Will this make good speaker cable or not?

[Rushsteve]

Hi folks,
The studio I work at has a bunch of Mogami 3160 digital audio (aes/ebu) multicore cable laying around and I was thinking of making some speaker cables out of it. Inside (see attached photo) it's got 2 pairs, with 2 conductors plus shield per pair....I was thinking of combining one set of 2 conductors and shield together for the + and the other set for the -, thus using one cable run per speaker. I doubt I'll find someone here who's used the same stuff for the same purpose but I'm wondering about the general configuration of this stuff....is it suited for speaker cable or not? I know very little about speaker cable construction so any input will be appreciated. I've got enough to devote one whole cable to each side of my speakers if you think that's a good idea.

Thanks!
-Steve

[Garbz]

Speaker cables have 2 main requirements. a) be large enough to handle the current the speaker demands, and b) have the lowest resistance possible. even 0.1ohm can measurably effect performance.

If you have enough cable I'd use a full length for +ve and -ve on each speaker since resistance goes down when you parallel conductors. This will also give you sufficient guage to handle the power sent down them.

Also float the shield! Shields are not usually made of high quality materials, and strands may not even be continuous. They are only required to simply surround a certain percentage of the wire.

[Rushsteve]

Garbz,
Thanks so much for the info, very helpful. I was worried about the gauge and that's why I thought adding the shield in would be good. I've written Mogami to see if they can tell me what their shields are made of, maybe I'll hear back from them. Here are the CD resistance specs on the wire from mogami.com:

Conductor 0.081ohm/m(0.0247W/Ft)
Shield 0.024ohm/m(0.0073W/Ft)

Hmm...this is 10 times higher than Mogami's speaker cable.
What do you like for speaker cable?

Cheers,
Steve

[Sinbios]

Originally Posted by Garbz

Speaker cables have 2 main requirements. a) be large enough to handle the current the speaker demands, and b) have the lowest resistance possible. even 0.1ohm can measurably effect performance.

If you have enough cable I'd use a full length for +ve and -ve on each speaker since resistance goes down when you parallel conductors. This will also give you sufficient guage to handle the power sent down them.

Also float the shield! Shields are not usually made of high quality materials, and strands may not even be continuous. They are only required to simply surround a certain percentage of the wire.

I thought you were supposed to tie one end of the shield to ground?

[Garbz]

Shields are not needed for speakers at all. They are required mainly for interconnects as noise is amplified. Obviously a few mV noise in a 1V signal has a bigger effect then a few mV in a 50V signal. Furthermore speakers have a very low impednace of 4-8ohm typically. This load makes the cable very resistant to noise unlike an interconnect which would be loaded up with 10-500kohm.

I'd float the shield as that stops it shielding anything and potentially effecting the signal as it's transmitted. (Many believe a shield around a cable is bad)

My current cable of choice is http://www.canare.com/index.cfm?obje...06286428706042 which is an 11AWG starquad with no shield. I put that in after a lot of critical listening against the Eichmann Express 6 Series 2 cables which i'll put on ebay shortly. They sounded incredibly similar, the startquad possibly slightly more open, but the main reason is the equipment was moved and the eichmanns wern't long enough.

[]|[ GorE]

i use 9awg cables to connect to my 50W RMS amp.

[Rushsteve]

Garbz,
At this stage I'm looking for cost/performance value and the Canare looks good, and definitely fits the budget at about US$1.00/foot.
One question: are you using one length of cable per speaker? Or one for + and one for - on each speaker?

Thanks,
-Steve

[n_maher]

Steve,

I've also built cables using the 4s11 Canare stuff and found it to be very good, I have 30' of it in my attic right now for a future project . I just used one run per speaker as otherwise you'll have a hard time getting all 4 strands in either the binding post or in some sort of banana connector, especially on the amp side when these things may be clustered closely.

[edit]Markertek.com is my favorite source for this stuff at $.69/ft.

My 2c,

Nate

[Garbz]

Steve I actually use a single run, straight into the bi-wiring posts. However milage may vary. My speakers are B&W Nautilus 805 which are reasonably current hungry. Impednace plots show a minimum impedance of around 4.8ohm.
I tried running 2 lengths per speaker but really there was no audible benefit for me. Bass is still tight and punchy with both.

However a mate of mine with 602s which are significantly more hungry having a lowest impednace somewhere between 3-4ohm there were significant benefits to running 2 cables down to the speaker. Most notably anemic bass when only 1 was used.

I'd say buy 2. It's not that much of an investment. Have a listen, pull one out, if it sounds the same the ball is in your court of what to do next.