DIY Disaster? Steel Speaker Wires....bad?

[Mozhoven]

Hello,

Some of you may have recently seen some of my post regarding the building of the "FFRC" cable made out of Cat 5e cable.

The materials call for a sold core, solid copper (or silver) Cat 5e cable. It says to avoid tinned or steel wires at all cost.

Well, I found a really cheap price on Ebay (my first mistake) and the seller never did respond to my questions regarding it's make-up. I went ahead a bid deciding that $30 for 250' wouldn't be that big a deal if it turned out to be the wrong stuff.

Well, I got it in and stripped the wires and found (what I thought was) copper. So, I went though the laborious task of braiding and terminating two 80' cables - It took days.

The sound was ok, but nothing spectacular. I figured they needed to be broken in. Purely by accident, I happened to bump a magnet into the wire. Guess what....it stuck. Crap.

So, do I bite the bullet and order the real stuff and start over, or is this wire ok? What would copper do (or not do) that steel does?

 

[Zorander]

Isn't magnet supposed to stick to most metals, including copper, anyway?

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zorander /img/forum/go_quote.gif Isn't magnet supposed to stick to most metals, including copper, anyway?

Cooper??? No man cooper is a not magnetic metal...

 

[swduncan]

Magnets stick to ferrous metals, which are mostly iron. Copper is a different metal altogether. It's kinda wild that someone would actually go to the trouble of counterfeiting wire though.

 

[Mozhoven]

Well, I know copper is selling very high right now. Other metals too, like Tin. - I heard of someone stealing a Henry Moore bronze sculpture (very big) in England presumably to sell for scrap. China is eating up the world's resources (most likely to make our junk).

As for counterfeiting, I'm not sure that is what is going on here. I just think that it is a budget wire that is coated with the minimum amount of copper to make it viable. But I could be wrong here, someone correct me if I am.

So, is this wire viable for my purposes?

 

[Sovkiller]

If you are looking into the FFRC cable made out of Cat 5e cable, the steel wire is not the way ot go, get the cooper one...you will not get the results that are described in the project, as you are using a different material, if the original was cooper...

 

[Fitz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by swduncan /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's kinda wild that someone would actually go to the trouble of counterfeiting wire though.

Copper clad steel is very common wire and has specific purposes, it is not "counterfeit" copper wire or just "budget" wire.

 

[Mozhoven]

Believe me,

Had I known it was steel, I would not have bought it or go the the trouble of braiding it (those of you who have done it will understand!). I'm just trying to find out the audible difference between steel and copper and if my current copper-clad steel wire is useless or not.

 

[LeonvB]

Resistance and capacitance are totally different from the cable you're trying to make. Of all materials, copper is simply the best "low cost" material to make your cable from. If you're using steel now, you'd have to increase the number of strains to counter the higher resistance, esp. if you're using long runs and/or low impedance speakers. That however has it's influence on the capacitance of the resulting wire, which might even degrade the sound further. Best would be to start over with copper wire, and perhaps compare it to the steel wire now you've put so much effort in it anyway.

 

[Kees]

I don't know what steel wire would sound like, but I made my version of this cable for my main set up using cat5 utp and it sounds perfect.
I am a very critical listener and tried numerous different cables, including ridiculously expensive Siltechs, and these are the best in my set up. Hands down.

 

[Mozhoven]

Well,

I'm definitely going to rebuild it with proper copper cable, but can't decide between Cat 5e or the new Cat 6. Supposedly the bandwidth is higher on Cat 6, but I don't know if that translates into any improved performance audibly.

Any suggestions?

 

[nikongod]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeonvB /img/forum/go_quote.gif Resistance and capacitance are totally different from the cable you're trying to make. Of all materials, copper is simply the best "low cost" material to make your cable from. If you're using steel now, you'd have to increase the number of strains to counter the higher resistance, esp. if you're using long runs and/or low impedance speakers. That however has it's influence on the capacitance of the resulting wire, which might even degrade the sound further. Best would be to start over with copper wire, and perhaps compare it to the steel wire now you've put so much effort in it anyway.

im pretty sure that in the case of any audio-power cable made with ferrous wire the issue is NOT capacitance or resistance, but how magnetic field created by the "flow of power" interacts with the metal of the wire.

when faced with the problems presented by a ferrous conductor, capacitance and resistance are the least of your worries.

 

[LeonvB]

Quote:

magnetic field created

1. It's UTP. Note the Twisted part.
2. The magnetic field you create with a wire is not linked to the material, but depends on the current.

Quote:

can't decide between Cat 5e or the new Cat 6

Get whatever has the lowest AWG number. Most of the time that's CAT 6, the price difference usually isn't that big anymore.

 

[nikongod]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeonvB /img/forum/go_quote.gif The magnetic field you create with a wire is not linked to the material, but depends on the current.

different parts of that are OR are not related to the wire.

the CREATION of the magnetic field is not related to the material that the wire is made of, but what happens to the field once its created is.

the presence of a magnetic field in a ferrous material generally tends to magnetize the material. the fact that the material can stay magnetized after the current leaves it can cause "intersting" interactions with the magnetic field the next cycle creates.

the advantage to nonferrous metals is that as soon as the current leaves it there is no residual magnetism to affect the next cycle.

Its worth note that this (steel cables..) is one of the main reasons that the cable ABX testers specify that the cables are not differentiable by test equipment. a steel cable IS very different from a copper one and the differences show up clearly on average grade equipment.