How To Build a Better Speaker Cable
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- Опубликовано: 11 июл 2024
- Free yourself from the tyranny of buying speaker cables. Rob Hull teaches how to do it yourself, simply with a bit of twisting, chucking, soldering and heat shrinking. You will become a master of audio and wire, as well as your own time and space.
Find everything you need to build your own cable here: tubedepot.com/how-to-build-a-... 
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Man this video came out 2010 and its better than most other cable diy videos you can find in 2020
I thought the same thing! I've been making cables for a little under a year now and this video helped me recognize some bad habits that I need to break. I like the idea of using a vice and a heat sink clamp, bc "third hands" just aren't cutting it
These are great cables. Very well constructed and snazzy to look at, too! As someone who works with Pro Audio, guitar, and audiophile gear for a living, I want to address some of the misinformed comments I've read. Electrically, there are only two factors that really matter in speaker cables: the ability to handle high current/low voltage signal, and a connection-to-connection DC resistance that is sufficiently low enough to not cause excessive damping on the speaker. Aesthetically, a cable ought to be flexible, sturdy, and if it looks cool, so much the better. Using dual 22 gauge leads as demonstrated here effectively creates a 14 gauge connector, which is quite robust for medium power amps, and the short distance means resistance is negligible. AC induction is also negligible and twisting the cables will not "filter" the low frequencies as suggested by some. Exotic metals and dielectrics used in the construction of some uber-boutique speaker cables is laughably ineffective and succeeds only in parting the rich and gullible from their money. And lastly, there is no such thing as a "cable burn-in period", so if the cable is well made and well suited for the application, it is ready to use right from the get go.
+Mason Lamb I know this was posted long ago but, 2 22 gauge wires are the equivalent of 1 19 gauge wire, not 14 as you mentioned. Every doubling of a single wire drops 3 gauge sizes thus you would need to have 6 22 gauge runs to get a single 14 gauge run.
Amplifiers output high voltage and low amperage because of ohms law. Doesn't matter whether is solid state or tubes.
Don't lie. You are not an Audiophile.
@@fernarias Not necessarily. Some amps can output a peak of 100 amps current.
@@carlosoliveira-rc2xt They are measured in watts not amps. Amps is short for ampere not for amplifier. I'm sure you don't know what ampere means and you certainly don't understand ohms laws and why amps output high voltage at low amperage. You probably don't understand how a 160 watt amp, like the pioneer sx-1250, has output transistors rated at 200 volts but only 10 amps(11 amps would cook these, 100 amps would destroy these and your house). You also probably don't know that your power outlets in your home are rated at 120 volts and only 15 amps since higher amps would burn down your house.
From Leo: I have been making speaker cables from lamp cord for decades. Standard 18 gauge will easily support 200 watts, it is polarized for keeping polarity straight, it is cheap and lasts for years. Any hardware store has long rolls that you just buy the length you want. It even comes in 3 or 4 colors if you color code your equipment.
I think I’ve typically used 16 gauge but yes, this is unnecessary work. Looks cool though.
lol. No dynamics huh. Maybe a 200 watts Sony A/V Receiver.
Just ordered a bunch of stuff from these guys. Great Experience. They convinced me to make my own cables for studio use, which will save me a LOT of money in the long run.
Wonderful video. I was looking for something completely different, but am very happy that I watched the whole video. You made those cables beautifully and so professionally soldered. Well done...
Awesome instructional for building wires. I've been doing my own home theater and pro sound stuff for years and I can't count how many times I've done my connectors only to realize "woops" forgot to put the barrel end on! :)
I remember the first time I saw the drill/wire trick. It blew my mind how simple it was to make it look so professionally done!
A video from this long ago at this quality - I can't wait to watch the other ones on this channel! Thank you!
What a perfect DIY. I love this workshop so much.
I do admire talent, especially where someone can make such a tedious and somewhat difficult task (not as easy and smooth as Rob makes it look here if you haven't done this before) look so effortless.
Anyhow, it really is great to see this type of talent and a TRUE professional at work! Thanks for the great video but you also helped me to decide to stick with some Monster 16 GA and banana plugs!
