First attempt DIY speaker cable

[dles1972]

Had fun making these Canare 4S11 cables. Definitely demystified the big brand cable game for me as these kind of blow away my Van Den Hul D-352 and Chord Odyssey, and those two were the best result previously for me under $400. Shocked at the performance so far of the Canare cable which was only $6.50 per meter! Jumper leads next.. 

... 

[tubularbells]

Nice work!

 

[dles1972]

3 hours ago, Tubularbells said:

Nice work!

 

Thanks mate. Ended up pretty easy, so now to experiment with different wire. But to be frank, a wire this inexpensive has no right to sound as good as it does. I know Bill's Cable swears by Canare and I've always scoffed. It's good to be surprised sometimes and you don't always have to shell out $500!

Edited June 19, 2020 by dles1972

[Bill125812]

2 hours ago, dles1972 said:

Had fun making these Canare 4S11 cables. Definitely demystified the big brand cable game for me as these kind of blow away my Van Den Hul D-352 and Chord Odyssey, and those two were the best result previously for me under $400. Shocked at the performance so far of the Canare cable which was only $6.50 per meter! Jumper leads next.. 

... 

Very nice Work indeed 

 

yes Canare 4s8 and 4s11 is  a hidden treasure.  I’m always amazed at how good it is.  Old fashioned Pure copper.  No snake oil at all 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Bill125812

[dles1972]

28 minutes ago, Bill125812 said:

Very nice Work indeed 

 

yes Canare 4s8 and 4s11 is  a hidden treasure.  I’m always amazed at how good it is.  Old fashioned Pure copper.  No snake oil at all 

Bill I'm staggered by the clean detail and frequency extremes to be honest. It's made my existing cables sound like Radio Shack wire and I'm not sure how, and I've gone back and forth multiple times to make sure I'm not biasing my opinion. Thanks for inadvertently sparking my interest in trying it. How does the smaller gauge 4S8 compare to the 11 in sound signature? 

[Bill125812]

6 minutes ago, dles1972 said:

Bill I'm staggered by the clean detail and frequency extremes to be honest. It's made my existing cables sound like Radio Shack wire and I'm not sure how, and I've gone back and forth multiple times to make sure I'm not biasing my opinion. Thanks for inadvertently sparking my interest in trying it. How does the smaller gauge 4S8 compare to the 11 in sound signature? 

In short runs the 4s8 sounds remarkable also. No real difference IMHO to the 4s11.  When you get into longer runs I think the 4s11 comes into it’s own

Edited June 19, 2020 by Bill125812

[joz]

14 hours ago, Bill125812 said:

In short runs the 4s8 sounds remarkable also. No real difference IMHO to the 4s11.  When you get into longer runs I think the 4s11 comes into it’s own

Just to be clear , what do you consider short ? and from what length would consider long?

[Bill125812]

10 minutes ago, joz said:

Just to be clear , what do you consider short ? and from what length would consider long?

I use 4s8 up to 3 1/2m.  4s11 over that 

[davewantsmoore]

18 hours ago, dles1972 said:

Thanks mate. Ended up pretty easy, so now to experiment with different wire.

IMVHO, I think what you have just discoverd is that what matters with cables, is good termination (ie. connectors onto wire), and clean well fitting connectors.

 

The rest is very secondary.... even, to a fair degree the often debated inductance, capacitance, resistance.

 

That beind said, 4S11 is a good cable.

 

[dles1972]

49 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

IMVHO, I think what you have just discoverd is that what matters with cables, is good termination (ie. connectors onto wire), and clean well fitting connectors.

 

The rest is very secondary.... even, to a fair degree the often debated inductance, capacitance, resistance.

 

That beind said, 4S11 is a good cable.

 

Yeah agree, especially the connectors element. I initially bought heavy side entry bananas from Jaycar since I was in there anyway for heat shrink. They did something really weird with the treble, very metallic sounding when I compared back to bare wire. Had some Nakamichi bananas here but read somewhere they are all fake and not copper, rather they are iron with a plating. And again they didn't sound as good as the bare wire. So sourced some nice banana plugs from Carlton Audio which are low mass, copper with gold plating and it sounds great. I'm pretty surprised how much the 3 different banana plugs affect the sound, 2 negatively and the last set getting out of the way of the music nicely. What other cable have you had success with? 

[dles1972]

18 hours ago, Bill125812 said:

In short runs the 4s8 sounds remarkable also. No real difference IMHO to the 4s11.  When you get into longer runs I think the 4s11 comes into it’s own

Bill what's your thoughts on drain wire to the amp end for Speaker cable like 4S11 or any other speaker cable for that matter? 

[Bill125812]

1 hour ago, dles1972 said:

Bill what's your thoughts on drain wire to the amp end for Speaker cable like 4S11 or any other speaker cable for that matter? 

Never really had much time for drain wires to be honest.   You would have to be listening to music for one hell of a long time to build up the the a point where static charge or electromagnetic charge that would effect a well made speaker cable with some shielding included 

[dles1972]

17 minutes ago, Bill125812 said:

Never really had much time for drain wires to be honest.   You would have to be listening to music for one hell of a long time to build up the the a point where static charge or electromagnetic charge that would effect a well made speaker cable with some shielding included 

Agree. Someone asked me if had used a drain wire and really, I can't think of any of my large company made cable that had a drain wire besides Supra 3.4s really 

[Bill125812]

1 minute ago, dles1972 said:

Agree. Someone asked me if had used a drain wire and really, I can't think of any of my large company made cable that had a drain wire besides Supra 3.4s really 

There are a few but not many.  And when some manufacturers actually tell you to just plug the cable in either way and see what sounds better.  Then I worry

[Hytram]

7 hours ago, dles1972 said:

Agree. Someone asked me if had used a drain wire and really, I can't think of any of my large company made cable that had a drain wire besides Supra 3.4s really 

 

It the cable has a screen and a drain cable, then both should be isolated at one end and then connected to the neg at the other,  which end of the then made cable goes is up to you, but if the amp design has the neg to ground, the drain will find its way to ground either way. 

