Flexible Solid Core Speaker Cable DIY Built

[balavignesh002]

Have been using Mogami 2804, felt bass response is less and there is a kind of stress in the upper mids, Then replaced it with Mogami 3082 found it better in my system.

Got a chance grabbing a bulk (30Meter) cable from a friend who imported these for me. Actually got these to install in my car. Its an 16 Core OCC coper cable with teflon insulation transparent 8 cores and white 8 cores. Each insulated core will have 7 solid core OCC of different thickness all weaved together to make a single cable.



Thought of using some 5 meters from this speaker cable for home audio, So cut 5.5 Meter from the bulk spool which was actually kept for car, the idea is to make a stereo speaker cable of 2 + 2 Meter.

 

[jmascreen]

Are these from GR. (Danny) seen a similar one in his YT channel?

 

[drkrack]

Have been using Mogami 2804, felt bass response is less and there is a kind of stress in the upper mids, Then replaced it with Mogami 3082 found it better in my system.

Got a chance grabbing a bulk (30Meter) cable from a friend who imported these for me. Actually got these to install in my car. Its an 16 Core OCC coper cable with teflon insulation transparent 8 cores and white 8 cores. Each insulated core will have 7 solid core OCC of different thickness all weaved together to make a single cable.

View attachment 78030

Thought of using some 5 meters from this speaker cable for home audio, So cut 5.5 Meter from the bulk spool which was actually kept for car, the idea is to make a stereo speaker cable of 2 + 2 Meter.
View attachment 78031

That's a Kimber 12Tc Copy Cable from AliExpress .
Very Good Resolution overall, worth every penny spent. But the Original Factory Terminated 12TC is at a different level altogether.
It is Flexible, Solid Core, Copper/ Silver with uneven thickness in original Cable.

My Review Here..
Post in thread 'Speaker cables - Bare copper vs. tinned copper' https://www.hifivision.com/threads/speaker-cables-bare-copper-vs-tinned-copper.80535/post-888851

 

[balavignesh002]

That's a Kimber 12Tc Copy Cable from AliExpress .

Thanks for sharing your view, Not sure if Kimber manufacture their own cable, for accent series. I am sure they take cable from China and get it soldered in USA.

Are these from GR. (Danny) seen a similar one in his YT channel?

No, this is procured from Alibaba.com. Minimum order quantity is 100 Meters. In fact, I saw his DIY cables in the youtube, I was about to buy it, then I ran in to this as this option is very very low on cost.

As I Proceed, want to take a call what terminals should i use in this cable. long back I bought few Brass Spade terminals for 8 AWG cable which is lying around un used. last year I bought Yarbo Copper banana Plugs and Copper Spade Connectors from Hificollective.com.

Decided on Yarbo as the Lintons are already upgraded with Cardas long unplated copper binding posts. Also considered to us the Nylon boots for covering the splitting ends of the cable instead of metal cable splitters which may add more weight.








Got this 8MM cradle rope from local store to insert it inside the cable, this will maintain the overall diameter of the cable constant as the raw cable what I got is hollow.



To start pushing the cotton rope in to cable, attached a pen using a 8mm transparent heat shrink.


Secured the joint of pen and rope with 10mm black heat shrink


Started pushing rope through the cable, can see the cable grow fat.


Just a comparison of cable with and without rope.


This is not an easy task to do, But post rope treatment the cable looks better and bulky. I pulled it on bare hands, had the pain on my paws for a week. Recommend to wear a glove for protection. One more thing is the over all length has got reduced to 4.5 meters from 5,5 meters.


Cut the cable in to 2 for left and right and secured the rope with a 8mm heat shrink with direction being marked.




went through the weaving for a required length and straightened the leads of wires.



Twisted the positive and negative leads together


Used a wire striper gently and removed the insulation with hands, Dont want to take a chance wire striper cutting away the leads. Its a pain full task to do it on hands lots of damages on my nails.

Used Mundrof 9% silver and 1% gold soldering lead to solder them together. One solder of a cable took slightly more than a feet mundrof solder. really need a 50W soldering iron to get the melting done on the copper. the cable is insulated with high quality Teflon which helped to withstand the heat. PCV or PE will definitely melt away and deform the cable structure

Put a 8mm red and white heat shrink 2 layers to add thickness and 15 mm black heatshrink on the end of rope.

Put the outer sleeving what I have got for this and secured it with a 20MM heat shrink on the rope end, then inserted the nylon Pants.

Did the same for the other ends.

important to apply extra flux to get a better welding

 

[balavignesh002]

Gripping the BOOTS.

The Nylon boots used here are 15mm diameter on onside and 7mm diameter on the split side for cable insertion. On the split side i can easily manage it with dual layers of 8mm heat shrink and on the other side found it to be 3mm lose. So added fabric tape on top of heat shrink and pushed the boots through



Chopped the legs of boot to accommodate the banana terminal cover.



now the boots are gripping the cable like skin and its very convenient to hold the cable on the boots trunk. On the shorter side added 3rd layer of 10mm heat shrink to make it thick, so that cable may not sag on the speaker end and may act like a strain relive.

 

[balavignesh002]

Soldering the Terminals:
This is my favourite part of this built. I took help of my son to hold the wire while I apply the Mundrof Silver gold solder in to the terminals mouth. These were screw type terminals, unscrewed the grubs and pushed them through the pre soldered and fluxed wire ends. Applied the heat on the annal end of the terminal and inserted the solder in to the hole of screw, lavishly pushed it in till the melt overflow through the other screw hole.