Excellent tutorial !!!!
Camera angles 100%
Narration 100%
Camera closeups 100%
Keeping it interesting 100%
Finger nails close-ups - Needs trimming ;)
Great Job!!!!
wow, nice cable you got there and the best soldering tut ive ever seen
Video was shot beautifully and the instruction was crystal clear. Can't really ask for more.
OMG....THIS IS FANTASTIC!!! THANK U SO MUCH. Can't wait to make my first few pairs of hi-end speaker wires when my parts arrive. Learned some neat new tricks from this video that I surely appreciate.
Cool...thanks for the reply. Looking forward to getting my techflex on and finishing these up!
good stuff bobby! man each time i watch this, im always impressed! and yes i understand how long it would take to produce a cable like this too. perfection takes time!
Love this video ! Enjoyed watching it !
Thanks for sharing this! Much appreciated!
LOVE these videos, You saved me from making a mess of things. Thanks for making them!
"It's goggle time"
beautiful work, thanks for the video.
TubeDeport, Great video, thanks for the information, Greatly Appreciated.
Thanks for all the help your site is great and your help has been wonderful. I'll be ording soon.
nice dude, very well explained and very sympathic too. thanks!
I am going to have a go at this.
You make it look so easy!
That goggle time moment was epic!
Nice work, very neat ! Thanks for the video.
Thanks man, good tutorial. I like the idea of a yellow speaker cable! No more mix ups with my instrument cables!
Just read Richard's comments. Funny thing is that I'm currently in Montreal to do an educational talk. One of the big aspects of the talk is right techniques for the right situation. Good videos. I haven't made cables in 20 years. That tech-flex was new to me.
This cable looks absolutely gorgeous.
Thank you very much for this great video, the cable looks very professionell and i think it sounds great.
I must say - that is very creative and looks like a fun and simple project. I'll give it a go! Thanks!
Thank you for this tutorial. It's Great!
lol..gotta love the guys who watch and then tell you how they would do it instead of making a youtube video.
thanks for sharing..good job.
Thank you for the advice. I thought the same thing and I did try switching the speakers around and it did sound the same so I think what I will do now, seeing that I have more knowledge than 6 years ago, I should pull the speakers out of the box and assess all joins and neaten them up. Thanks again for the advice...
great job
nice to see your work
Great work, You're an interesting character. Thanks!
Great tip with the drill! Thanks!
Awesome video!
LMBO!
Thank you so much for your specificational assistance;)
awesome video !!
Very clean work.
It's goggle time! I love it! Thanks for the great videos, they're informative and fun to watch. You have a new subscriber!
Very good video, benefiting for life. Thank you! ! ! awesome! ! !
Good to see John Stockton is keeping busy in his retirement.
hahahaha
I did everything you told me to do now my house is gone! Amp went up in flames house burnt down!! I'm Kidding!! lol... this helped me out a lot great video!
@TubeDepotTV Thanks once again for all the info and setting my mind straight, keep up the good vidz
Great... It's a very useful guide. Thank you
Very nice work :)
Thank you for posting that. It was a very interesting read. Anyone thinking about spending more than $3 on speaker wire should read that first.
Great vid. Thank you!
Watching this works therapeutically for me.
i dont know what i love more the video or the way tube depot handles negative comments
Well I'll be ... that was awesome.
Time to make my own speaker cables I think.
Thanks so much for taking the time to make this tutorial.
Now I don't have to spend BIG money on speaker cables & I get the satisfaction of doing it myself.
These videos are always excellent. Keep up the good work!!! What gauge of wire would I use for handling say 300watts?
Also, it would be excellent to see a video on how to make a "Y" cable if you haven't already made one. Thanks for these great tips.
Good vid. Thanks for sharing.
Very nice video.
Very Useful, Thanks!
this was so cool!!
With construction like this, I'd be tempted to twist one black and one white together, and then twist those together. The common mode rejection should be just that tiny bit better because you're effectively doing a double set of tightly twisted pairs then, rather than two fairly large wires in a looser twist.
At audio frequencies and speaker voltages (never mind the kind of environment that uses 1/4" TS as speaker cables), it almost certainly makes jack all difference, of course.
