Speaker wire

Originally Posted by Pat315 

Here's another stupid question about speaker wire. I getting new speaker I thought its a good time to upgrade the wire. The wire is about 15 years old and so is the banana plugs should I upgrade them?

Originally Posted by Pat315 

Here's another stupid question about speaker wire. I getting new speaker I thought its a good time to upgrade the wire. The wire is about 15 years old and so is the banana plugs should I upgrade them?

Originally Posted by Pat315 

Here's another stupid question about speaker wire. I getting new speaker I thought its a good time to upgrade the wire. The wire is about 15 years old and so is the banana plugs should I upgrade them?

Originally Posted by Geoff4RFC 

I make my own speaker cables and make them look as cool as I want. There's a DIY speaker cable thread in this section, I learned a lot about making your own. The only tool I had to buy extra to get the job done was a cheap heat gun.

Monoprice 12awg cable, tech flex nylon sleeve (your choice in color and size), cable pants as an option (I've made cables with and without), and heat shrink tubing and of course your choice of termination; bananas, spades or bare wire.

A guy can get relative cheap speaker wire and make it look like very expensive cable, not only that, my cheap cable "sounds" like VERY expensive cable

Originally Posted by BB1111 

Got pictures?

Originally Posted by Geoff4RFC 

I make my own speaker cables and make them look as cool as I want. There's a DIY speaker cable thread in this section, I learned a lot about making your own. The only tool I had to buy extra to get the job done was a cheap heat gun.

Monoprice 12awg cable, tech flex nylon sleeve (your choice in color and size), cable pants as an option (I've made cables with and without), and heat shrink tubing and of course your choice of termination; bananas, spades or bare wire.

A guy can get relative cheap speaker wire and make it look like very expensive cable, not only that, my cheap cable "sounds" like VERY expensive cable

Originally Posted by carsfreak88 

here is a picture of my diy wires for my system

Originally Posted by carsfreak88 

here is a picture of my diy wires for my system

Originally Posted by Pat315 

Where did u get the nylon sleeve?

Originally Posted by Bill Fitzmaurice 

Don't lose track of the fact that all those cosmetic additions are just that, cosmetic, and have zero effect on the sound. Not that there's anything wrong with making your cables pretty, but ugly works just as well. I don't think all the contributors in that thread are aware of that.

Originally Posted by Pat315 

What size sleeve for 14g

Originally Posted by psgcdn 

Nice, but the amp must be sitting on the floor next to the speaker!
(Probably for a center speaker within the same console as the amp, right?)

Originally Posted by K Shep 

Great job those look great!

Originally Posted by Geoff4RFC 

I got mine from ebay. If you go look at the "Have a look at these babies" in the speaker thread, you'll be able to see the work of others, find out specific sizing for your needs etc etc. Have fun.
Really? I thought that was my point. No, wait a minute, you're wrong bill. I took $60 per 100 ft roll of 12x4, slapped a cover on it with some heat shrink, stuck some banana plugs on the end and I completly changed the sound of the wire and yes, wait for it............it now sounds like $84,000.

Originally Posted by josh6113 

Cables can and do have a certain sound signature to them..I have heard this...I just ordered a pair of anti cables from Paul Speltz and they should be here tomorrow.I am going to do an unboxing and review of them that I'll post in the speaker board...keep an eye out...

Originally Posted by Bill Fitzmaurice 

Unless you conduct a properly controlled double-blind testing session, and then post repeatable verifiable measurements, don't bother. That is the only scientifically valid method of making comparisons, and this is the Audio Visual Science forum.

Originally Posted by josh6113 

My video review will just be for fun...not a critical test...and I would love to know if you believe in god...if you do Prove it......not everything in life has to have proof...its human nature to need to see in order to believe...

Originally Posted by Geoff4RFC 

I think there may be a "slight" difference here; to believe in God requires faith, faith is the substance of things not seen, the evidence of things hoped for.

I don't see where faith plays into how two different types of cable can change the sound when it's job is to carry current from the source to the output. A different speaker may produce a different sound, a cables job is to allow current to flow from one place to another.

I personally have faith in the work of the cross, I don't have faith that this cable or that will change the way my speaker sounds, sorry.

Originally Posted by josh6113 

Its a metaphore... And you just proved my point...thank you...

Originally Posted by Geoff4RFC 

Really, because learning how to read english and having a post H.S. education leads me to understand that your statement "Cables can and do have a certain sound signature to them" and me saying speakers make the sound and cables just carry the current to them so they can, have no "point" connection at all, but instead an indifference.

Originally Posted by DemonicLemming 

What's always struck me as funny is that, as expensive as the high-end cable market is, I've never once seen actual empirical measurements between one cable and the next. A cynical observation would note it's probably so said cable manufacturers don't have to try and explain away identical measurements between their cables and the original cables, and so the guy who just spent $7,500 on a power cable doesn't have to deal with active denial that he spent his money on something that imparted absolutely no measurable difference. The descriptive words for the expensive cables also tend to run the same, regardless of what it's for (headphones, speakers, interconnects, power, whatever) - they add "sparkle" or "airiness" or any of the group of words that can be bluntly summarized as "elf farts". Light, delicate, and musical.

If cables do make a difference, I think it's less than (or at the most, equal to) the components in the equipment make - after all, if cable which carries a current can change sound, then surely the differences in one manufacturer's batch of resistors or capacitors and a later would also cause a change in the sound? That never seems to come up, though.

I'd say buy whatever decent set of cables seems good to you - or for those unfortunately stuck with a wife whose aesthetic demands outweigh all else, whatever she likes.

Originally Posted by DemonicLemming 

What's always struck me as funny is that, as expensive as the high-end cable market is, I've never once seen actual empirical measurements between one cable and the next.

Originally Posted by psgcdn 

Plenty of other forums to tell you otherwise, of course.

Originally Posted by Bill Fitzmaurice 

I have. There are three factors that determine cable performance: resistance, capacitance and inductance. That's it, anything and everything else that the cable mountebanks claim influences the result is pure unadulterated bunk.
Where resistance is concerned all cables of the same material and gauge will have exactly the same resistance.
Where exotic materials are concerned there's nothing to be gained. Silver, the most commonly used 'high end' conductor has 5% less resistance than copper. But to get the same results with copper as silver you simply use either 5% larger gauge, or 5% shorter length.
Capacitance and inductance are affected by the size and dielectric properties of the insulation. But more expensive insulations work no better than inexpensive insulations.
There are measurable differences in capacitance and inductance between different cables. But those differences are never related to price. Some of the lowest measured capacitance and inductance are found in the least expensive wire available, while some of the worst measured capacitance and inductance are found in the most expensive wire available.
As for what really counts, can you hear a difference, in blind testing even self-proclaimed Golden Ears have never been able to correctly identify cables by brand, price or performance with any higher degree of accuracy than pure chance. That's because even though differences can be measured the measuring gear has a degree of accuracy a few orders of magnitude higher than the human ear. When a cable is so poor that it's audible it's simply defective.