Mains cable for speakers

[Covenant]

I have noticed a few people recommend twin and earth mains cable for amp/speaker connection. Presumably the stuff for lighting is good enough.
Anyone tried it and got any thoughts?
Yes-I am a skinflint :lol:

[Tarzan]

Warm, full and quite musical, hard to dress, but for buttons pretty good, put plugs on the ends, as the bare wires are lethal to equipment and hands alike.

[DSJR]

Copper can be dirty and it's a pita to terminate, but can work really well if you have a freshly manufactured run.

6A twin mains cable works well in shortish runs (5m or less) and with non-foo gear the real world buys ;)

[Covenant]

Good, I have tried a few cables recently that I don't think much of so I am going to try some mains lighting cable I have found in the garage. It's 1.0mm twin and earth 14amp. It will need a clean up first to get the cobwebs off!

[realysm42]

Have you tried Black Rhodium Twist?

Meant to be good bang for the buck.

[Covenant]

Have you tried Black Rhodium Twist?

Meant to be good bang for the buck.

Maybe after the mains cable!

[brian2957]

The Twist and the Rega Quattro are both good value . What length do you need ?. I've got 2 x 2metre lengths of each which I can send to you to try out Jerry . Think I may have some NVA LS2 in longer lengths . PM me if you're interested mate.

[Covenant]

Thanks Brian-PM sent

[steviej233]

Thanks Brian-PM sent

I can highly recommend the black twist, excellent value for money and made a real difference. Speak to David at MCRU he will sort you out.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Yet again +1 for the twist at the price its a no brainer.

[Covenant]

Brian has taken pity on me and sorted me out with some speaker cable. However I will try the lighting cable in the mean time.
Watch this space!

[brian2957]

It's not true that us Scots are tight mate . Besides it's one less thing for the wife to hit me over the head with .:lol:

[Covenant]

The Mains lighting cable gives amazing bass, swamps the treble a little on complex music but sounds good with simple stuff like acoustic guitar.
Just out of interest the other two cables I tried were
QED Silver Anniversary-one word-tizzy
Belkin Pure AV-a bit muddled I thought. I bought this off ebay and I am a bit suspicious it might be fake as it had no markings on the cable, not even + or -.

[Barry]

Quad used to use Black & Decker lawnmower cable (with the orange sheath) for their demonstrations.

[The Grand Wazoo]

I used twin and earth for a long time as this is what my SD Acoustics speakers were wired with. I used to strip out the red and black runs from the outer sheath & the earth conductor and twist them together x3 because I was tri-amping.
It worked very well.

[Slawts]

I'm using 4mm twin and earth but being a label sort of person it's by Pirelli!

I bought a big 50m roll from RS as I had the room rewired so it works out at 69p per metre.

It replaced my VdH CS122 a number of years ago. I then swpped back to the VdH and have now gone back to the twin an earth. It's less bright.

Steve

[nat8808]

How about kitchen wiring cable? Often to be found in skips etc as surplus from kitchen fittings. Obviously you need some strong binding posts to squash down on such thick solid core.

[nat8808]

I picked up some 100ohm copper shield, copper foil coax from a skip from some installation somewhere a while ago. Quick a few metres on the real. Thought I'd try to make the TNT U-byte DIY cables

Also note that Townshend Isolda cables started off as runs of 50ohm(?) coax connected in parallel to get the impedance down to 8ohms (9 runs I think, can't be bothered to do the maths although the impedance rating is probably measured at MHz rather than audio frequencies). There's a Townshend video demonstrating the original cable on an oscilloscope to show something or other.

[icehockeyboy]

Quad used to use Black & Decker lawnmower cable (with the orange sheath) for their demonstrations.
As did I! :)

[MCRU]

It's not true that us Scots are tight mate . Besides it's one less thing for the wife to hit me over the head with .:lol:

give him some lapp cable mate, may work a treat!

[brian2957]

Ain't got none left Bro . Used most of it myself . Thanks for that BTW. :eyebrows:

[MCRU]

Ain't got none left Bro . Used most of it myself . Thanks for that BTW. :eyebrows:

Another 200 metre reel arrived Friday, 30 metres gone already!

I didn't count the number of DIY sets I took to bristol with the lapp in but it must have been 50+ which all sold out, then I popped down to the supra stand late sunday to pick up some cable I had ordered and there was a customer stood complaining to supra about the free piece of mains cable I had given him! He said what was he supposed to do with it! :)

[brian2957]

:) You should have told him just to give it back . Some people are never happy . The Lapp is a great mains cable BTW . Particularly good with the Rega gear and excellent with my new valve amp . A bargain at the price .

[Marco]

...then I popped down to the supra stand late sunday to pick up some cable I had ordered and there was a customer stood complaining to supra about the free piece of mains cable I had given him! He said what was he supposed to do with it!

It's folk like that who need a damned good slap! :wanker:

Marco.

[brian2957]

It's folk like that who need a damned good slap! :wanker:

Marco.

With a 1.5m length of Lapp mains cable while repeating ' please may I have another ' :lol:

[Marco]

Aye, skelped on the arse with the end with the 13A plug!! ;)

Marco.

[brian2957]

Now yer talkin :lol:

[wee tee cee]

lapp stuff is pretty good.....made up 4 leads with silver toughplugs/martin kaiser....very respectable. nice improvement in the bass don't know what it would do as speaker cables though......blow the bloody doors off!!!!!

working with it is like wrestling an anaconda!!!!!