After my recent discovery that expensive cables are not necessarily better, and that it’s the materials that count, I am thinking of having a go at making my own DIY Speaker cable.

I was thinking of buying silver cable on a real and then just put heat shrink wrap cable over it. Would that be safe?

I was thinking of buy this:

500g 0.5mm SOFT Silver Plated Copper Wire
Price: £17.50 [€19.60] (Excluding VAT at 17.5%)
500 gram = approx 286 metres

From here: http://wires.co.uk/acatalog/cu_sp.html


The Musical Fidelity cable I am using, each run, is 6mm2, so at this price, 286m will be plenty to make up the required thickness and length, as I only require just over a meter long.


What do you guys think? I am quite surprised at how cheap the cable is. At the cost, I don’t mind giving it a go. It also lets me weave the cable and then shrink wrap latter.

My main concern is with the shrink wrap plastic, will that be sufficient to avoid me / equipment getting electric shocks?

They also sell pure silver sterling cables, but obviously the cost rockets up then!

I'd go for pure silver, I'm really not into silver plated copper, either pure copper or silver but not silver plated.

I'd also look for some PTFE tubing to cover it.

Try a google search on how to make silver speaker cables and you'll get loads of ideas and recepies.

If pure silver is too much try solid core copper but go for as a pure copper as you can.

http://www.laventure.net/tourist/cables.htm

why silver and not LC-OFC? .... silver may be a bit bright for your system? ...

I have tried silver cables on 3 of my systems and always revert back to my old faithful Hitachi LC-OFC speaker cables

keep us updated if you choose the silver!

what does the LC stand for? OFC = Oxygen Free Copper.

I'm think I'll keep things as they are for the min,

LC-OFC is Linear Crystal Oxygen Free copper cable ... from what I know, Hitachi were one of the 1st to sell/develop these

I have the old Hitachi SSX 102K LC-OFC speaker cable but waited several months to find a pair ... works extremely well with my current hifi and I rate them highly

have tried silver cables, but find them too bright on my system ...

am glad that you have found that expensive does not necessarily mean better .... I have the Silver High Breed Coherence interconnect ... (copper core with a silver sheath) ... been one of my best buys so far

Not an expert in cables but, I would think, to get the (alleged) benefits of silver with its better conductivity (marginal less resistance per meter than copper), you'd have to use pure silver and, of a high purity level at that.

That's not to say that the combination of Copper / Silver doesn't suit some systems and applications.

Very system dependant, I am certain.

I'm with dim .....silvers to brash for me I'm afraid.
Even solid stuff I had made up from Ebay ( yeah so wot ? ) colours the sound to my lugs !
Good old copper seems more neutral and , another thing with silver.....sssssibilance returned after years of banishment. Even with an achromat.