[DaveBSC]

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Thanks for the recommendations, very helpful.  I think I actually may just DIY the cables at this rate.  Looked at the prices and saw that the actual cables for even $200-600 cables are being sold from the manufacturer for about $0.93/ft.
 
Is there a good place to read about the kinds of cables/wire available, and the best connectors/terminators to pair them with?  Is there a good thread I can read for the equipment I need to make a proper cable?  I have a lot of shop equipment on-hand, so if it's standard stuff, I probably have it all already.  The Oyaide and Furutek bulk wire suggestions look very attractive.
 
The main thing I'm struggling with is that I'm going to have a cv transformer located 20ft or so away, so I need to figure out the best way to manage that distance in between.  I was thinking of having a good quality splitter run directly from the transformer, then use 1.5-2m cables to connect from the splitter to the amp, D/A, etc.  One thing I'm not sure about is if I need a fantastic cable for that 15-20 feet of distance between transformer and splitter, and if all the cables need to be the same, like if I had to stick with the Furutech or Oyaide throughout.  Qty2 4.5m cables and qty1 7m cable would probably run close to $700 for the wires alone for the Oyaide, and that doesn't count the connectors.

The Cable Co and Parts Connexion both have good selections of bulk wire. VH Audio also sells their own stuff in bulk, as well as wire from Neotech, Oyaide, Furutech, and Acrolink. Aside from bulk wire which just requires connectors and possibility a bit of soldering, there's also hook-up wire, which is just raw insulated or uninsulated wire and comes in stranded, round or rectangular solid core, or litz. I don't really recommend working with litz wire because its a PITA, each insulated strand has to be stripped in order to terminate it.
 
You can just braid hook-up wire if you want and then add some plugs. That's all standard Kimber cables are. Three runs of Neotech teflon insulated 22AWG OCC solid core in a tri-braid would make for a really nice interconnect, at a total cost of about $6/ft. If you want to follow other types of spiral designs, you'll need hollow tubes to act as a support structure.
 
For a long power cord run, I would use a large gauge (12AWG+ per leg) with a braided metal and foil shield. Very long power cords are susceptible to EMI and RF, and you want the shielding to block that out. If your using shielded bulk AC, you connect the shield at the wall end, (via the ground terminal) and leave it open at the component end. Connecting both sides turns the shield into an antenna, which is self defeating.
 
Other than that, you need some glue lined heatshrink, which acts as a boot and holds the connectors and Techflex in place. If you want to work with multiple stranded conductors, I highly recommend using crimp sleeves. For power cables Marinco, Hubbell, and Wattgate plugs are all pretty similar and work equally well. The Shurter IECs are a few bucks cheaper, but a pain to work with.
 
 

 

[JRG1990]

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I'm sorry guys I just died of laughter after reading this Wiki article on "Speaker wire".  Let me quote a few parts...

"Better purification of oxidizing materials such as copper is said to result in more consistent conductive properties throughout the length of the wire, but this is a non-issue in terms of its effect on sound quality."

What exactly is the point of silver then..?

"Even with poor-quality wire, an audible degradation of sound may not exist. Many supposedly audible differences in speaker wire can be attributed to listener bias or the placebo effect."

You guys are reading this right?  They just spat in the face of anything (speaker wire) even entry-level.

"...manufacturers' practice of making claims about their products either with no valid engineering or scientific basis, or of no real-world significance."

Damn, Wiki is on a roll!

This next one is almost a mockery of audiophiles...    "Many manufacturers catering to audiophiles (as well as those supplying less expensive retail markets) also make unmeasurable, if poetic, claims about their wire sounding open, dynamic, or smooth. To justify these claims, many cite electrical properties such as skin effect, characteristic impedance of the cable, or resonance, which are generally little understood by consumers. None of these has any measurable effect at audio frequencies, though each matters at radio frequencies."

Wow, these people sound like con artists.  At least I understand what is making the difference in sound, some people have the superhuman ability to hear radio frequencies, how they got into the recording in the first place is beyond me, but some are hearing it

 
Large gauge , low resistance zip cord is best for speaker cables , if your told otherwise your being deceived.
 
 
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For a long power cord run, I would use a large gauge (12AWG+ per leg) with a braided metal and foil shield. Very long power cords are susceptible to EMI and RF, and you want the shielding to block that out. If your using shielded bulk AC, you connect the shield at the wall end, (via the ground terminal) and leave it open at the component end. Connecting both sides turns the shield into an antenna, which is self defeating.
 
