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Does anyone have any opinions on what type of wire to use inside of speakers to hook up drivers to the crossover and the crossover network to the binding posts?Type (OFC, HCOFC, SILVER, etc.) size (12AWG, 16AWG, 24AWG, 28AWG), dielectrics (PVC, teflon, cotton, PEF, none {air}), and construction (braided, unbraided, flat, etc...)
What's the point in using extremely high quality speaker cables if my internal speaker wire is plain old 16 awg ofc?
I'm currently using a DIY braided CAT5 cable made of 4 twisted pairs of 24 AWG conductors with PVC dielectric (not teflon) and has very low resistance and a high damping factor.
Follow Ups:
From what I have seen, the connections are more important than the wire. For wire, as long as the wire is not going to corrode and can reject noise such as twisted pair, you should be fine. I forget where but somebody finally tested the reactance of this showing a definite improvement.
I have seen connections go bad and I have seen cheaper wire such as zip-cord corrode. Both of those are unacceptable. I have been using the Belden 5000 wire inside my own and, although it looks like it really should be twisted more, it seems happy. I have also used the Home Depot extension cable which seems warmer than the Belden.
........Audio Magic silver coated 99.999% copper sheathed in Teflon makes VERY good internal hook up wire.It is 12 gauge and has proven to be the best alternative to stock wire that is mainly constructed of low grade copper.
Give 'em a call if this floats your boat as they don't advertise seperate hook-up wire.
Cheers,
~kenster
I chose copper foils for my crossovers, and am happy with the results.I have heard of some buying inductors and just using hte foils as speaker or hookup wire, but I got mine at Mcmaster Carr.
I would highly suggest DH Labs hook-up wire. I used it in re-wiring my Klipsch La Scalas and the improvment was DRAMATIC.The stock wire was in perfect condition and of high quality.
I only tried it because I had read some great reviews on the DH Labs wire and thought it was worth a try.
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I'm not sure, all I did was consult the outstanding folks at DH Labs and explained exactly what I was trying to accomplish and the hooked me up with the optimal set-up.It turns out that one of they're main people there also have a set of La Scalas so they were very familiar with the set-up.
They also had past experience puting together re-wiring kits just for the Klipsch haritage series.
They additionally sent me two rave customer reviews of privious DH Labs Klipsch re-wiring, with my wiring kit.
Thus, I would highly suggest you give them a call, tell them exactly what you want to do, and let them figure it out for you.
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...Teflon-insulated, in 18- and 14g. Unfortunately, white only and black only, respectively. Fortunately, only 80 and 70 cents/foot. The 18 appears to be the same stuff VenHaus sells for $2.49/foot.Warehouse fone is 800/689-4434.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
"The 18 appears to be the same stuff VenHaus sells for $2.49/foot"Not sure why you singled my product out (many others out there), but it most certainly is NOT the same wire.
@jeffreybehr: They don't seem to have any wire on their website at the moment, however I have kept an eye on VHAudio.com for the past few years and I think Chris's product array is impressive and shows some real thought and ingenuity. But I have to say I think there still is a lot of hype in the cable market as to what "sounds" better. Honestly, you can spend thousands on ICs, speaker cables and power cables, but for short runs, does the quality of such cables really portray more information, detail and clarity to your components (amps, speakers, etc...) past a certain "level" of cable?@Chris: For example, if a system uses your spectrum silver interconnects (which I do not doubt are very well built and {in theory} are superior to high-end copper ICs), even if the component binding posts are replaced with silver binding posts. At some point, the signal will likely pass over copper wire. I don't know that much about electronics, so perhaps you can shed some light on this: If a sound travels over silver, does it have a unique sound signature that is specific to traveling over a silver IC? It must. But at some point, if that sound signal travels over copper wire, or any other metal, will it colorize and/or alter that sound signature? I suspect the colorations and the audibility of the sound signature is open to debate, but let's start with the theory.
