How to Make Awesome Speaker Cables on the Cheap
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 เม.ย. 2021
- 12 AWG Pure Copper Wire amzn.to/3t07h55
Cable Jacket amzn.to/3wy3A93
Banana Clips amzn.to/3sXRfJ9 (Come in pairs of 6… which makes no sense because that’s 2.5 sets of speaker cables…)
Merchandise bit.ly/30Lgu4K
/ cheapaudioman Zoom meetings every Sunday night at 9cst
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Recommended Speaker List
Around $100 (These prices will fluctuate between $75 - $150)
Sony SSCS5 - Lively amzn.to/3pZNnGk
Pioneer AJ First Gen - Laid Back
Neumi BS5 -Neutral amzn.to/3q0SR3B
Around $200
Emotiva Airmotiv B1+ - Crystal Clear and Punchy emotiva.com?aff=9
Elac Debut b5.2 - Neutral amzn.to/2WPNQxw
Wharfedale Diamond 11.2 (In and Out of Stock) - Laid Back/Bassy/Detailed amzn.to/37W8hPA
JBL Stage A130 - Neutral/Great All Arounder at $179 the best value amzn.to/3t7gOHe
Around $400
Klipsch RP600M - Neutral amzn.to/3pBoXCf (This speaker’s price can fluctuate between $440-630 which is really dumb)
Jamo C93ii Bit - Boosted on Top amzn.to/3beIG6F (Can also be found cheaper at Crutchfield)
Around $500
SVS Prime bit.ly/2LozJgF
Wharfedale Diamond 12.2 bit.ly/2ZckoD9
Around $600
Elac Uni-Fi UB5.2 - Neutral amzn.to/3s3srPG
Elac Debut Reference - Buttery but Detailed amzn.to/39bt6WC
Polk Reserve R100 - Neutral
Aperion Novus - Neutral and probably the best desktop speaker one can get $599 bit.ly/2Q1H9rW
Aperion Novus Open Box $449 bit.ly/3us8zGx
Recommended Amp List
Around $130
SMSL AD18 - DAC/Amp Lively on top but solid tone controls amzn.to/3rVZxkN
Around $400
Emotiva TA-100 - DAC, Phono Stage, Pre Outs - Balanced and Tasty emotiva.com?aff=9
Vista Audio Spark www.vista-audio.com/products.htm
I loved it when you kept on pulling out tools. 😂
Lol
He missed a hacksaw 😄
Banane...
Mad Max 😂
There should've been MacGyver music playing :)
It's safe to know the Cheap Audio Man always carries a knie to protect you and me from the harm of too high prices.
Looks like a Kershaw Cryo. Good budget knife.
the way he puts it out and plant it on the table like nobody's business, I spat my coffee
So I see you didn't need the banana, just the banana clips. This DIY is pure gold. Thanks Randy!
What's a banana clip?
This is the funniest, yet most professional audo channel I've ever seen. Timestamp 4.55 is definitely a highlight...
Waiting for cheap audioman, the feature length film. can't get enough of this channel
Helpful Tip - On your wire strippers give them a turn around the wire after you have them clamped down helps cuts the cover and makes stripping the cover off easier.
Randy almost pulled a muscle stripping those wires.
My addition 2¢ is that once I cut the cover, I back off to the next larger (well, smaller) gauge when pulling the cover off. I feel like I get fewer broken strands that way.
@@alm5693 Good tip. I find once I have the cover loose I pull the cover by hand. Also if I want the wire ends twisted, I can turn the cover as I pull it off doing both at the same time.
Where’s the fun in that???
@@SalvadorFrieri True! Save money on the gym membership and just build more speaker wires.
Thanks for showing what it’s really like to strip a wire. I saw all the other videos making it look easy and thought I was doing something wrong.
Electrical tape eventually starts to unravel and make a gummy mess. I would suggest heat shrink tubing. A hair dryer will probably work to shrink it if you don't want to use a heat gun.
I can confirm a hairdryer works fine.
And I can confirm that the tape after a few years makes a gummy mess, even Scotch 33+.
what if u just keep adding another layer of tape every year lol. to cover the gunk
You can also tuck the loose end of the sleeve back inside and use a small cable tie to secure it. I still get a lighter on the end first to melt the strands. Great video though!