Other than that, you need some glue lined heatshrink, which acts as a boot and holds the connectors and Techflex in place. If you want to work with multiple stranded conductors, I highly recommend using crimp sleeves. For power cables Marinco, Hubbell, and Wattgate plugs are all pretty similar and work equally well. The Shurter IECs are a few bucks cheaper, but a pain to work with.
 
 

I always use this lapp cable for my long extension block runs, http://www.mains-cables-r-us.co.uk/cable-off-the-reel/291-lapp-olflex-classic-mains-cable.html .
 

 

[K93George]

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Large gauge , low resistance zip cord is best for speaker cables , if your told otherwise your being deceived.
 

Yes, even a large guage isn't needed though.  Especially not silver.
 
 

 

[DaveBSC]

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Yes, even a large guage isn't needed though.  Especially not silver.

For full range speakers, I wouldn't recommend smaller than 13AWG per terminal. Shielded speaker cables are very uncommon, but there's a good argument for using the "self shielding" star-quad configuration, as opposed to typical two-wire parallel zip cord. Silver speaker cables are an expensive proposition, even if you make them yourself. DH Labs makes some of the more affordable silver hook-up wire, and it's still $15/ft for 18AWG. You'd need at least six runs for a speaker cable, so you're talking $90/ft.
 

 

[DaBomb77766]

As much as people hate Monster around here, how do their standard speaker cables stand up to other cables?  My dad got a short run of it for his (Bose...) speakers, and they seem to be of pretty good quality.  Nice and thick, good insulation and very flexible, and even after being there for several years there's not a single sign of corrosion at the ends of the cable.  Their speaker cables aren't ridiculously expensive either.
 
Still though, I'm sure you could probably get something exactly the same for far less...

 

[DaveBSC]

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Still though, I'm sure you could probably get something exactly the same for far less...

 
Ayup. It's just OFC in PVC tubes, nothing to see here. That said, dirt cheap zip cord does tend to oxidize after a few years though. If you want to spend as little as possible on a good speaker cable, Mogami is your best option.
 
 

 

[Elysian]

My cv transformer (cvt) is about to arrive so I need to rearrange my listening area in order to keep the cvt away from my listening gear.  I don't have time to build a few set of cables right now, so I'm looking for a stopgap measure.
 
Could someone please recommend a budget, properly built power cable that can be ordered as long as 15-20 feet lengths?  I was looking at stock Monoprice and Volex (off of newark.com).  The downside to the Volex was that I could only find it in 1-2meter lengths.  I'd imagine that the power coming from my cvt will be very clean, so I'm not expecting much change from a power cable.
 
Also, just out of curiosity, I'm probably getting a power conditioner to protect my computer gear.  Will it make any effect on music played from the computer?  I know the internals of the computer are incredibly noisy electronically.  Consequently, will feeding the computer with a true sine wave (from the power conditioner) make any sort of difference?  On the other hand, computers are very good at dealing with electronic noise.  I'm debating between a higher-end CyberPower unit or quieter alternatives to cvts.

 

[DaveBSC]

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Could someone please recommend a budget, properly built power cable that can be ordered as long as 15-20 feet lengths?  I was looking at stock Monoprice and Volex (off of newark.com).  The downside to the Volex was that I could only find it in 1-2meter lengths.  I'd imagine that the power coming from my cvt will be very clean, so I'm not expecting much change from a power cable.
 
Also, just out of curiosity, I'm probably getting a power conditioner to protect my computer gear.  Will it make any effect on music played from the computer?  I know the internals of the computer are incredibly noisy electronically.  Consequently, will feeding the computer with a true sine wave (from the power conditioner) make any sort of difference?  On the other hand, computers are very good at dealing with electronic noise.  I'm debating between a higher-end CyberPower unit or quieter alternatives to cvts.

Ram Electronics sells pre-terminated Belden 83803 AC wire up to 35 feet, and Belden 19364 wire up to 33 feet.
 
