GainWire

[Mad_K]

Hi all!

Ispired by Junji Kimura's ultra-minimalist approach to audio, I decided to try to make my own diy speakercables. Kind of a clone of the 47 Laboratory STRATOS cable. Well, not exactly a clone, more like doing it minimalist-style. I won't go into any lenghty cable discussion with any religious groups, just give you the recipe I used to give me some sore thumbs and a very good performing cable:

1. 16m 0,5mm^2/22AWG magnet wire (enamelled Cu, 0,7mm outside D)

2. 16m 0,74mm^2/20AWG PTFE tube (teflon 0,86mm inside D)

-Cut into 4 lengths of 4 meters, tread magnet wire into the PFTE sleeving (this is the hard part), make 2 twisted pairs with a hand-drill and voilla -speaker cable finished

Of course you want to let the Cu-wire a little longer than the teflon jacket, and terminate with your favourite termination.

Stripping the magnet wire can be done in various ways (chemical, mechanical, heat) -I simply set my soldering station to 350'C (may vary a lot -experiment with some test pieces first) and "tinn" the ends of the cable. What happens is that the heat/solder tinn/flux melts the isolation/enamel of the cable leaving you with a nice tinned wire end. The secret is correct heat setting and lots of solder combined with some practice in getting the technique down.


BTW -total cost is about $15 for two 4m pairs

[tiroth]

Isn't the teflon a bit redundant?

[Mad_K]

Originally posted by tiroth
Isn't the teflon a bit redundant?

Yes, if you're really hard-core you could do without the teflon.
If you do it that way you get even lower Inductance. (And porportionally higher capacitance, but this is of less importance). The reason I used it (and recommended it) is the risk of shorting the power-amp The LCR are reasonably low anyway.
My point is that you can make a very good performing cable for almost nothing and ready to go in an evening

Cable/material choice can be anything resembling what I used -use whatever you like/is awailable. As a side note I might add that if I should do it again I think I would choose a PTFE tube with slightly bigger inside dia. because at the end of the treading prosedure the wire was almost stuck in the tube..

[Chris]

And how does the MADK-SAN wire perform???

Details please.........

[Mad_K]

Originally posted by Chris
And how does the MADK-SAN wire perform???

Very well, thank you

It gives a very natural and dynamic presentation. Seems a very good companion to a gainclone. Still burning in though.

[Mad_K]

[BrianGT]

If you truely want to go minimalist style, I would get rid of the binding posts, and simply solder all connections... that would be truely "hard-core" and more minimalist in terms of draining the wallet.

--
Brian

[Mad_K]

Yepp

(Doesn't help if the binding posts are already installed though)

BTW -you can se the old holes (now glued) for this purpose on the back of my speakers (external xovers)..