Love it ! ... I really do like this bananas I have the same box I ordered the same ones they're so easy to make your own cables.. I went out on a limb and bought the connectors for 2.5 balanced and 3.5 cable connectors from Amazon they have plus minus little tiny screw terminals insert your wire of choice and you're off to the races.
Spent the evening watching Severence and building cables. Great fun and thanks for the links!
Great Review. The ability to make your cables to the exact length you need is helpful to everyone! And it shouldn't cost as much as off campus housing for your child in college!
Hi Sir thanks for sharing...why are some cables so expensive ? up to $100 per pair, they are not coated with gold either? what to look for in good speaker cable?
Thanks Randy, I got a roll of duct tape to use to hold the cables off the floor and 12 pairs of banana connectors, 100 feet of wire and a couple of pair of interconnects so I should be good to go. I love this hobby, my wife not so much.
You don't love your wife, Tony?
@@jolkraeremeark6949 😂😂
So cool. Can't wait to put the nieces and nephew to work for this holiday season.
Thanks for this great DIY vid! Wire was part of the prime day sale so picked up 100ft.
Hi Randy,you are fabulous!!!stay safe ,pal.Greetings from Athens, Greece .
I thought Seth Audio would have advertised an RCA cable for 100$, but I then remembered that some cost even more... So, thank you very much for this enlightening video! I've just received a pair of ELAC Uni-Fi 2.0, and I'll "craft" its cables myself. Like in the old days when parents used to sew their loved children's clothes, and it shouldn't cost more than that ;).
Tip: If using the banana plugs that you screw the cable down buy a spare set just for the extra grub screws, they are so small and easy to shear the head without much force. Found out the hard way lol.
Love the show, BTW , I have a suggestion for everyone. There is a product called Stabilant 22A , it improves electrical connections by increasing surface area of a connection without causing connectivity across surfaces. they are used by car makers to reduce the resistance in connectors such as airbag connections . it is used by BMW and others and can help with audio connections as well and i use it on my RCA and speaker wire contacts. you can find youtube videos etc to learn more .
Thanks bro.
LOL this is the funniest video you ever done. The banana was epic :D
Good video, Randy. I use 10 gauge wire myself; it was huge improvement over some Monster Cable crap I was using.......................
Great video! Hilarious and awesome. Thanks Randy!
Randy is getting into the DYI videos :)
Amen Brother, I've been using 12 Gauge OFC Cables (OFC) for 40+ Years with no issues.
Thanks Randy. Good Job. I'd add that some heat shrink with glue inside will put permanent fix on that flex braid. You can shrink it nicely with one of those $20 heat guns from Harbor Freight that you use to remove paint, just keep it moving or it will melt the flex.
Don't debate cables, folks. Try it and if it works for you all the better. Cant learn a thing by just chatting about it.
Randy, considering your submarine service and your dedication to cheap audio, I've come to think of you as "Deep Cheap".
ha. nice.
When you twist the wire the positive should be clockwise and the negative counter-clockwise. The electrons will thank you.
Wouldn’t you have to travel to the Southern Hemisphere to be able to twist it counter-clockwise?
@@SalvadorFrieri be water my friend. Bruce Lee
@@khoi83 Be the electron...
very good!
Love your video’s, You’re realistic! 🙏🏼🙏🏼👍🏻
Great vid Randy, funny got an ad at the end for snake river audio - thought it was part of your bit!
Wow, so few tools and stuff needed to build speaker cables. I'm doin' this!
You can buy wire, connectors, cable boots, cable covering, EVERTHING for next to nothing and have yourself some decent cables with a couple hours labor.. and it’s fun and you’ll have some “pretty cables”!👍Good video!
Very cool. Looking forward to making some cable. I was gifted a Kenwood receiver and some KEF speakers.
This is my new favorite AffordableAudioRandy™ video by a COUNTRY MILE.
Randy, my hero.
Love it this is exactly how I would be making one of these videos
Thanks again Randy. Just got the materials from Amazon. Could not figure out what wire to get and Amazon pushed me to a brand that is CCA wire, which I never heard of and made a mistake buying not realizing it wasn’t full copper.