Why do I ask? I have pondered the plausibility and benefits (if any) of creating a completely silver signal path from my source/dac to speaker drivers (silver binding posts on all equipment and speakers, silver ICs, speaker cables, and silver inductors and capacitors in speaker crossovers in addition to internal preamp and amp silver wiring).
If a high-end audio system's components are based on copper internal wiring and copper (or brass gold-plated semi-equivalent) binding posts, won't the introduction of a silver IC (like your SPECTRUM Ag) alter that sound signature creating a mixed copper/silver signal path. Now, for a short run (as in the lengths at which you sell the silver IC {i.e. 0.5m/1m}), will that altered sound signature deliver more information, increased detail, frequency range and/or clarity? Or will the mixed Copper/Silver construction of your signal path negate the effectiveness of using Silver as a conductor?
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
No problem, Jeffrey.BTW, it seems we share a similar passion:
Chris, my faves of yours are:
Salt Stream and Mountain Sunrise... http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4240943Racetrack and Moon at Dusk...
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2051280Autum Waterfall Abstract...
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=379071
On this one, I love your use of a fast-enough shutter speed so that the water looks like flowing water rather than fluffed cotton. Also, I prefer the slightly increased space around this compared with the prior Autumn Waterfall...
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2776679I love contrast, color, and often, gloom. I suppose this...
...is fairly typical of mine.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
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I have recently modified my FA 68se with Mundorf silver/oil caps throughout. I have some Homegrown Audio silver wire with telfon left over from my speaker cable project. I believe they are the SC16 braids. At the same time, I substituted the Audio Quest hookup wires with the silver wires(22AWG/strand). I braided the wires accodding to the current carrying capacity of the drivers.
it was a success, the sound was smooth and detailed. I have been using HA silverlace IC and SC16 speaker cables, and I loved it.
There is no reason why you couldn't use the Cat 5 cable inside if you like it for the rest of the wire. Again, no reason you can't braid it either. I wouldn't braid the whole thing and then seperate it out, I would only braid the run going to the tweeter, wooder, midrange etc.I have been using Cardas Litz wire lately, but only because I got a bunch of it pretty cheap, can't say its the best sounding hookup wire.
As for what type, I like long crystal copper, I prefer air, cotton, and teflon to pvc or the like. I like silver, but find it can sound bright at times, so I like to mix copper and silver together for the best overall sound.
Use thinner wire for the tweeters and midrange than for the woofers. Also, thinner doesn't just mean 2 strange of 24 guage instead of 4, it means using 28 or 30 guage instead of 24, and then more of those thinner strands to build up a thick enough wire overall. Though I question the audibility, as the skin effect on even 24 guage wire is probably negligable at audio frequencies, that at least follows standerd practice better. Solder all joints instead of using push on clips, and try to get as solid a connection as possible, rather than just using solder, try to get as much of the bare copper touching the speaker or binding post leads as you cen, then solder. I would also use silver solder as I think it sounds better, and isn't all that expensive.
Something I recently tried and liked was the Mundorf Silver/Gold wire with cryo treatment. I bought some scraps of it from Cryoparts and made IC's, internal wire of component's, and then braided some for internal speaker wire for my tweeters. I thought it offered a smoother presentation than the copper or silver, and had maybe better detail.
Mpoes, I was thinking the same thing!By replacing my internal speaker wiring with CAT5/6 braided cable I can have a better degree of continuity in my wiring so as not to colorize my sound signature with various types of wire.
One note of interest in my preliminary CAT5 prototypes is that there was a noticeable improvement in high-end clarity with the braided 4-pair 6ft CAT5 cable (I am looking forward to testing my 0.5m CAT6 8-pair prototype soon) versus the 25ft 12guage copper flatwire that used to be my speaker wire.
I think I'll fancy up a custom CAT6 cable array for my speakers and give it a shot. I have everything internally on quickconnects, so if it doesn't work out I can always replace them back with the 16guage copper cable that currently resides in my custom speakers.
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