AC power cable for speaker

[panson_hk]

Has anyone used ordinary AC power cable (not audio grade) as speaker cable? Long long time ago I heard that AC cables can outperform expensive speaker cables. I am trying to make comparison by measuring L and C of different cables.

[sangram]

Yup. I find them just as good as reasonably priced speaker cable, and am using household electrical flexible wire for internal wiring of medium-cost projects like the Zaph L18 and some chipamps (and even the F5s power wiring). I use locally available FR 2.5mm copper wire for this. They solder fast and don't tarnish at all, unlike the cheap 'OFC' speaker cable that we get.

I prefer using Cardas or TDK PCOCC wire for more the run to the speakers, though, but I will be trying some beefy power cable (2x4 sq. mm) for my next speaker cable, because I have a lot of it lying around.

I'd love to see those measurements, but I don't know how much that affects the sound?

[SY]

Works fine. I was formerly using heavy duty extension cords with the plugs.sockets cut off the ends. The bright orange color did not go over well domestically, so now I have 12AWG stranded cable made for outdoor lighting use (dark gray). In theory, the slight inductance of the cable compared to the exotic stuff will cause an HF loss, but it's about 0.05dB at 20kHz, so I'm not too worried.

[jazzy939]

I have been using them too. Have compared them to 'branded' ones.. Hardly any difference(I don't hear any) and they're cheaper too!

[lowtherdream]

I just tried 10AWG solid electrical cable (had 14 AWG magnet wire before).
- no connectors
- cable lenght, 2 x 5 feet.
- single driver BLH with Fostex FE207E

My impression after 24 hours of playing:
- more details
- more bass, lot more bass
- loss in the mid and high frequencies
- or loss of balance between the range of frequencies

Some gains ... some losses ... bot the perfect cable.

Does the contact surface at the amp and speaker posts (10AWG vs 14AWG) have something to do with the loss of mid and high frequencies ?

[lowtherdream]

sorry for the typo ...

"Some gains ... some losses ... but not the perfect cable."

[lowtherdream]

Having problems with the timeout for editing my posts

I preferred the tonal balance with the 14AWG magnet wire. I am also working on a CAT6 braided cable. 27 strands of 23AWG CAT6 for an aggragate of around 9AWG, terminated with Kimber Postmaster forks. Hope all this work will give me positive results

[panson_hk]

Good to see many promising examples. I'd like to see how measured data correlate with sonic performance.

[wg_ski]

Cheapest #10 speaker cable ever - two runs of #16/3 orange power cable. Parallel both blacks with one of the greens, both whites with the other. Twist and zip-tie every 2 feet or so. 100ft cable for $35, including the speakon connectors.

[Speedskater]

Originally Posted by wg_ski

Cheapest #10 speaker cable ever - two runs of #16/3 orange power cable. Parallel both blacks with one of the greens, both whites with the other. Twist and zip-tie every 2 feet or so. 100ft cable for $35, including the speakon connectors.

It's more like 11.5 gauge. You would need 4 strand of 16 gauge to get to 10 gauge.