DIY speaker cables

[Nicolaskl]

I'm sure some of you have heard of these, but I haven't seen any posts from anyone on the board that's actually tried, so here they are:

Some of the science (?) behind them:

http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

Low inductance: It has been demonstrated that low inductance is a desirable quality to have in a speaker cable due to the strong relationship between inductance and signal risetime. My source for this information was an article in the Winter of 1995 Audio Ideas Guide by a retired Bell Labs engineer named James H. Hayward. His conclusions were, simply put, the lower the inductance, the faster the risetime when using a cable in the amplifier/speaker interface. By using twisted pairs (with each wire within the pair used as opposite polarity), we keep the inductance to a minimum.

Symmetrical field interactions: By using the braiding technique described, it substantially reduces any asymmetrical field interactions since no pair (or wire) "rides" on either the inside or outside of the cable more than any other pair/wire. I learned this theory from reading an interview with Roger Skoff (XLO) published in Stereophile a few years back.

Quality materials: Although it would be more ideal to use higher purity oxygen-free copper with long grain structure (or better yet OCC copper), the solid bare copper in the Cat5 should be sufficient for our purpose of making an inexpensive DIY speaker cable which WILL rival many higher priced commercial cables. The Teflon insulation has a low dielectric coefficient and is considered to be one of the best dielectrics available. I would like to thank Jon Risch, who has also done extensive research in the area of sonic attributes of different cable materials, and has proven to be a valuable reference throughout my early cable projects.

Individually insulated 24 ga. conductors: "Skin-effect" should be negligible through 20 Khz, due to the 24 ga. conductor size. I am not a fan of stranded copper cables due to the oxidation that builds up between strands. Copper oxide is a semi-conductor, and may adversely affect the signal quality. For this reason, individually insulated conductors are ideal.

Audioholics cable shootout:

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/cables/diy-speaker-cable-faceoff

You start with this:

Cut it open and you get four of these (four 24 AWG twisted pairs, so a total of 8 wires):

Braid three of those together and you get one of these:

Do that three times and braid the three together and you get one of these:

Do all of it another three times and braid them together and you get this:

Separate out each wire from each twisted pair (white with white, colored with colored), strip the ends, and you get this:

That'll be for my center channel. It ended up a little shorter than I wanted but it still should be long enough (it's about 6', worst comes to worst I'll have to put my receiver on the TV stand below the TV rather than in the audio rack, which actually would be nice in some ways). I've started on the main wires, they'll be twice as long and I have to do two of em, so it's gonna be a major pain in the ass pretty much.

The end result is 54 solid copper 24 AWG wires, 27 for + and 27 for -. Adds up to an equivalent of 10 AWG.

Once I get some techflex (couldn't find any locally so I had to order some) and heat shrink and my banana plugs on them they should look great.

I'm not sure if they'll sound any better. They're 10 ga and my current wire is 14 ga I believe, so that'll be good. The measurable specs according to Audioholics testing are excellent and from the research I've done the "golden ears" are fairly impressed with them and compare them to much more expensive wires.

At the very least it'll look cool having my speakers hooked up with something the size of a garden hose, plus they're pretty cheap (50 bucks worth of Cat 5e and I'm going to end up with a bunch left over also).