I see I am WAY behind this 12-year-old thread, but here's my 2 cents from a little bit of experience:
After making up some nice speaker cables for myself, some of my local audiophile friends wanted some too. Do they offer any benefit? As long as they're pure copper (i.e., NOT CCA or any other junk) and terminated correctly, the answer would be a resounding "No." However, do they look nice, or are aesthetically pleasing? YES! I like them because my mains have visibly exposed speaker cables coming from my amp.
As a result of making several sets, I've made them with two different brands of 12/2 CL2 wire. My first sets were from wire I bought from parts-express, but when I needed more wire, Monoprice had some that was on sale for 50% off, which of course, with everything else being equal (AWG, OFC, etc), was absolutely the way to go!
However, there were some differences.. While I was able to get cable pants (8mm) installed on the parts-express wire (with some difficulty) I was unable to install them on the wire I ordered from Monoprice AT ALL. I simply could not get it done, which is why I ended up here..
I tried all of the suggestions mentioned in this thread (and others) but none of them worked on the Monoprice wire.
The difference between the OD of the individual conductors from the two brands was only about 0.2-0.3mm, but it was enough to go from "possible, but with difficulty" to "NOT possible AT ALL." I believe the difference between the two is small enough that it is entirely possible that it's only a difference in production runs. I would have to buy more spools and measure them to be certain, and I'm not going to do that until I need them. Instead, when it's impossible to use cable pants, I'll just go the heat shrink route.
Here's my process for installing cable pants on wire that's small enough:
- Strip enough of the outside jacket around both conductors so that the length of the individual conductors is twice that of the full length of the cable pants.
- Carefully work one of the conductors through the cable pants until about 1/4 to 1/2 inch is protruding from the cable pants "leg."
- Carefully work the second conductor through the other "leg" until it has the same length sticking out.
- Grasp the conductor ends with some needle-nose pliers or a vise, and then use your fingers to push the ends of the cable pants "legs" back toward the rest of the wire (towards the outer jacket or TechFlex) ALL IN ONE SMOOTH MOTION until the base of the pants cover the end of the outer jacket or TechFlex.
- Terminate the conductors as you normally would.
How close to the cable pants should I install the terminal plugs? For me, it depends on the terminal plug itself. If they are spades or simple bananas (i.e. no case or collar, etc.) I will use heat shrink to tidy things up. However, when I use locking bananas or other plugs with large bodies or collars, I install them such that the end of the cable pants leg butts up to the back collar of the plug. See attached pics:
Here's my process (I think) to use heat shrink only:
- First, make the terminations. If needed (for bulky terminal plugs, etc.) slide the heat shrink over the wire first. If you're going to solder the terminations, you might need to make the smaller heat shrink pieces shorter and provide more overlap at the 'Y' end after the smaller heat shrink is moved into position.
- Use smaller heat shrink for the individual conductors (1/4") up to the outer jacket (where the 'Y' splits off) and larger heat shrink to cover the 'Y' section and keep it tidy.
- Move the smaller heat shrink into position and apply heat to the smaller heat shrink on the individual conductors.
- Move the larger heat shrink into position and apply heat.
It might be necessary to use enough of the larger heat shrink to make up for shorter individual pieces of heat shrink that have to be used because you are soldering your connections:
I hope this helps!
All the best,
Dave