Enjoyed your video
I think its brilliant that safety eyeshields were shown being worn.- as well as the solder / flux splash sticking to the eye and burning it, - the burn sensation goes on and on, and on etc.
a good pair of eyesshields are cheap, and if looked after, are easy to get used to.
Very cool video...
Great videos thanks
You should insulate soldering points inside the jack (you could use smaller shrink tube). If you do it without insulation, bended cable can make a short and blow up your amp...
+1.... ALWAYs heatshrink the bits in jack. the double twisting thing?... sounds like some one has been sold some snake oil! still nice and well presented.
The twisting is mainly for digital signals, and the soldering? - the signal travels free from the input to the end, but if you solder - then is has to pass another metal and it destroys the signalstrenght - or pollute it.
thm4855
look up the "skin effect" on electricity as it passes through a conductor. also the "double twist" does NOTHING! the 1st twist is almost like trying to make a home made shielded cable yourself. so it will help a little with interference but the rest is "hi-fi" bullshit that makes pretty much no difference what so ever! but it does make the cable look pretty! soldering is a must as with every join the is a tiny amount if attenuation but not a lot. it won't ever "pollute" the signal.. that more hi-fi bullshit. if it's a good solder joint your fine... if you do a piss poor job then expect the cable to do a piss poor job of getting the signal from one end to the other.
Skin effect only applicable at RF frequencies. This is a speaker cable for a low impedance circuit, any interference would have to be immense to have any effect.
Not so... The effect happens more and more up the frequency spectrum you go but it does happen at very low frequencies too! And it's for a line level circuit not a speaker cable.
Still, most of what this guy is doing is pointless.. looks pretty, but pointless.
I have been building cables with techflex type materials for years that have been used in everything from aircraft to mining. My trick to keep the sheathing in place is too use a dual wall heatshrink (adhesive lined heatshrink). If you make sure the heatshrink overlaps the sheathing onto the wire it will hold everything in place. I would also always out a piece of heatshrink over any center conductors. It is easy to do and can prevent any future mishaps.
Nice work.
WELL DONE !
Great video. Actually learnt something. I don't understand why there's any dislikes to this?
thank you for this beautiful video that we can learn from it, I have only one notification and it's about your soldering when you soldered the two wires you made them with out any isolation from each other that could make a short cut through them and damage the power amplifier (in case the jack was accidentally bended)
I think you should use some thing like electrical tape to isolate them.
thank you again
Thanks for the info. I was thinking about 14awg myself but wasn't sure about that. 12awg wire is not small so your totally right about connectors. By the way great video and hell with the haters.
Nice attention to detail
Very nice presentation. Can you use a normal 2000W hairdryer instead of the thermal pistol ?
Thanks a lot!! you're wonderful!!!
Rob, great cable assembly, looks great and works even better.. :D I did want to mention that a bit of heatshrink tubing on the hot lead's solder joint might be a good idea, considering most of these will see tons of abuse... and at a "gig" better safe than sorry can be the huge difference from epic show, and not so epic fire, if there was a nasty short.. amp resiliency aside.. :) Either way, it's good to see great tutorial videos like this one.
@TubeDepotTV
it often happens to everyone, the best thing is to write down what to do.
i love your channel by the way, it stimulates me to build my own amp, i just twisted two cables together with a electric drill :)
and i like your humor :D
I was wondering how people get great braids going, this looks great. Using two thinner wires joined together does make for a flexier cable that can still handle current. Most likely the braid also rejects interference. Nice one.
great video, very cool nd understanding!! =)
Buen trabajo, you are PRO.
Thanks for the reply, I am actually constantly swapping speakers for different tonal properties and this way I don't need 7 speaker cabs so spade connectors are my best option but thanks all the same.
Great job.
Thanks for the great comment.
very nice job .....
I can't count the number of times I've created cables and realized that I didn't put the covers on before I soldered the connectors....
Are these cables any good? I mean can they compare to the speaker cables you buy from the store? What kind of wire is good for this DIY?
