Tellurium cables

[Speedskater]

For North American's, I second what "jcx" wrote way back in post #14. Electrical power cable, Romex® or NM (Non Metallic) is available everywhere and is very, very inexpensive. In the 14AWG by 3 with Safety Ground it's equivalent to 11AWG. The draw-backs are that it's very stiff and ugly.

[DF96]

Just seen a glowing review of tellurium cables in the latest (March 2012) HiFi World. They were so good that the reviewer could not think of a single Con to balance against the Pros in the summary. His description gave the impression that his old (pre-tellurium) cables must have been creaming off so much detail that it was like buying a new system, yet I bet they (whatever they were) had a similarly glowing review last year. The eye-watering price did not seem to bother him, so I think journalists must be paid too much. I decided not to buy the magazine, as I don't want to encourage this sort of thing.

[ziocalepino]

Hi Mark, and thanks for suggestion. 4 mm2 car cables cost less than 3 euros / meter so why don't try? And I'm not so surprised for the comment about HiFi World: many times "expert journalists" are saying what brand wants!

[cyclecamper]

My speaker cable decisions always depend on the distance and current (impedance and power) involved. I like good simple copper low-resistance oxygen-free (nice clean copper-colored) stranded cable. I've found places that sell 10 guage in clear vinyl on 100-foot rolls and I've been quite happy with it indoors, though it's no good outside (vinyl doesn't hold up, neither does rubber). It looks just like the early Monster cable but cheaper. But that's for high-current high-powered applications, like when I run my bass drivers in parallel for 3 ohm off dedicated amp channels. If I run the same bass drivers at 6 ohm off more dedicated amp channels the cable is less critical as there's half the current. If I put them in series for 12 ohm and drive them with 2 amp channels bridged, that's half the current again, and #14 lamp cord will work as well as anything. If you gave me silver wire, I'd sell it and use the money for better things.

If you have fussy output section or a weird load, that's a different story. But usually I'm more concerned with the terminations than with the details of the cable itself, as long as it has reasonably low capacitance and inductance and the resistance is lower than required. I remember seeing guys spend big bucks on cables, then wind them around a steel speaker support...dumb.

[ziocalepino]

I use very weak amplifer, a 3 W single end tube amp equipped with 2A3 tubes. As speakers I have 16 ohm Lowther PM6C placed into Acousta 116 cabinets. I need 5 meters long cables, 5 meters each I mean. Knowing this, what do you suggest? Big section, quite cheap cable is enough?

[SY]

You don't even need particularly large wire. You have an amp with relatively high output impedance and high impedance speakers. There's not a lot of power. #14 twin is likely as good as you need.

[ziocalepino]

Ok I'll try thanks. Last question to confirm if I've well understood. When you say #14 you mean AWG14, or 1.628 mm diameter, or again 2 square mm of area. Right?

[Speedskater]

Yes:

16AWG = 1.31 sq. mm
14AWG = 2.08 sq. mm
12AWG = 3.31 sq. mm
10AWG = 5.26 sq. mm