I finished a pair of cables. Unfortunately I forgot about a unique property of my Emotiva XPA-1s. The speaker terminals are ~14" apart. The maximum spread on my banana plugs is ~8", 😳
So I will be testing these cables on two other systems I have laying about while I decide whether to cut the ends off or make another pair of cables. My other systems, one is in my garage and the other is a reasonable system (Tubes & Klipsch CW) but in a way too small room.
I have attempted to measure the capacitance of the cables using my digital multi meter. The results I get are suspicious. My method of testing is;
On a single cable using the probes on my DMM I touch one probe to black at one end and black at the other. I repeat for red. Most often the results are ~.11nf or about 7.333pf per foot for my 15' cable. This seems low based on what I read that a good cable is, 30-40pf per foot. However, every 3rd or 4th try I will get a reading between 1 & 4 nf.
Is my meter funky or my technique wrong?
At any rate here is a picture of the cables;
![20220820_154757[1].jpg](https://www.diyaudio.com/community/attachments/20220820_154757-1-jpg.1083247/ "20220820_154757[1].jpg")
So I will be testing these cables on two other systems I have laying about while I decide whether to cut the ends off or make another pair of cables. My other systems, one is in my garage and the other is a reasonable system (Tubes & Klipsch CW) but in a way too small room.
I have attempted to measure the capacitance of the cables using my digital multi meter. The results I get are suspicious. My method of testing is;
On a single cable using the probes on my DMM I touch one probe to black at one end and black at the other. I repeat for red. Most often the results are ~.11nf or about 7.333pf per foot for my 15' cable. This seems low based on what I read that a good cable is, 30-40pf per foot. However, every 3rd or 4th try I will get a reading between 1 & 4 nf.
Is my meter funky or my technique wrong?
At any rate here is a picture of the cables;
Last edited:
Measure capacitance between black and red. Shouldn't matter from which end so long as the other end isn't connected to anything.
If you measure from black at one end to black at the other end it shouldn't look capacitive. Black to black should measure as a low value resistance at DC.
If you measure from black at one end to black at the other end it shouldn't look capacitive. Black to black should measure as a low value resistance at DC.
Well there you go... I was wondering why these cables looked great.
After measuring them using the method you described, they don't look so good. 3.71nf on one cable and 3.86nf on the other cable consistently. Someone mentioned factoring in resistance, is that a thing? If so how do I go about doing this?
A couple of other questions,
Is there an easy way to measure inductance?
What sonic characteristic should I notice due to the seemingly high capacitance?
I listened to the cables on a few sets of speakers in my garage, and they certainly don't sound bad. I was using a notebook as the source, NAD PE 2200 as an amp and I tried ADS L7e, Mirage OMNI 260, and a pair of bookshelf speakers I built years ago using North Creek drivers. I must admit my speakers sounded better than the Mirage, The ADS were neck & neck with mine with a bit more bass, but not quite as clear in the mids & highs.
My initial non critical listening was using 12 awg zip cord and my speakers then I switched to the cables I built I could not tell the difference, so the cables are not night & day different.
An LCR meter can be nice to have and not too expensive. One way to measure inductance at low-ish frequencies.
Regarding what you are trying to do, not sure what you have inside those cable sleeves. Would suggest you look for a reasonably good quality, but not high-cost, star-quad cable speaker cable and use better connectors than the type of banana plugs seen in your pic. The better quality banana plugs for speakers look more like cylinders with a slot down one side with some teeth along the slot. Better ones will be made of good quality and sufficiently thick plated metal. After some use, they can be re-tensioned by gently expanding the cylinder a little with some needle nose pliers.
Regarding star-quad cable, IME it matters that it is mechanically stable with the conductors snugly bound to each other, and the that dielectric material is linear and has low-ish dielectric absorption. Such cable doesn't have to be expensive. Reputable companies, such as for example, Mogami and or Canare probably make something suitable you could use. Woven cables and or flat cable are not necessarily optimal for speakers. Just sayin'
You can try it or not as you see fit, or feel free to PM if you want to talk about it more.
Regarding what you are trying to do, not sure what you have inside those cable sleeves. Would suggest you look for a reasonably good quality, but not high-cost, star-quad cable speaker cable and use better connectors than the type of banana plugs seen in your pic. The better quality banana plugs for speakers look more like cylinders with a slot down one side with some teeth along the slot. Better ones will be made of good quality and sufficiently thick plated metal. After some use, they can be re-tensioned by gently expanding the cylinder a little with some needle nose pliers.
Regarding star-quad cable, IME it matters that it is mechanically stable with the conductors snugly bound to each other, and the that dielectric material is linear and has low-ish dielectric absorption. Such cable doesn't have to be expensive. Reputable companies, such as for example, Mogami and or Canare probably make something suitable you could use. Woven cables and or flat cable are not necessarily optimal for speakers. Just sayin'
You can try it or not as you see fit, or feel free to PM if you want to talk about it more.
What is inside the sleeve is 4 braided, 23 awg, solid core, plenum rated, CAT 6, 4 pair, ethernet cables. I have left all of the plastic (Teflon?) sheathing on the individual cables. The solid wires and the striped are split apart and joined together at each end.
