diy cables made!

[Mattyo5]

Well, I wanted to see if there WAS a difference between cables. So, I have my PE soundking 12 awg that I usually use, and I had some 22awg silver plated teflon coated stranded stuff that was surplus from a flea market. So I figured 12 strands of that would get down below 12 awg by a little bit. I made 4 conductors w/ 12 strands each twisted w/ a dewalt drill. perfect twists? probably not, but it ended up being quite tight because I used heatshrink down the WHOLE length of it, ...in one ft increments, then twist 2 of the conductors together to get + and - ... then heatshrunk those in a few places just to hold them, then techflex cable on the outside to make things pretty. I ordered some banana's and spades from www.homegrownaudio.com which were their rhodium over silver over copper banana's and spades Anyway, so, bottom line is, they look pretty, but do they sound any different? I can't tell, but I had my wife listen on two different locations (here at my condo and also at my parents house, same speakers, same cables) ...and she didnt' know which cables were which, but she picked out the new cables both times and said they sounded less constrained and more open. How much more open? enough to pick them out 2of 2 times, but i heard the difference, and it wasn't huge...like the difference between different speakers or ...different crossovers in the same speaker. Anyway, this experiment cost me about $80 for the pair, ... for cool looking cables, and a little better sound...worth it? worth the peace of mind of having "better cables"? sure Anyway, just wanted to give my opinion on it. I'll have more people listen to these and give impressions as well. The recipe is simple...all written here in the description, a source for the stuff would probably be apexjr.com for the teflon 22 awg silver plated cable, and whereever one might get heatshrink, and I think www.partsexpress.com carries the techflex 1/2" flexible tubing. Of course www.homegrownaudio.com for the banana's and spades...which I chose because you can solder right to them, as opposed to using the wbt's which are incredibly expensive and I'm not sure the twist lock is a better connection. Anyway, here's the pics enjoy!

-Matthew K. Olson

[Mattyo5]

another

[Mattyo5]

last one, email me for bigger pics

-Matthew K. Olson

[MikeB]

Hi !

My experience with speakercables was, that the differences are BIG !
I used some standard OEHLBACH-cables. I replaced these a while ago
with Kimber4TC. The difference was not subtile, the sound was like
a completeley new hifi. Especially the trebles and details were much
improved.

Mike

[Mattyo5]

Well, I wanted to see what the differences were if any, so this was a fairly inexpensive experiment A fun one too. Maybe one day I'll get to try the kimber's as well. Later!

-Matthew K. Olson

[DigitalJunkie]

I once swapped speaker cables for the heck of it,I didn't think there'd be any difference in sound. (wire is wire,right?)I was using 14awg zip/lamp cord for speaker cables,and it sounded fine to me.
Well,one day I got some left over OFC "Rockford Fosgate" 15awg wire leftover from helping a friend install a car stereo.

Being skeptical,I decided to give it a shot,I cut up two lengths,and put some cheap gold plated Radio Hack connectors on there.

I couldn't believe it! there *was* a difference,albeit a fairly minor one.
The treble sounded "crisper" and clearer,and the bass was a bit more controlled.Not enough to jump out at you and make you smack your forehead,but it was there....
I'm still using that Rockford Fosgate wire,and probably won't change it untill something better lands in my hands (for free).

I've fiddled with homebrew interconnects also,from braided multistrand to "paralell-floating in air" magnet wire,but didn't like the outcome of many of them.I'm still using "generic" cables there.

www.tnt-audio.com has a few cable projects that might be interesting to try out.