This banana plug doesn’t have a provision for soldering from other end. So while sleeving the wire kept 5 MM extra bare wire length apart from the insertion length which can be used to apply heat. Applied heat on the wire and inserted the soldering lead through the screw hole till the melt overflow via the next screw hole.



Post soldering the terminals used 12 mm Heat Shrink to cover the solder.

The fully finished Cable ready to be hooked on Denon PMA 2500NE and Modified Lintons.




Hooked Up to listen:

Connecting a fat cable is not that easy, cleared all digital cables to make room and connected the spade end to amps and banana end to Modified Wharfedale Linton 85th Anniversary edition.

Will definitely need time to post the listening impressions.

 

[Sandip Das]

Very good finishing. Hope it will sound great

 

[balavignesh002]

Very good finishing. Hope it will sound great

How Does It Sounds:

This cable proved my thoughts and impression about the music what I have in the past as wrong.

The music till now what I have been hearing in the past it not anything close to now what I am hearing in this cable.

The stereo staging or the digital image is very much Bang on the centre.

The clear definition of each and every music notes can be experienced.

Especially the mid and high frequency are very clear and no fatigue or irritating feelings. Details on the high frequency is very much recognised by my brain.

Bass is very punchy and dynamic and fast. One can feel it on chest.

After listening to this cable, I feel all my previous cables are heavily compromised on the quality of sound it put out.

This is my first solid core speaker cable I am listening to. I feel so connected to the sound. With right tracks of music, it makes one to dance to the tune..

 

[Phew]

How Does It Sounds:

After listening to this cable, I feel all my previous cables are heavily compromised on the quality of sound it put out.

Which were?

Couple of months back a friend also experienced similar changes when he upgraded from furutech FS303 to luna gris speaker cable, he then later changed the rca from transparent hardwire to pangea premier xlr cable and has never looked back ever since.

 

[balavignesh002]

Which were?

Previously I have been using, Mogami 2804, 3082, Belden 8477 and knukonceptz 10AWG, 8AWG OFC cables.

 

[sidvee]

Bit confused with the terminology used. I was under the impression that solid core means a single piece of wire like a wire hanger, however your pics shows braided wire?
I use solid core acoustic revive that replaced a very high end braided design and I love this sound.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[keith_correa]

Bit confused with the terminology used. I was under the impression that solid core means a single piece of wire like a wire hanger, however your pics shows braided wire?

I don't think it's solid core wire because he says this:

Its an 16 Core OCC coper cable with teflon insulation transparent 8 cores and white 8 cores. Each insulated core will have 7 solid core OCC of different thickness all weaved together to make a single cable.

I think he is referring to a single strand (one of many) that makes up a wire as solid core. If true, by that definition, all wires would be solid core wires.

 

[Sandip Das]

Bit confused with the terminology used. I was under the impression that solid core means a single piece of wire like a wire hanger, however your pics shows braided wire?
I use solid core acoustic revive that replaced a very high end braided design and I love this sound.
Cheers,
Sid

I am using acoustic revive power cord and its very very good for its price compared to other high end power cord..

 

[drkrack]

don't think it's solid core wire because he says this

Its Multiple Solid Cores with irregular thickness, that are Wound in braid fashion. 0.5 to 1sqmm in thickness, 8 in each side. Insulated Single Solid core wire has some deleterious effect on impulse propagation called skin effect (I'm not sure), this mitigates that issue.

Regular Wires have multiple small copper fibers sometimes from 100 to 600 per wire (more like Fibrils).
There's a lot of difference, when it comes to SQ.

 

[sidvee]

Universal Networks

Solid Core Cable This type of cable uses one solid copper wire per conductor and is used for permanent infrastructure links between two wiring centres or between a wiring centre and a wall box. It has a lower attenuation and is less costly than stranded cable, however it is designed for...

www.universalnetworks.co.uk

This is what I mean, it can be either stranded or solid core.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[keith_correa]

Its Multiple Solid Cores with irregular thickness, that are Wound in braid fashion. 0.5 to 1sqmm in thickness, 8 in each side.

aka stranded wire and not solid core!

 

[balavignesh002]

Below is the detail of this cable. A single wire will have 7 solid core of different size.

1x 0.5mm²
1x 0.4mm²
2x 0.3mm²
2x 0.25mm²
1x 0.2mm²

Insulated using transparent and white Teflon. Totally 8 white and 8 transparent sums to approximately 9 + 9 AWG Cable.


Close up picture of similar wire

 

[balavignesh002]

aka stranded wire and not solid core!

When 5 solid cores are put together and insulated to make a single wire you call it stranded?

 

[sidvee]

When 5 solid cores are put together and insulated to make a single wire you call it stranded?

Yes all stranded wires will have thin solid cores, which are placed in insulation. In your above picture it shows a bunch of stranded wires in a single insulated sheath that are further braided. Ok the fact that when they are braided their net awg increases is ok, but at the end of the day it is not a thick single solid wire.
Anyways I am no expert, but this was my understanding. When I moved from stranded/braided wires to a single solid core wire, I found huge improvement.
Anyways doesn't mean your wires don't sound good, I was just confused with the terminology being used.
Cheers.
Sid

 

[balavignesh002]

single insulated sheath that are further braided

Its only insulated, not braided.

but at the end of the day it is not a thick single solid wire.

Yes, its not a single solid core cable. I use such type of cable for hookup speakers with crossover output. This may not be suitable for my requirment as speaker cable as it may break when frequently moved and may not be maid friendly.

was just confused with the terminology being used.

Sorry about that.