively easily).
Tried it, liked it, it's reasonably neutral and clean. Eventually like any good audiouphile I tried other cables, finally purchased and kept the Audio Art speaker and IC cables which made a very nice and very noticable positive difference in my system. I am currently using the Home Depot in my Home Theatre set up, where it sounds great.
So, for me, it was nice, not terribly "refined", and teh Audio Art was much more "musical", and not very expensive.
Try them - they have a return policy, but I bet you won't return them.
But Bob is right - try teh Home Depot too - for 10-12 bucks, whatchoo got to lose?
Enjoy!
James