As I mentioned above I have amplifiers which have their speaker terminals ~14" apart. When I built these cables I did not take this into consideration which means I can't test on my main system. So I am limited to testing on my tertiary systems. I am considering building a pair of 11'-12' cables (I have leftover CAT 6 wire) using the same approach but removing the outer cable jacket of each of the 4 cables.
As you are probably aware CAT 6 cable is comprised of very tightly twisted pairs with each pair twisted at differing twists per cm based on prime numbers.
My goal in this exercise is to build cables which have as different a sonic signature as possible when compared to zip cord. I am on a quest to see if I can hear a difference between speaker cables in my system(s) without sacrificing any body parts in the process.
As far as an LCR meter, would the following be adequate, or do I need to spend more (for something I wouldn't use often);
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071WNNYQT
Probably better to get a DE-5000. Ebay prices look a lot better than at Amazon. Its a very good meter for the cost and nice to have the whole kit with leads rather than just the meter. 4-wire kelvin capability too if using a plug-in test lead module.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/274535933542?epid=20032261934&hash=item3feb9de666:g:HR0AAOSwCh5fiP7E&amdata=enc:AQAHAAAAoEQFGS87oEehbyBd9e/orqyBPKE+U0d+6PL6/BkTHXXxHg16I0LQYuAHOEChL/3FoDMcgLlYJK+80+dkCpxDeSYsWQu8QakG4lZW0yK5gtg1sBWqwkvWplDet92zQXETWIn151hvGbD/1hwmjK2BsApQ7R9PQrlVNcfK5XqtfrU1iQSv0tKP6Ltcn6WnlnrSi1eqXmsd5ccjOH10HppY56M=|tkp:Bk9SR4qEitnYYA
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3046048525...S5lIngTV26NUN5DcUp8ZbmpB+e42|tkp:BFBMjoSK2dhg
https://www.ebay.com/itm/274535933542?epid=20032261934&hash=item3feb9de666:g:HR0AAOSwCh5fiP7E&amdata=enc:AQAHAAAAoEQFGS87oEehbyBd9e/orqyBPKE+U0d+6PL6/BkTHXXxHg16I0LQYuAHOEChL/3FoDMcgLlYJK+80+dkCpxDeSYsWQu8QakG4lZW0yK5gtg1sBWqwkvWplDet92zQXETWIn151hvGbD/1hwmjK2BsApQ7R9PQrlVNcfK5XqtfrU1iQSv0tKP6Ltcn6WnlnrSi1eqXmsd5ccjOH10HppY56M=|tkp:Bk9SR4qEitnYYA
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3046048525...S5lIngTV26NUN5DcUp8ZbmpB+e42|tkp:BFBMjoSK2dhg
When I click on 'see details,' it says only the plastic case is included. If you can verify that its really the whole package then it would seem to be quite a bargain.
Get rid of the cables, just place a mono to go behind each speaker. Oh yea, still need something from pre to pwr amps. Use 50 ohm instrumentation cables with 50 ohm terminations and a preamp that can drive it.
Hej!
Can we see a picture of yours?
A decade ago someone gave me a roll of CAT3, so I made two sets of ~12AWG cables (with two stranded ethernet cables mixed in), one pair of which is in everyday use, as they look quite nice. Mine only took a couple of hours to braid, but I didn't remove the outer housing, so effectively a looser braid than yours I expect.
With so much old surplus CAT5 etc out there, cables like these are irresistibly cheap to make. Probably a test should be run on 4 parallel CAT3,4,5,etc cables (11-12AWG total) to see what electrical effect there is on braiding or simply twisting together.
In practice cables made from small solid core like mine have the inherent weakness of not being especially sturdy for repeated connections and flexing, so I won't be lending mine out...
Attachments
I am not able to post any pictures unfortunately. But I removed the outer casing and used many parallel cables.
The diameter of the cable is about 20-25 mm when it is braided very hard and tight. Your cable is very softly braided in comparison.
It results in very low inductance with hard braiding and takes a very long time.
I braided after the tnt diy site. They have a few different options. You can see on their site how they have done. I remember my fingers hurting after all the braiding. Must have been at least 15 years ago.
But I think yours looks good. You can use it for all types of amplifiers without problems.
I have to admit that the time it took to braid it probably wasn't worth it.
But I was curious how much better it could be.
I found a picture close to mine. Maybe mine are bigger.
https://www.pinterest.se/pin/420805158902291428/
Regards
Leif
Last edited:
Hello
in my post
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...-star-quad-speaker-cable.392434/#post-7180020
i propose an alternative version of star quad cable with UTP Cat5 cable.
I use orange, orange-white, brown, brown-white wires in parallel in the positive pole and green, green-white, blue, blue-white wires in the negative pole. In your photo the combination seems to be used: orange-white, brown-white, green-white, blue-white wires in parallel in the negative pole and orange, brown, green, blue wires are in parallel in the positive pole (it's an octo star cables).
The average distance between the pairs of cables increases and decreases the capacitance, the cable can also be used with inexpensive amplifiers.
I use the 3FE25 driver and a single UTP Cat 5 cable is enough. For higher powers, other cables can be added as already indicated.
More photos and information on the page:
https://www.claudiogandolfi.it/662g.html
Attachments