CCA is the work of the devil.
I always thought I must be incompetent at this project because I canNOT do it without grunting and sweating. Now I have company! Cheap company, sure, but that’s okay with me 🤗
My favorite is the salsa jar with screws. Everyone should have one of those.
I was about to not even watch video if that much material and effort required. Very funny 😊
That was beautiful.
Thanks man, great video
It's best if you don't use any plugs, banana or spades, unless you are doing it for the looks, but for the best connection just bare wire to the speaker and the amp terminals.
Yup, and give them a trim every so often when you move things around. Maybe every couple of years?
Well, technically it's best to skip the whole analog crossover, wire directly to the drivers and use a digital active crossover.
Me too no plugs, but I LIGHTLY tin the twisted wire ends with quality solder so they never unravel, been doing it fifty years no issues and great sound (old guy)
But now I want to see the maxed out version of speaker cables that do include the banana, wood glue, and LEDs
The LEDs make your system sound a little brighter!
Patiently waiting for the drill bit review.
Good video cheapaudio man & like the metallica themed cup ;-) I`d like to help you out regarding the evaluation of the cable`s quality : Firstly fear no more how to evaluate it, there are some measurable el. charactersistics that have an direct impact on the output quaity of the sound (resistance, inductance, capacitance) and also there has been scientifically proven how the brain is easily influenced by other senses when comparing cheap/no brand audio gear vs expensive/branded audio gear. And as far as I know no-one has proven yet the otherwise even though there is a gauntlet on the floor.
I was wondering what speaker cables do you use for your own equipment? thank you for awesome videos!
I made these and I’m pretty happy with them. My only mistake was leaving too much jacket on the wire. I should have removed the excess then taped. It’s an easy fix though.
I need to make some more
Awesome! 👌 😆
Shrink tubing would look and perform WAY better than electrical tape that always unravels and gets gooey and sticky. Ive never had a need for all this, just good quality twelve guage oxygen free copper speaker wire, twist each wire end neatly then LIGHTLY tin each wire end with solder so they dont unravel, worked well for 50 years for me with no issues
The what you need gag was great
Do you know if the Sony Strdh190 inputs anything else other than bare cables?
Love your natural comedy. Never comes off as forced.
I just recently made a pair using some found Old School 10awg wire. Thought it was car audio amp power cable, but alas it was labeled speaker wire on the sheet. I needed spade ends on one side and pin ends on the other for my current setup. I will say it was tricky finding proper end connectors that fit 10awg wire as its never advertised properly on amazon products.
I did the same with old original monster cable copper 10 gauge i've had forever and the Mediabridge banana from Amazon. These plugs fit the heavier wire much better than any other I've seen or tried. FWIW
@@Selene_M3 Can you believe Monster is leaving the cable biz? The XP platinum speaker wire & THX certified RCA's are the best "name brand" cables ive ever heard!
@@AllboroLCD I had not heard that! That is news.
Man you taped the crap out of that cable! It will survive the apocalypse!
Man, your the best dude lololol!!!!!
Made my cables with scissors and a naked razor blade! (Maybe a little more precision than the knife). They work (the cables...and by implication the razor blade).
Finally, with your help, I went to the 1st floor workshop and made a whole mess of speaker cables. I feel complete. Now what?
Plug'em in and enjoy the music
Also Randy, where can I get cables that are not cesium-free? I like a little cesium in my speaker cables. Really accentuates the highs. Plus they sound really good while you are getting your chemotherapy.
You are a funny cat!!!
Seems like a few of the commenters didn't get the wire stripping joke - lol. Good work as usual.
That was a fun video to make
"Look man, I ain't fallin' for no banana in my tailpipe!"
you are my fav :)
We hates the Amazon banana plugs. We loves the Parts Express angled locking plugs with dual set screws that you tighten with a hex wrench, and they have a thumbscrew mechanism that locks them into the binding posts. These can also be stacked so work great with Rel subwoofer high level connections.
