Home build speaker cables

[Mark E. Long]

probably or something else would have changed at the same time (like Speakers , Room behaviour etc) and people mistakenly attribute the difference(improvement) to Cables!

Could have been upgrading to better components and speakers too some at the same time whole sale change out are or were common in my household till I achieved what I was after .

 

[MR.MAGOO]

Doesn’t expensive cables make the mids more chocolately ?

Expensive cables will probably improve the financials of the company selling them, just not necessarily the sound of your home system.

 

[Rusty Dogg]

Hey Mark,

I'm a bit of a tinkerer as well, I looked at the ready made cables and they are way overpriced for me too ( or a lot of people really )
I ended up ordering a 50mt roll of 12awg ofc with in wall jacket, banana plugs and cable braid to dress it up, ( I know this is just asthetic , but hey, anything to jazz it up )
Saved a bundle, and it kept me occupied for a few hrs
And I think it does sound better, that's all that matters I guess , , , ,

 

[highfigh]

wanting to build my own custom speaker cables been looking at canare 4s11 star quad . Ive read some good points about this brand any body use this terminated with good banna plugs . are there links anywhere .

'Star quad' is a term used for marketing and I have lost any respect for Markertek that I had, for using that in their ad for the Canare wire I saw. The graphs I saw in that ad showed a serious loss of high frequency response above 2KHz, too- that's unforgivable and likely incorrect. Canare is a good brand but the ads I saw would cause me to contact them to find out if the graphs are correct.

 

[Mark E. Long]

Hey Mark,

I'm a bit of a tinkerer as well, I looked at the ready made cables and they are way overpriced for me too ( or a lot of people really )
I ended up ordering a 50mt roll of 12awg ofc with in wall jacket, banana plugs and cable braid to dress it up, ( I know this is just asthetic , but hey, anything to jazz it up )
Saved a bundle, and it kept me occupied for a few hrs
And I think it does sound better, that's all that matters I guess , , , ,

Very nice work on those my finished product I hope will look as good although I might forego the neat looking outer covering iam still researching plugs and different sources theres a million of them out there lol .

 

[Mark E. Long]

'Star quad' is a term used for marketing and I have lost any respect for Markertek that I had, for using that in their ad for the Canare wire I saw. The graphs I saw in that ad showed a serious loss of high frequency response above 2KHz, too- that's unforgivable and likely incorrect. Canare is a good brand but the ads I saw would cause me to contact them to find out if the graphs are correct.

doly noted ive seen severl of there graphs and did notice the drop out above the noted freq . Then ive seen one or two others that didn't show that so a email to them will be sent before I get to crazy with the project . thank you for pointing it out it caused me to further inspect this I mean free cable or not if there is a problem with it id rather know now than invest time and effort ill see what thay say .

 

[Speedskater]

'Star quad' is a term used for marketing and I have lost any respect for Markertek that I had, for using that in their ad for the Canare wire I saw.

No, StarQuad is a legitimate interconnect cable that pros use when dealing with harsh interference environments.

The graphs I saw in that ad showed a serious loss of high frequency response above 2KHz, too- that's unforgivable and likely incorrect.

Those graphs must have typos. While StarQuad cable might have twice the total capacitance of a good Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) they are still used for interconnects hundreds of feet long.

 

[Kingnoob]

Some people use it, it's probably overkill tho....regular old 12g speaker wire from Monoprice works great. Canare, Mogami, Belden all make fine stock, too, but at higher prices for no particular advantage. Links to what, tho? How to connect a banana plug? Why do you want to use banana plugs? Convenience? Making frequent changes?

Yeah I’d personally invest in diy subwoofers or maybe sound , and room acoustics bass traps before you try making your own speaker wires .
...
Monoprice and parts express have dirt cheap cable , buy a super thick gauge if you want to have the perfect cables . I use 12 awg but I want thicker wire someday ..


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[Kingnoob]

If it’s free, go for it.
I don’t believe cables will change the sound quality one bit. Some argue differently. But what your goal is, here, is to provide good conductivity for an electrical signal. That is it. Proper gauge for the distance and impedance of the load (speaker) and a good connection at either end of that conductor.

50 foot of free cAble yeah go for it but you need to make sure your not creating a big fire hazard.. saving money is not worth burning down your house and losing all the speakers In The process .


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[Kingnoob]

We already did this with our friend:

Banana Plugs

any thoughts or recommendations on good quality banana plugs for speaker wire and where to purchases them from Thanks in advance !

forums.audioholics.com

I did put in a mention for them!

