Speaker cable build with Paracord 550

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I need your help. I'm going to build my first speaker cable using the guide found HERE. Regardless of what the guide says I'm building this cable purely for aesthetics, and not because I believe it will greatly improve my equipments sonic performance, and I have the time on my hands.

The guide uses 8 strands of 16 awg copper wire for each. The wires I have are red and black so I'm planning to thread the individual wires through some paracord 550 to change the color profile.

This is where my questions come in:

1. Will the 16awg wire be thick enough to fill the paracrod 550, or will there be too much slack and bunching? Should I go with a smaller paracord like 425?

2. Will I have any major complications braiding 8 strands of paracord 550 sleeved 16 awg wire? My fear is that the nylon will jumble together or look sloppy braided.

3. Will the 1/2" techflex sleeve be able to accommodate the the 8 strand paracord 550 braid?

Thanks for the help!
 
Call me a dyed in the wool skeptic - or actually a surviving "audiophile cable and accessories fashion victim" , but my initial reactions are:

- How much power, and over what distance are you thinking? The total amount of cross sectional area of conductor of any "lay" scheme might well far exceed the current handling required for your system / application - or not (exceed), of course;
- I've done some projects in the past based on Chris VenHaus' elaborate braiding of many parallel pairs of CAT5 network cable. Honestly, in the end I was hard pressed to hear a huge improvement over both cheapie store bought #18 zip cord, or even later, single runs of naked #24 CAT cable for short /low power runs;

- Plan lots of breaks to relieve stress on your wrists and thumbs - it's rather a lot of work to maintain close to uniform torque when braiding, certainly simple twisting is much easier, and may offer close to the same inferred performance enhancements;
- is there technical documentation, other than the rudimentary specs listed on the DIY projects page, or controlled double blind listening tests to support the advantages?

-apologies in advance to all those with technical ammunition with which to bombard the above shaky construction - it's been one of those weeks, I'm feeling more than a bit contrarian, and like many / most political talking heads* don't feel the need to let facts impede my evolving interpretation of "the truth"

*It's the quiet, self-effacing policy wonks getting things done in spite of the tools they're given that deserve our respect, patience, and whatever grace we can muster
 
Well like I said i'm not looking for any sonic improvements. I'm just doing this because I think it'll look good and I have the time undertake it. So I've sought no documentation of any improvements or advantages. But I'll be running a 15' cable and 10'.

Really I just want to know if there are going to be any complications with threading the 16 awg wire through the paracord then twisting and braiding them.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Do you mean "expando cable sleeve" or "expandable cable sleeving" or the outer sleeve from paracord?

Paracord has the rope inside of it.

If so then I have made my speaker cables using expando (what we at work call it).

(no special braiding)

The cable part looks nice but the ends get a bit messy.

( I also just used it to look nice)
 
Yeah Dug, I'll be taking out the strands inside and feed the 16 awg through the opening of the paracord.

Marce, I'll be feeding the cables to bananas which plug into my my Elac Uni-Fi UB5 and spades which connect to the Rogue Sphinx v2. Will the high capacitance damage the equipment? (Sorry for the possibly dumb question. I'm a super noob.
 
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