$10 / foot speaker wire

CDC:

Did you ever try the magnet wire?

I just finished a set of speaker cables which are single runs of Chimera Labs 25.5 gauge magent wire running through 18 gauge Teflon tubing. The wire was inexpensive (purchased a 100 ft. roll) and the Teflon tubing was under $10 (@ Fryes Electronics) for a 35 ft. roll.

They sound very nice (not quite as good as the 47 Labs OTA, but still in the same ballpark).

I also made an IC from the Chimera wire (CD player to preamp) which I am breaking in right now. The IC is a simple single run "nude" design. RCA's are Radio Shack (8 for $2.99) that have had their metal mass further reduced (cut off the strain relief tab and part of the outer metal housing which makes contact with the outside of the female RCA). An additional treatment is to polish and clean the contact areas of the RCA's. A lot of work, but it goes fairly quickly once you do a few.

The Chimera wire is a bit difficult to work with if you do not own a solder pot (I don't), but I was still able to achieve good results by stripping it with a butane lighter, polishing/cleaning the bare surface and then tinning the same with Chimera Labs solder. To be on the safe side I wrapped the ends of the wires (in the area where the insulation and the tinned surface join) with Teflon plumbers tape in the event that the coating was not completely intact in the transition area.

I have some Luminous Audio Renaissance speaker cable in a true bi-wire set-up & for the price it's hard to beat. Instead of going into details, I'll just list my review>
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/cables/messages/44584.html
>if you'd care to read it, although there have been changes to my system since my review.

Dekay: For what it's worth, PLEASE try some different RCA plugs. Those "el cheapo's" from Rat Shack sound horrible in my experience. I built some experimental cables using those and they sounded horrible. I later went back to those cables and tried different RCA's and the sound was much improved. Sean
>

Sean:

I have only compared the cheap modded RCA's (in DIY designs) to my 47 Labs RCA's and to some that were Kimber, I think.

I forgot to mention that I also ditch the plastic screw on covers. Perhaps you are confusing these with the RS Gold RCA's which do sound like crap. These are not gold plated and once I get through with them they contain very little metal.

Try them modified as I use them (in a simple single run nude design and with HQ 25.5-26 gauge solid core wire) and they do not sound horrible as you describe it.

The downside however is that the designs are very fragile (you can fry gear if you are not very careful) and they do not offer shielding and/or RFI rejection. As I do not have an RFI problem I am willing to take the risk with the rest of it. I once tried a pair of completely nude silver IC's (zero insulation) which sounded incredible, but the much higher risk factor involved with these was too much for me to continue their use.

No one could sanely market such designs as looking @ them makes it obvious that they can be made up in a matter of minutes from basic materials (plus they will fall apart with general use). I sold all of my commercial IC's (other than the simplistic 47 Labs stuff) a few years ago and never looked back (the one exception being a Mapleshade digital IC that I did like the sound of, though without a DAC on hand it doesn't get much/any action these days:-).

Dekay, I actually got some magnet wire and Kapton tape and was going to make some per the audiotweaks description. Then I started reading about low induction, decided a parallel run would be high inductance and gave up on the idea.
I'm interested in Mapleshade because of their treatment process but a single run of 18 ga may be too light, especially for a 12 foot run. From what I can understand, by using long runs of light gauge, the amp can't control the woofer and the lack of damping gives the illusion of bass. On the plus side, I think there is some filtering of hash going back to the power amp by such a long run of light gauge wire. I think this is their theory behind their power cords/ line conditioners.
I did make some solid 18 gauge twisted pair that took me about 4 hours to wind along with sore fingers. It wasn't good quality wire and I wasn't impressed.
I originally had DH Labs Q10, external bi-wire which was way overkill so I sold it. Since then decided my system, and hearing perception, had far greater problems than any wire would cure so forgot about it. Once I get my system optimized and I get real familiar with the sound will try some wire again.
But I found hearing differences is not a quick-switch thing. You have to listen for a week, adjust to the sound and then switch out the wire. It could take a very long time to sort through wire where I'm confident in what I know what I am hearing. So I rely on people's help and measurements to try to narrow down the choices.
Jmslaw, I was also impressed with the Red Rose and found it was a high strand count wire. This was when I thought single strand was the way to go. Didn't realize it was so cheap, thanks.
I think Sean had a good point about terminations making a big difference in sound, maybe bigger than the wire itself. Is crimping to spades is the best way to go?
So Driver, what did you replace the Renaissance with? I read the Jan 2003 S-Phile that Acoustics Zen uses the same construction in their $1,188 / 8ft ($75/ft) speaker wire as LAT - "AZ's construction technique is based on "constant air twisting", in which multi gauge groups of conductors are arranged in a constant twist on the outside of air filled teflon tubing"