Unless you are a super audiophile or are running a bazillion watts or a very long distance (more than 15 feet or so to each speaker) just plane old #16 zip cord does a wonderful job. Don't get duped by "Oxygen free Copper" Maybe you would see the difference on an oscilloscope but your ears won't notice. Just get the polarity right or it will sound horrible. That's the biggest gotcha in connecting speakers -- out of phase.
wb5rue I am a audiophile and use QED GENESIS SILVER SPIRAL on my front left and front right and centre speaker, for my back left and back right and surround left and surround right I'm using QED SILVER ANNIVERSARY XT all using AIRLOCK termination. and for my subwoofer its QED SIGNATURE SUBWOOFER CABLE X2. COST OVER £1200 BUT that's with QED SIGNATURE HDMI X4 at £150 each, all connected to DENON x4200 AMP DENNON 3313 UD pair of DALI ZENSOR 7, DALI ZENSOR VOCAL,DALI ZENSOR EF12 SUB, 2 pairs of DALI ZENSOR 3 on 2 pairs of CUSTOM DESIGN FS104 speaker stands. with 7.5kg of ATACAM ATTABITES IN centre column of stands then ATACAM ISOLATION PADS X24 for centre x8 and x4 for each DALI ZENSOR 3 SPEAKER
you have got to be joking... you paid 150 quid for HDMI cables? Do you understand the concept of digital data? Its essentially error free. An El Cheapo HDMI cable will carry exactly the same signal. You are taking the piss surely?
there is a difference i wear glasses so I see it lol, I tried 2 QED cables over the standard hdmi and saw difference straight away with qed mid range hdmi cable performance the picture was more sharp and colours were more intense. now with the signature it was so sharp more depth and deep colour was now stunning to look at trust me and what hi fi can't be wrong about what our eyes see. and if it made that difference its worth it .
I get your point, my impression was that you were promoting a cheaper variant to purchasing ready made cables.
I failed to see that this is more of an educational video.
Happy to see that people still take pride in using the fruits of their labor.
I just built one with 18 AWG for my 100W Engl head, thats one HUGE cable !
I couldnt une my neutrik jacks as the cable was too big, had to use G&H plugs that looks like your Switchcraft.
The "It's goggle tune!" shot was just enough beats too long to be odd enough to make me chuckle." >:D
Is the Goggle Tune available on Spotify? I can’t find it.
Any idea where to get pure silver wire, and silver rca plugs?
You're website is amazing! And this video is absolutely through and well explained. I'm so going to use this.
thanks for clearing that up. I thought that was the case. I bought 16 gauge 4 conductor wire bulk and make all my cables from it (line, microphone, etc.) and figured getting one thick gauge wire instead of different wires for different applications would be less confusing/dangerous than confusing my mic cable for my speaker cable for example.
Very nice.
@TubeDepotTV it is so big ! the cable looks nuclear proof !
no need to tell i had a hard time twisting those beasts (by hand) and fitting the G&H plugs. The heat shrink tubing was also a tight fit. its an impressive cable :)
"It's goggle time :D"
I politely cringed on that part :D
thank you!
Cool! Thanks
too good,I like it.
This cable geometry really does work. Very noticeable in the mid to high frequencies. Hearing is believing. As far as melting the tek-flex, a person could wrap the bottom edge with some type of fabric to keep it insulated from the heat of the gun.
Put the barrel there :-)
Rob the builder!! yes we can
Great vid definitely gonna make a project out of this, the only question I have regards the size of the techflex you used, I found a site that sells it in 1/8 and 1/4 inch varieties and even larger, I'd like to know how your techflex is sized so that I dont end up buying something too small or too large. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
Ok, I'm glad you think this way, and I completely agree with you. I was worried that you might tell me otherwise, LoL.
thanks for taking your time to reply :)))))
ExFlex! Cool vid.
@TubeDepotTV - I would be very interested in seeing a video about parallel versus series speaker wiring. Also, any info about choosing correct replacement speakers for any combo amp. Rules/guides about connecting amps to cabinets. (I'm still confused about what ohms setting I should be running and wattage of speakers for a specific amps, etc. in relation to how they are wired and how to spot the type of wiring used)