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DIY speaker cables/ ribbons

153.36.216.6

Posted on July 16, 1999 at 02:35:58
Caleb


 
I have heard of using ribbon cables for speaker cables. Is this effective, and if so how would one configure such a cable for maximume sound quality?

I would of course use this cable in a bi-wired setup.

 

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Re: DIY speaker cables/ ribbons, posted on July 16, 1999 at 02:47:08
Mart


 
I would tend to think that ribbon cable was ment to repalce biwiring.

 

sorry, I'm back now ..., posted on July 16, 1999 at 05:17:32
Mart


 
as I was saying ...
I would tend to think that ribbon cable was ment to replace biwiring, since HFs would migrate to the ends and LFs would migrate to the center. Although this behavior would be more dramatic than that found in common circular wire, a much larger common full-frequency baseline value would be in existance than that found in round.

 

Re: DIY speaker cables/ ribbons, posted on July 16, 1999 at 07:56:18
Yes, one could use ribbon cables, IF one could find a ribbon cable that did not use vinyl (PVC, or poly vinyl chloride) insulation, and tinned copper wires, both of which degrade the performance.

The downside of most ribbon cables is the excessive capacitance when used cross-connected, as much as 500 to 1000 pF per foot, whch means even a 10 foot speaker cable will have as much as 10,000 pF of capacitance. WHile this is not a problem in terms of HF roll-off, it is in terms of amplifier stability, as 0.01 uF (=10,000 pF) is enough to cause some amps to become unstable or oscillate. Longer cables are that much more of a problem.

The tinned copper will not allow the best clarity, and bare copper is to be preffered.

I talk about these things and other items in some DIY audio cable notes at my website, see the FAQ section of this board for the URL. There are alterrnatives to the ribbon cable, and ones that use superior materials.

Jon Risch

 

Re: sorry, I'm back now ..., posted on July 17, 1999 at 16:41:36
I bought some 50-conductor 30-gage non-tinned copper, divided it in half for low +/- and ran another cable for the highs. Works great. I did not try to interleave it.

Mouser Electronics sells it for around $80/100ft.

Later I replaced it with Flat Wire. Small but real improvement.

 

Re: sorry, I'm back now ..., posted on July 17, 1999 at 16:54:28
Oh, one other thing.

Teflon is really nice. But if you want try flat ribbon cable, make a make a contribution to a nice organization, get out your prayer rug and ask forgiveness, and then use the available pvc insulation for your experiment. It's cheap and it is surprisingly good in this application. Later, if you are sold on flat ribbon, you can worry about finding teflon insulation.

 

Re: sorry, I'm back now ..., posted on July 17, 1999 at 21:50:28
The way you hooked you ribbon cable up has little performance advantage over zip cord, the inductance is not reduced that much, without the interleaving, the nearby conductors all carry signals in the same polarity and the mutual inductance is of the same polarity as the self-inductance. Instead of helping cancel the self-inductance, it will add, and make the inductance higher. Despite having 25 conductors to use, the signal will not have the super low inductance of 25 pairs of interleaved conductors, but will be only slightly less than zip cord.

The bare copper will help, but this type of cable is not common, the tinned copper is much more prevelant. At least zip cord is available in bare copper. If you did a three braid with zip cord, it would have lower inductance than your 50 conductor ribbon cable.

If you thought that it sounded good, then realize how much better it could be with better materials and an alternate electrical geometry.

Jon Risch

 

Re: sorry, I'm back now ..., posted on July 18, 1999 at 17:44:42
Jon: did you try it? I did. I have found that standard electrical engineering theory sometimes doesn't work in high-end audio. Why don't you give it a try before concluding that it doesn't work?

 

Re: sorry, I'm back now ..., posted on July 18, 1999 at 20:49:50
les,

Yes, I tried many differnt combinations of wires and cables for use as speaker cables, and a computer ribbon was one of them.

While I do talk about theory a lot, it helps to realize that the whole
reason I began looking into cables, and learning about the theory and materials science and capacitor technology is that I heard a difference in cables where classic engineering teachings said there shouldn't be any.

Jon Risch

 

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