Well I am waiting on the teflon cat 5 cables to be in stock. I was told to strip the wires and braid them all together like kimber cables does then measure the ohms and resistance of The Wire. I heard or read the lower the resistance in a wire the better but who knows? I am new to this making my own speaker wires. You can ask Dave from planet 10 hi-fi he uses cat 5 cable with teflon the stuff am waiting to buy. I hope this helps? Jeff
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We tried all the way up to at least 3 cables all twisted together, all the way down to a single pair (untwisted and either laid parallelish or wrapped around a central core such that the wires cross at about 45° (thanx Allen)). We preferred the singe strands.
dave
So you are saying the one single strand of 24 gauge copper wire goes from the terminal block to the driver? Well one for positive and negative.
Yes.
I was describing the configuaration of the speaker wire from amp to speaker. When we are lazy, we just use it with the twist it comes out of the donor cable.
A FR typically does not draw a lot of current, but using anything thinner becomes impractical — sneeze and yo have broken the cable.
dave
I was describing the configuaration of the speaker wire from amp to speaker. When we are lazy, we just use it with the twist it comes out of the donor cable.
A FR typically does not draw a lot of current, but using anything thinner becomes impractical — sneeze and yo have broken the cable.
dave
Amazing! I have about 450 feet of Cat 6 cable in my basement leftover from putting a router in my detached garage to increase my wifi range.
I was looking for wiring suggestions for my first DIY OB (drivers to binding posts) and came across this thread.
- Does Cat5/5E/6 matter? Which is best?
- Does shielded (screened) or unshielded matter?
- Assume that single pair means e.g blue striped for +ve and solid blue -ve? i.e a pair that is already twisted. And same on both sides.
- Is the Teflon for the outside gray/white jacket or the jacket of each individual wire?
- Is there a way to identify PVC vs Teflon? If Teflon isn't available is PVC ok?
- For the woofers is it better to go with 16awg solid core enamelled copper or 16awg stranded?
- A bit OT but no binding post would be best but I'll have to. Which is the best bang for buck?
Thanks
- Does Cat5/5E/6 matter? Which is best?
- Does shielded (screened) or unshielded matter?
- Assume that single pair means e.g blue striped for +ve and solid blue -ve? i.e a pair that is already twisted. And same on both sides.
- Is the Teflon for the outside gray/white jacket or the jacket of each individual wire?
- Is there a way to identify PVC vs Teflon? If Teflon isn't available is PVC ok?
- For the woofers is it better to go with 16awg solid core enamelled copper or 16awg stranded?
- A bit OT but no binding post would be best but I'll have to. Which is the best bang for buck?
Thanks
You are looking for the solid core wire, preferably with teflon insulation. We use a pair of strands pulled from the wire. Teflon is a bitch to strip.
As far as shielding, speaker cable ususally does not need any, and the short piece inside the box even less so.
With woofers we will often use 4 strands, even 8, one of the reasons we choose the skinny wire is for the HF performance so that can be sacrificed for a woofer in exchange for lower R wire.
No binding posts is best, buy often too inconvenient.
dave
As far as shielding, speaker cable ususally does not need any, and the short piece inside the box even less so.
With woofers we will often use 4 strands, even 8, one of the reasons we choose the skinny wire is for the HF performance so that can be sacrificed for a woofer in exchange for lower R wire.
No binding posts is best, buy often too inconvenient.
dave
Yes, Bob. If you want, more exotic 24g solid is available.
Neotech UPOCC 24 AWG Teflon Insulation Cryo Treated - Neotech Cryo Treated Copper & Silver Hook-up Wire -
Much pricier than free, but still cheap.
dave
After a lot of searching I found something by stereophile on testing speaker cables ( using a large Tannoy driver ), the general conclusion was fat wires good. In this respect I've made some out of solid core cat5, one complete cable for positive, one complete cable for negative. Because there's a gap down the middle of cat5 it should help with the skin effect ( just in the remote possibility it effects speaker cables )because it's solid core there's less surface area than lots of very fine strands, so less capacitance ( just in caes that has an effect ), I twisted the cables whilst taping them together to help with RF rejection ( just in case that has an effect. And they're well cheap. I've also used 350 ohm downfeeder, wide spaced ladder cable that looks strikingly like terelium q very expensive stuff minus the outer braid.
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