Power conditioning a computer will make absolutely no difference to the sound. The computer's power supply barely cares about the incoming AC at all. As long as it's anywhere between 100-240V, that's good enough. AC line noise doesn't matter. What's more important is the quality of the computer PSU. The computer components do care about the quality of the DC they are receiving. A great PSU will have an iron grip on the 12V and 5V lines, and DC ripple should be as small as possible. If you do want to use a UPS, get one that is true sine wave. Active PFC power supplies don't like the cheap stuff.
 
 

 

[JRG1990]

Computers generate loads Rf themselfs, and computers power supplys are good enough at conditioning the power, a mains conditioner would be a complete waste of money.

 

[Uncle Erik]

For a long power cable, I'd just get a Home Depot extension cord and reterminate it as necessary.

As for a specialty cable or power conditioning for a computer, that's like installing a reverse-osmosis water filter for your toilet. I'm sure a marketer could find some reason to sell you water filtration for a toilet. But your average switching power supply is a volcano of RFI emissions. It's a radio transmifter spewing hash over all sorts of frequencies. Think of it as a lawn sprinkler showering everything around it with radio noise. Feeding it pure power makes as much sense as, well, using specially filtered water in your toilet.

 

[Elysian]

Thanks for the thoughts.  I also thought that a good computer PSU would be sufficient for conditioning the power.  Chalk my question up to spending too much time reading other audiophile sites.  There's a lot of really eyebrow-raising talk about what you need to do to get the best sound possible out of your computer that makes no sense from an electronics perspective.
 
I read that it's much better to use a perfect sinewave UPS (rather than a simulated sinewave UPS) so I'll keep that in mind.  The only reason I'm buying the unit is to protect my computer from any aberrancies in the power supply, without going overkill.  I can see the value of getting a proper transformer for equipment that you'd want to keep from being influenced (audio, measurement, etc.), but I assumed that it didn't matter what you fed into a computer because of what happens once the PSU starts feeding all the various components within the computer.
 
I'll keep Ram Electronics in mind.  The way I'm going, I might just buy a cheap, bright yellow extension cable at Home Depot or Lowe's, since it seems pointless going beyond a functional AC cord for the PC.
 
The only question is left is how many joules of AC suppression is worth going for.  $500 for a nice 2000 joules unit, while 1500 run about $350-400.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

I'll keep Ram Electronics in mind.  The way I'm going, I might just buy a cheap, bright yellow extension cable at Home Depot or Lowe's, since it seems pointless going beyond a functional AC cord for the PC.
 
The only question is left is how many joules of AC suppression is worth going for.  $500 for a nice 2000 joules unit, while 1500 run about $350-400.

You could also try VH Audio's Flavor 1 AC cord, which is fully shielded and covered in Techflex rather than just bulk wire. The price is pretty reasonable. Chris does custom lengths to probably any length required, but I'm not sure if there's an extra cost for that. Outdoor extension cable is fine for powering a computer, but I wouldn't recommend it with audio components.
 

 

[Elysian]

Interesting, thanks.  I had heard of VH Audio but never checked out the site.  It's good to hear that he does custom lengths, too.
 
I've been thinking about your suggestion about the Oyaide PA-23 DIY cable every day   The cheapest bulk I can find is $54/m at A/V Solutions.  Would you have any other suggestions on where to look?  Some older posts say that the price used to be $40/m, but everything I've found is $54 to $60s.  I'd need to figure out what would be good to terminate the cables with.  One last thing I need to figure out is what to use for the power splitter.  The Oyaide chassis for a power splitter is $300 for the chassis alone!
 
Also, what's your experience in the SQ from shielded vs unshielded power cables?  I've read opinions on both sides.  Some people said it definitely sounds cleaner and tighter with shielded cables, while other people say unshielded sounds fuller.

 

[JRG1990]

My experence is it really depends on the device, with my amp there is 0 difference in sound no matter what power cord is used, same for my cd player, my tv however there is noticeably less noise in the picture and deeper colours.with my shielded belden cord.

 

[Lavcat]

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As much as people hate Monster around here, how do their standard speaker cables stand up to other cables?  My dad got a short run of it for his (Bose...) speakers, and they seem to be of pretty good quality.  Nice and thick, good insulation and very flexible, and even after being there for several years there's not a single sign of corrosion at the ends of the cable.  Their speaker cables aren't ridiculously expensive either.
 
Still though, I'm sure you could probably get something exactly the same for far less...

I bought two short lengths of Monster speaker cable some years ago.  I was not impressed when one of the spade lugs fell off.