Yeah go there .... I’ve never actually tried to make my own banana plugs sounds tough .
I got some off amazon Sewell direct or something super cheap and same as monster cable .


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[Mark E. Long]

Yeah go there .... I’ve never actually tried to make my own banana plugs sounds tough .
I got some off amazon Sewell direct or something super cheap and same as monster cable .


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I ended up getting plugs off ram electronics they got a good variety to choose from from a few bucks to some of the most expensive ive ever herd of . Also got a few nice lockable to try from parts express . Hey it was free cable to try iam only out the price of a few banna plugs and the time to tinker around .

 

[highfigh]

No, StarQuad is a legitimate interconnect cable that pros use when dealing with harsh interference environments.


Those graphs must have typos. While StarQuad cable might have twice the total capacitance of a good Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) they are still used for interconnects hundreds of feet long.

This is speaker wire- interference isn't an issue very often for that application and speaker cable is rarely shielded. "Hundreds of feet long" isn't common in residential use and if the cable has to go that far, it needs to be LowZ, balanced and usually, it needs a line or distribution amplifier. Anyone who tries to send signal hundreds of feet over unbalanced HiZ from consumer electronic equipment doesn't understand signal transmission.

BTW- I have sold and installed audio equipment for decades, as an employee and owner- most line audio cable has been shielded twisted pair for over 100 years and in the beginning, it wasn't even shielded because it's often not needed. Star quad is relatively new and more of a marketing device. WRT comment about using a line/distribution amplifier- I worked for an audio contractor and we did installations in LDS facilities with satellite dishes for some of their programming. We used thin Belden shielded twisted pair cable and many runs were close to 500 feet long, with zero noise. These were retro-fit jobs and the cabling was laid along with various other types, including power wiring in BX and conduit. The Electrical Engineer would never have allowed noise in the systems- his and our being used by LDS leaders would have quickly ended if it had been noisy.

There is NO 'designer' AV gear or cabling used in the commercial audio world.

 

[Speedskater]

This is speaker wire- interference isn't an issue very often for that application and speaker cable is rarely shielded. "Hundreds of feet long" isn't common in residential use and if the cable has to go that far, it needs to be LowZ, balanced and usually, it needs a line amplifier. Anyone who tries to send signal hundreds of feet over unbalanced HiZ from consumer electronic equipment doesn't understand signal transmission.

Oops, I lost track of what type of cable we were talking about. Shielded StarQuad is sometimes used by the pros for balanced interconnects. More so in harsh interference situations.
Unbalanced interconnects will have many issues past 50 feet.
Much heaver 4 conductor cable (but seldom shielded) can be wired as a StarQuad speaker cable. True that speaker cable seldom acts as an interference receiving antenna, but never say never.
One advantage of a StarQuad loudspeaker cable is lower loop inductance. But this only matters with loudspeakers that have a very low impedance at high frequencies (think Apogee and some Martin Logan).

 

[highfigh]

Oops, I lost track of what type of cable we were talking about. Shielded StarQuad is sometimes used by the pros for balanced interconnects. More so in harsh interference situations.
Unbalanced interconnects will have many issues past 50 feet.
Much heaver 4 conductor cable (but seldom shielded) can be wired as a StarQuad speaker cable. True that speaker cable seldom acts as an interference receiving antenna, but never say never.
One advantage of a StarQuad loudspeaker cable is lower loop inductance. But this only matters with loudspeakers that have a very low impedance at high frequencies (think Apogee and some Martin Logan).

I used it once, to make balanced LoZ interconnects for a home theater using a Krell AV preamp and power amp. They hummed because the electrician didn't understand why I wanted him to wire the outlets a certain way, so he didn't. I replaced them with some Planet Waves cables and it has been noise-free since then, even after replacing the preamp with a Denon AVR.

In practice, the vast majority of this "high end" stuff doesn't matter.

 

[Mark E. Long]

50 foot of free cAble yeah go for it but you need to make sure your not creating a big fire hazard.. saving money is not worth burning down your house and losing all the speakers In The process .


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Iam not understanding how changing to a different speaker cable will burn down my home and burn up my speakers . your input is appreciated on this .

 

[NINaudio]

Iam not understanding how changing to a different speaker cable will burn down my home and burn up my speakers . your input is appreciated on this .

Don't worry about what Noob says.

 

[Mark E. Long]

Don't worry about what Noob says.

A Gran of salt my friend lol ! Ive played with stereo's since 1975 now I may have cooked an amp or two in those years ( Especially a nice Sound craftsmen years back ) but never flamed on from good cables . Its all good !