Are DIY Cables Worth It?

Go to the Cable Asylum and look up the reviews of VenHaus cables. VenHaus makes good products available to the audiophile 'masses'.

Cable matters but its quality must be in proportion to the system's quality: too good and it will start revealling a lot of flaws (both gear and recordings), not good enough well, not good enough.

For your system I'd definitely use something good, but not overboard. The mapleshade entry level speaker wire comes to mind:

Clearview Golden Helix

It is a single conductor, silver plated copper with minimum insulation. Good enough for present and forseeable needs.

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Thank you for the recommendation on the Mapleshade cables; they look very promising.

I would like to address as assumption about price/quality ratio for this thread. For any general quality-level of speaker cable there are great prices, average prices, and premium prices. With my original question about whether DIY'ing these cables would be worth it or not, I guess I should be asking how much I would expect to pay (at an average price for the quality of speaker cable that is produced) for the finished version of these cables.

Everyone has been so helpful so far!

I guess I should be asking how much I would expect to pay (at an average price for the quality of speaker cable that is produced) for the finished version of these cables.

Nicely put! I can only answer that question regrading a particular cable -- not in absolute terms.

I use diy cables. For both ic & spkrs. My case is unusual in that diy replaces an expensive model fm a popular brand (Nordost Valhalla).

As to Chris Venhaus: he's an audiophile and much of the stuff he offers is very good (caps, for example). But, @$18/ft he's not the cheapest around; Mapleshade for one, is cheaper.

I would suggest you diy your IC for the time being.

Gregm, what do you have for DIY cables that may better Nordast Valhalla?

To answer your question, as in most things audio, it depends (on your components, budget, length of runs, and other factors). IME, DIY cables can give you pretty good sonics at a fraction of the cost of comparable new cables, if you want to put the time into it. As a guide, it would be my estimation that to move up significantly better than most of the well-received DIY cables, you would have to spend at least 5 times the parts cost of the DIY cables, or more. I have not heard the CHeLA speaker cable, but I do like the VH Audio power cords, and I have even tried some variations of those cords with success. The "Asylum" power cord using typical shielded SJT-14awg (typically Volex) cable is also pretty good, and the Volex 14awg cable with molded plugs (that you can buy economically through most electronics supply companies) will do better than almost all OEM power cords. For speaker cables, I have enjoyed the sound of Jon Risch's Cross Connected Belden 89259 cables, but they require a moderate amount of patience and skill to construct properly. A less expensive (and much easier to construct) alternative might be to simply purchase Canare Star Quad 4S11, connect them in a star quad configuration and terminate them with some good spades. Others like the home depot power/extension cord speaker cables, and CAT 5 speaker cables, although I would probably go for the CC89259 or Canare first. DH Labs cable also sounds pretty good, especially the Q-10 connected in a star quad configuration, and can be had used at very reasonable rates on Audiogon. The Risch interconnects using Belden cable (see his website) are good, and Chris Venhas' VH Audio fine silver interconnect has gotten excellent ratings here. Go have some fun.