price/performance speaker cables

[uzziah]

looking to put together some good speaker cables to connect my sonic impact t-amp (soon to be modified) to my paradigm titans. i'm thinking something to the effect of 14-16awg silver plated copper teflon wire. thoughts?

 

[simon5]

Zip cord will be fine.

 

[homer09]

you will get a million different opinions on this. just try a few different types and then tweak the one you like best until your satisfied.

 

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

I second the zip cord motion.

I tried some other speaker cable one night and when I woke up the next morning my amplifier was gone.

 

[Gregm]

Try single core wire. The easiest to find and experiment with are enameled pure copper wire (typically 0,8 or 1,2 mm, depending upon the current flow) or the wire you suggest (although combining metals creates potential which may or may not suit your purposes). I hope the latter isn't going to set you back millions, btw -- if so, I withdraw the recommendation.

I would avoid multistranded zip cord as there is access to other wire that's also very cheap.
BTW, a good commercial cable is Nordost Valhalla. It's low iductance, lowish capacitance, thin ribbon conductors, teflon dielectric. At EUR: 3000 it's a steal

If you don't like it, you can always offer it to yr SO; it's more expensive than lots of jewelry out there

 

[Cal Weldon]

I just don't get how people can spend a lot of money on something like cables. Have you run out of money for important things like better drivers, crossovers or cabinets? You know, things that can make a big difference?

I use 10 ga. 64 strand high purity copper that cost 40 cents a foot.

Anyone want to put their boutique cables up against mine? You'll either laugh or cry depending on your perspective.

Cal

 

[DonoMan]

I use cat 5

 

[protos]

I second the recommendation for enamelled thin copper magnet wire.Just get some decent size spiral wire wraps to thread it through for protection and add some decent connectors because the bare copper ends are going to tarnish and break when you use it often .For low current (15-20 watt amp + efficient speakers)you can use as low as .375 mm which is better.Don´t worry -I have compared it with my own MIT Shotgun 750 ( 1500usd !!)cables and on many points it was actually better sounding.
Another option is thin copper tape as adhesive type or on some air core chokes (eg Goertz)which is also very good sounding and has good bass. There is some extra hassle to make a decent looking cover for it.
Otherwise the next level up is the same but in silver.
Personally I don´t like the sound of multicore types.

 

[rcavictim]

Try and obtain a 50 foot interconnect from a GPU used to power a DC3. It contains four runs of welding cable with a copper cross section the size of your thumb and half a million fine strands so that it is really flexible. Take it apart and make your own phat cables. If not that then #16 or #14 zipcord works just as well too.

 

[Brett]

I second the recommendation for enamelled thin copper magnet wire.

I used that for years on low power systems and it stood up well to a lot of expensive cables. I'm lazy and have tons of C5 so that's what I use a lot of the time.

Another option is thin copper tape as adhesive type or on some air core chokes (eg Goertz)which is also very good sounding and has good bass.

But beware that a lot of amps oscillate with more than short runs of the stuff. I reckon it sounds awful.

 

[Kittle]

Heres my experiance with cables...

my old zip cord (5 years old) was corroding to the point where stuff was cutting out. so I visited the local store for some cable. the salesman sold me some monster cable. I went home & put it in. stuff worked, but didnt sound any better.

Then last year I found this site. I went and got one of these:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=100-155

cut it into 25 foot sections.. added connectors and was actually able to hear a difference in the sound. Not a whole lot, but for $75 and much better looking stuff, I was happy.

cable + connectors = $70.
monster cable with no connectors = $200.

you do the math