 

Or you could isolate one end and connect the other end to earth. 

 

Will doing it or not make a difference.. In a perfect world with your speaker cable not near anything else, probably not.. 

 

If you have a messy set up with speakers cables running along with power cables then you 'could' run into hum problems. 

 

I would never not terminated a shield cable without terminating one end isolated and the other to path to earth. You can do both, but earth loop hum could happen. 

 

If the cable only has a drain wire and no screen , then don't bother (but why would a cable have only a drain wire? It would only then be a unisolated conductor) 

[Hytram]

10 hours ago, dles1972 said:

. So sourced some nice banana plugs from Carlton Audio

 

May I ask what brand where they and cost? 

[Bill125812]

17 hours ago, dles1972 said:

Yeah agree, especially the connectors element. I initially bought heavy side entry bananas from Jaycar since I was in there anyway for heat shrink. They did something really weird with the treble, very metallic sounding when I compared back to bare wire. Had some Nakamichi bananas here but read somewhere they are all fake and not copper, rather they are iron with a plating. And again they didn't sound as good as the bare wire. So sourced some nice banana plugs from Carlton Audio which are low mass, copper with gold plating and it sounds great. I'm pretty surprised how much the 3 different banana plugs affect the sound, 2 negatively and the last set getting out of the way of the music nicely. What other cable have you had success with? 

I’ve tried a huge range of termination.  From exotic to damn cheap.  IMHO as long as the base metal is good ( a good quality copper, certainly not brass ) then plated with a good quality silver, gold ( not into rhodium ) then the quality of signal transition will be great   There is a lot of snake oil out there with termination 

[dles1972]

2 hours ago, Bill125812 said:

I’ve tried a huge range of termination.  From exotic to damn cheap.  IMHO as long as the base metal is good ( a good quality copper, certainly not brass ) then plated with a good quality silver, gold ( not into rhodium ) then the quality of signal transition will be great   There is a lot of snake oil out there with termination 

Yeah the ones I ended up using from Carlton Audio weren't exotic by any means, just your decent gold plate copper and weren't any more expensive than the hulking brass things I got from jaycar that sounded awful. 

[GaryT]

Canare's 4S8 and 4S11 are just really nicely put together cables with the right insulation materials and a really nice cotton filler at a reasonable, down to earth price. 

 

Glad you like them so much!

 

 

ps.. For even more "worldview shattering" information, the Canare 4S11 isn't even OFC copper.

[pete_mac]

2 hours ago, GaryT said:

 

ps.. For even more "worldview shattering" information, the Canare 4S11 isn't even OFC copper.

 

Very interesting... where did you find this info?

 

I wouldn't be too worried in any case - the difference in conductivity and purity between OFC and ETP copper is sweet-bugger-all. 

 

I'm a very satisfied 4S8 user.

Edited June 22, 2020 by pete_mac

[GaryT]

Canare Specify quite clearly which of their cables are OFC in their catalogue, there is a 4S11G variant with JIS H3510 spec OFC conductors, but it is very rare and is produced to order. The last time I asked about it I was asked to commit to 500m minimum order.

 

I have copies of multiple canare catalogues from the last decade or so, but they are available from their US and JP websites.

 

[pete_mac]

2 minutes ago, GaryT said:

Canare Specify quite clearly which of their cables are OFC in their catalogue, there is a 4S11G variant with JIS H3510 spec OFC conductors, but it is very rare and is produced to order. The last time I asked about it I was asked to commit to 500m minimum order.

 

I have copies of multiple canare catalogues from the last decade or so, but they are available from their US and JP websites.

 

 

Thanks for the info! This catalogue extract reflects exactly what you've said:

 

https://th.c.misumi-ec.com/book/CNR1_ENG_E01/pdf/0058.pdf

 

 

 

[poiah]

I made solid core spk cable from a transformer . Basically with various tools and brute force I dismantled the many t shaped core plates . now with access to coil bobbin I unwound the primary ( approx 12m's) straightened it , put plastic tubing around it ( tedious threading job ) twisted it and noticed immediate sonic improvment . may have been placebo effect but ?

[Warren Jones]

On 21/06/2020 at 12:05 AM, Hytram said:

 

It the cable has a screen and a drain cable, then both should be isolated at one end and then connected to the neg at the other,  which end of the then made cable goes is up to you, but if the amp design has the neg to ground, the drain will find its way to ground either way. 

 

In the trade this is called a guard, and its function is to shield the signal from induced noise. The reason it's connected at ONE END ONLY is so there is no current flow in the shield.

 

This method is used extensively in a calibration laboratory to shield wiring between the standard and unit under test. Unless there a significant source of noise I very much doubt it will have much effect on speaker cables.

 

Nice speaker cables too. I agree with earlier comment on the connection being the most important aspect.

[Grizaudio]

If you are not changing speakers or cables often, just use bare wire. 
The best connector is no connector, IMHO.