Speaker cables (What to do? What to buy?) - Page 2

Right, exactly. I mean, just that makes it worth it often in a practical sense and some benefits go along with that, whether it's enough for you to perceive or not. Another thing is, with 3.5mm cables, you often don't get to choose gauge so all the things mentioned go hand-in-hand.

I have and use the above banana clips and they're da bomb. Strip about 3/8", or just enough to bottom out in the collar, tighten the two screws, screw the finished collar back on and voila!, cool looking terminated speaker wires.

For spade lugs I went to the local auto shop (wiring section) and installed cheap-y, crimp style spade lugs. What can I say, I'm a rogue, loose cannon outlaw speaker user with no respect for termination ends.

Believe it or not, in spade lugs, autoparts was the best I could find for my purposes. I found these on Amazon but they're 45 degrees and won't fit the lugs at the back of the speaker. My luck, when I try to straighten lugs like this out with pliers, they break.

As to wire and AWG, I do everything in multi-strand, oxygen free, 12AWG and then I don't have to worry about nothing.

-
Edited by BeeMan458 - 7/27/12 at 7:16am

I have posted this several times before, but Roger Russell (former McIntosh desginer/engineer) has some great write-ups on speaker wire. I really learned a lot:
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

You can look that up as easily as I.

I will pose you another question. Did you know that the conductivity of gold or silver electroplate can sometimes be as little as half that of pure copper?

FWIW none of it adds up to a hill of beans. The resistance of the gold or silver plating, or nickel or tin for that matter, is swamped by the resistance of the cable. There are reasons to use gold or silver, but it has nothing to do with resistance, at least as far as audio cables go.

Just order this roll of CL2 rated 12/2 tonight.

Ordered this to shrink wrap any ends.

Going make a pair of 30' surround cables that will be run under the house.

-
Edited by BeeMan458 - 7/28/12 at 12:35am

I just made me a set of cables for my surround and surround back speakers. The runs were relatively long ( 30 to 50 feet ) and I'm upgrading to 500 watts per channel amp, so I chose to use 10 gauge wire.

The wire is KnuKonceptz 10 gauge, 462 strand, non-twisted, CL3-rated in-wall. I also used the 12 gauge KnuKonceptz cable pants along with the GLS Audio Series 4 Locking banana ends. All of these can be found on eBay from KnuKonceptz and Orange County Speaker respectively. Cost was $1 per foot for the cable, $1 for each pant, and about $3 for each locking banana. I didn't have enough TechFlex to do all four cables, so I made them without it. TechFlex is about $1.25 a foot from PartsExpress. I'll be doing these with Carbon TechFlex.

A note on the KnuKonceptz pants. I ordered both the 10 Ga and 12 Ga pants but the 10 Ga pants were WAY too big for the 10 Ga wire. The 12 Ga was a tight fit but looks a lot better than the baggy 10 Ga pants.

Picture of the cable and what the cross-section of the cable looks like. The cable is perfectly round-molded and looks professional even without TechFlex.

That's really expensive for techflex. There is a guy on ebay that sells it a whole lot cheaper.

Ok, that's great.

Wow! Love the wire pants, I'll check them out and get some. Thanks for the idea.

Addendum: Bought a set of ten on Amazon, delivered for $15.39.

I use these banana clips.



-
Edited by BeeMan458 - 7/28/12 at 8:26am

You're probably referring to Barry--great guy.

http://stores.ebay.com/FURRYLETTERS?_rdc=1

Lot's a sweet stuff there. Gave Barry a call, great guy. Easy to speak with and he had lot's of great ideas to per-ty up your cables with.

Thanks for the link. I use TechFlex for PC cabling as well but wasn't sure which eBay seller to choose.

No problem, Barry will take care of you .

I think speakers cable have influence in quality sound, of course that depend of speakers and receiver you want connect. The only way is testing sound with diferent types and brands of cable in the same equipments to compare if sound change with a Monoprice 12 gauge cable, Blue Jeans 12 gauge cable or a Dayton SCP-10. I have a pair of RF-62 with a cooper 10 gauge cable with chinese banana plugs and want try with Dayton or Mediabridge cable to compare sound quality. Anyone have Dayton SCP-10 or Mediabridge CL3 to tell me an opinion about?.

The use of speaker cables is to get the signals from the amplifier output to the speaker input.

Fidelity is the name of the game. While a bad cable may degrade the signal, no cable can improve the quality of your signal. A regular monoprice cable of the right gauge for the distance and that is properly terminated is of high fidelity and will deliver the signal to the speaker with barely measurable (and definitely not audible) loss in fidelity.

The main deciding factor is the gauge of the wire. Any spending done on expensive cabling can be done for any other reason except improved signal quality talk less of it being audible. A difference has to exist for you to even claim to hear it.. Anyone claiming to hear such differences that do not exist seriously needs a psych eval.

There will be no audible difference whatsoever. Testing has proven this time and time again. If you think you hear a difference then the difference you hear is really in your head and not due to using different cables.

Save you money and get the cheap mono price stuff. It works great. Of course those Chinese plugs might degrade your sound a bit.

Maybe you're right, this plugs are Nakamichi but I think just the name printed . I'll try to get better ones. Thank you.

I think you didn't get the joke. There's nothing wrong with Chinese connectors, and that's a good thing, as some 90% of those made come from China. There is no audible difference between plugs, just as there are no audible differences between cables that have like resistance, capacitance and inductance. Spend your money on something that can be heard.

Are you trying to say that the gold found in Brazil which is used in today's plating processes is just as good as the gold found in California? No way!



I thought the joke was the irony that "Nakamichi" is a high end Japanese audio company as opposed to a "cheap" Chinese product manufacturing company. As of late, the Chinese have been creating a lot of inexpensive, high quality consumer products and as a consumer of these products, my very small wallet says thank-you.

-
Edited by BeeMan458 - 7/31/12 at 6:12am

I just finished making my very 1st dressed up 12 guage speaker wire. I need to get different banana plug. I don't like the monoprice banana plugs. I need something more stable.

Here are some pictures.

could you please let me know where you purchased the black and read wire sleeve, please?

That looks like the black with red neon spiral TechFlex. You can get it from Furryletters on eBay. I only saw it in 1/2" though. Probably best to email him and ask him if he has it in smaller sizes before actually committing to buying.

Edit.

Found a listing for 1/4" Black/Red Stripe TechFlex. Should be good for 16-12 gauge CL3.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-4-BRAIDED-EXPANDABLE-SLEEVING-BLACK-NEON-RED-TECHFLEX-25ft-/230799054353?pt=Car_Audio_Video&vxp=mtr&hash=item35bcb21611
Edited by jevans64 - 12/13/12 at 1:17am

Here you go. This is the exact one 1/2".
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-BRAIDED-EXPANDABLE-SLEEVING-black-neon-red-tr-25ft-/230411548533?pt=Car_Audio_Video&hash=item35a5993775&vxp=mtr

Thanks a lot! appreciate the info