Home Depot Cable

[JackoRoses]

Has anyone considered running cotton sleeves over these wires to hide the colors?
Or possibly even splitting them open and running the wire into the sleeve?

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

http://www.techflex.com

The stuff is sold a lot of places.

[JackoRoses]

http://www.techflex.com

The stuff is sold a lot of places.

nice link thanks +T

[ducati]

I believe this is the stuff MIT uses on their cables.  If so, I like it alot!

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Yes, the newer MIT cables have this.  Many cable houses are using this stuff and even some of the custom cables made by people on this board.  I think that a lot of the cable houses have a custom made weave to match their product style.

I should have mentioned before that there are quite a few DIY audio parts houses that sell this stuff and you can get it relatively cheap.  http://venhaus1.com/VH_Audio_Test.html is one place I like but there are plenty of others.

When you price an order, keep in mind that you can reuse the stuff. If you decide to use another type of wire, you can clip off the ends of the HD cable and pull that wire out of the techflex jacket.  The jacket will just be a bit shorter for the new cables.

Order some heat shrink too.  You'll want to use some heat shrink to secure the ends and prevent fraying.

[ducati]

Good info!  +T

[BobW]

Cable white papers from the world of rocket scientists, designing lossless cable designs for nasa;
http://www.analysis-plus.com/Pages/report981.htm

the design page;
http://www.analysis-plus.com/Pages/thedesign.htm

Right, but gross oversimplification of the issue.
Speaker manufacturers design and test output, which would compensate for all of the microcosmic variables.
By digging backward to things like the impedance vs. frequency we undo the design engineering and try to quantify
the unquantifiables.

I contend that a pair of drapes, or speaker spikes or dampening feet, or placement to wall/ceiling will always have a far more dramatic affect than speaker cable, unless is it grossly inferior to 14 gauge zip cord.
Also, remember to tin the tips to prevent a stand of wire from shorting the terminals.

I totally agree on the latter. Try playing back a stable 13 kHz tone and test the effect of moving your head around.
Or wearing different sweathers when listening. etc etc. 


But I must ask what defines a "microcosmic" variable ?

And you claim in public that speaker manufacturers have designs covering the unquantifiable and so end up with designs that  _compensate_ for all microcosmic variables? 

I'm went to a very small tech institution, very Socratic. I like a good discussion and also the use of contrarian commentary to open the discussion even more.  I hope that no one here sees it as an argument. It's not meant to be.

By microcosmic variables I mean such things as exotic speaker terminal posts, exotic speaker wire, and wood/ marble bases for solid state amps and other things that are very hard to quantify with actual measurement.
My point, in short, is an amp is designed and tested with speaker cable. It usually is not pure silver nor gold, but often closer to "consumer grade."  Damping factor and other relevant design characteristics should be engineered for a nominal, typical speaker cable in the circuit.
To an amplifier engineer, the oxygen level in the copper wire is a microcosm. The stability of the support platform under the amp is a microcosm, and so on.   

[BobW]

Interesting bit on cables:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/AudioFAQ/part8/

[Nick in Edinboro]

Interesting bit on cables:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/AudioFAQ/part8/

Cool read.. this was especially handy "George Washington Bridge"

15.9 Is there a standard for wiring balanced XLR-3 cables?
   Yes.  Connect pin 1 to ground/green, pin 2 to white, and
   pin 3 to black.  Herb Hamilton suggests that you remember
   "George Washington Bridge" and then use the first letter
   of each word (GWB) to help you remember Green=1, White=2,
   and Black=3.  This same wiring convention works for
   balanced line level signals and balanced microphone cables.

[Tim]

AAAAAAACCCCKKKK!!!!

I just built a pair of bi-wire cables out of this stuff, and it sounds like I'm listening thru extension cord material.
I can't get my analysis plus bi-oval nines back in place quickly enough. These sound like crap less than stellar. Flat, dead, and zero magic

edit to say,.... sorry for the harshnes, but the difference is absolutley astonishing and in my face. The bi-ovals are back in place, and the magic is back.

I have since upgraded and there's no comparison.... decent sound but the Leegeddy silver's are MUCH better