Speaker cable

[robert]

Good Day


What would the forum members recommend for cheapish speaker cable,and has any one used satellite cable ?.

Robert

[pre65]

Cat5 computer cable.

[Mike H]

Or cat6, wires a bit thicker

[robert]

Thanks, for your replies, but is there a more expensive type of cable that would do a better job, without breaking the bank so to speak.

robert

[pre65]

Do you think Cat5 or Cat6 is too inexpensive ?

We recommend it because it is good.

[IslandPink]

I don't think satellite cable is much good . Perhaps OK as a bass-only cable.
The CAT5 recipe I've heard was this one :
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/ffrc_e.html
and it was very nice. I think it would be difficult to beat for less than £300 .
There is substantial discussion of Tellurium Q cables elsewhere :
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/phpBB2/view ... sc&start=0
although it's fairly 'light' on actual listening observations .

Hearing both in a good system, I felt CAT5 FFRC was a definite contender against the TQ Blue, being better from the midrange up, though the TQ Blue seemed more dynamic and better from the midrange down .

I haven't heard too many other things in decent systems that would be relevant to your question .

[The Stratmangler]

6 amp 2 core mains flex is good

[Greg]

Robert, I don't think you can go far wrong with Cat 5 cables. There are several variations and recipes. When you look at some of the options, you'll realise that some recipies are more expensive than others.

Go to http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/tweaks.html and click on DIY: Cables and you'll quickly see you have several options.

I have used the ones Mark (IslandPink) has recommended but in my experience, the better, albeit more expensive choice is the 'Twisted Twins'. http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/triple_t_e.html

I've been using these for about ten years and remain totally satisfied with them. I've tried other options in my system but to date have found nothing I prefer.

[Scottmoose]

Oh, blow it. I wasn't going to, & I'm innundated with work but I'll take five to post, continuing my perverse side-interest in wire. Although I continue to maintain when it comes to wire, life is too short to worry about it. So.

-IMO, forget sat. cable, or similar cross-connected coax based wire. You can drop inductance (so ultimately HF BW is greater), capacitance rises (not great), and over a longer run, or with lower efficiency speakers, you can (can) end up with excessive voltage drop since the gauge is modest. That might be useful, a restriction, negative, or no real change depending on your particular system. Either way, it's not worth the effort.

-Simple speaker wire of the type you can buy on a spool from Maplin or similar is fine for most uses. Is it the 'ultimate?' No. Does it do a decent job, to the point that any improvements are relatively minor? Yes. To the best of my knowledge, in double-blind tests between wires of equivalent RLC specs., nobody has been able to hear the difference between cheap zip / lamp wire along these lines and something with hyper-refined conductors, fancy dilectrics etc. BTW, forget the waffle cranked out by the wire companies about 'strand-jumping' et al. There is no evidence to show any such thing occurs. And forget skin effect while you're at it. A 10ft long run of ordinary 12ga zip wire has the grand total of about 0.2dB drop at 20KHz into a 2ohm load through skin effect. Worried? Thought not.

-Straightforward solid core mains wire is fine; solid core has a slight edge over stranded since there's less surface area to potentially corrode.

-Cat5 based wires e.g. the above can do an excellent job; there's a reason why many people are perfectly satisfied with them. Just watch the capacitance with certain heavily twisted versions, which some amplifiers might not like.

-Here's an alternative you can try that doesn't cost the Earth. Either buy some cheap biwire cable e.g. the stuff at Richer Sounds, or get a couple of spools of simple speaker wire from Maplin or similar. 16ga or better (preferably better). If you buy the biwire, just connect the two left hand wires together & the two right hand wires together, & use as normal. If you buy ordinary twin wires, lay them out flat & tape them together, top & bottom to keep them flat. Then do the same with the conductors. Voila! Nice flat low-capacitance wire with modest inductance. You can even claim you now have double-shotgun speaker cable. Want a low inductance version? Fine. Connect alternate wires together. Bit of fun. And there's plenty more where that came from.

[Andrew]

Another alternative to try is ariel feed wire, get it at a a HAM radio shop, looks and works like DNM speaker cable. If its good enough for HAMs probably more than fine for us.

Andrew

[robert]

Thanks for your replies, I will make up some cables to try and will report back to you.

robert

[Mike H]

To be honest that's the best idea ~ just try out different sorts of wire, some may be surprising, and in different ways

[robert]

Another question that came to mind, as the quality of the speaker cable got any barring on the distortion factor , IE the better the cable the better the distortion figures.

Robert

[IslandPink]

I believe it needs very sensitive kit to reveal any sort of distortion differences in cables, and the effects are tiny . It still seems a mysterious issue, same as capacitors - most of which test amazingly well, but the differences are plain to hear if you are familar with your system .
This is why cable discussions get so heated, because it tends to revert to arguments between objectivists and subjectivists .

[andrew Ivimey]

So are you an 'objectivist' or a 'subjectivist' Mark ?