That sounds like a lot of steps to get the wire into the clip. Just kidding. I’ll check them out
@@cheapaudioman If you don’t mind having one banana plug violating another when using high level connections, it works quite well....
As Wylie Coyote would say: Genius! Sheer unadulterated, GENIUS!!!!
how to connect regular speaker cable to 3pin xlr? because usually speaker cable has plus and minius only. not ground.
Hey Randy. Is it essential to make the cables the same length? I have one speaker about 3 feet away from the AMP and the other speaker is 8 feet away. I saw one video that claimed they should be identical lengths because of the speed of sound and all that mumbo jumbo. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I was going to build a 4 foot and an 8 foot, which is my needs. Cheers.
If you twist the cutters a full turn in both directions before trying to pull the insulation off, it will slide off much easier.
Spades vs banana clips, anyone?
I'll never forget one day when I needed to do some "emergency" sun tanning but I wanted to hear a new album I had just picked up (yes, this was back in a decade that started with an "S"), I didn't have speaker wire that long but my dad had a roll of what I would describe as double sided twist ties (steel, not copper cores, probably in the 24 gauge range) and necessity became the mother of invention! My Dynaco A25s (still have them, by the way) came with me outside tethered to my receiver with these makeshift "speaker cables" and they sounded great. Now we are asked to consider which speaker wires to use much the same as we would consider a treatment for a medical ailment. It's all too much, I tell you, it's too much!! 🤣
Good stuff
The beginning was so funny 😂.... next time included "a master's degree in mathematics"🤣
Instead of using the electrical tape on the sheathing, you can just tuck the sheathing back under itself. If you want to go nuts you can then secure it with a zip tie or a single wrap around the area you tucked the sheathing under.
awesome tips.
going tot ry this today. sounds interesting
Thx for posting! Why do you use the wire jacket?
Great video Randy! Why don't you do a video about Audio Racks and or shelves....
Fantastic channel. I found you a few months ago and have been an avid watcher ever since.. I'm looking for some good inexpensive cable for making some RCA's. Have any recommendations?
Very Nice! Now tell us if it makes ANY difference if, say, the front left and right speaker cables are the same length. Meaning if your amp is off to one side so it takes 25' for the right one do you need to make the cable for the left side the same 25' even if the amp is much closer to one side or the other. Thank You
I don’t think so. However I use the same length even if one speaker is a lot closer. I don’t do it for any other reason than knowing which cables I have and to keep things organized.
Great video. The springs on those Amazon plugs get real loose really fast in my experience though.
It's only when one purchases proper banana plugs one realises just how loose Amazon basic banana plugs really are, in fact after trying to reinsert the Amazon basic banana plugs after experiencing proper tightly fitted banana plugs, it quickly becomes apparent that the amazonbasics banana plugs are now obsolete!
Can we please get a 10:00 hour video of you just assembling speaker cables?
Great video, gonna make some speaker cables. Where exactly am I clipping the banana to.
El-cheapo jacket tip. Buy extra long, flat shoelaces & cut the tips off. Slide the cloth jacket over your wires & viola! You can get 'em with glitter, animal print, neon colors, whatever. Finish off the ends with tape or heat-shrink & you're done! Para-cord works too, just yank out the center strings.
Great video but I would have appreciated a close up at each step on installing the 12 AWG cable into the banana plugs. Any better to use solder on them?
No solder needed.
For buying wire jacket that is compatible with 12 ga wire, is 1/4" the size jacket you need or do you need 1/2" jacket? Thanks
Have you determined yet the size needed?
I use 10' hockey skate laces to wrap my cables for a softer feel
Be careful not to get them wet though, or your system will sound too soft and mushy
With my kid's scissors... 🤣🤣🤣
Some things I've learned from doing my own that might help you. 1) Set your wire strippers one gauge lower than your wire so for you with 12 gauge wire you'd set it to 10 gauge setting 2) then you can twist it around and it will nearly cut through the cable and you can easily pull it off the end and you don't risk cutting any of the copper strands underneath 3) I prefer the Monoprice Affinity Series banana plugs as they are still fairly cheap but they are a lot easier to use and if you screw up the polarity of the connectors it's an easy fix as the caps are colored not the gold connector part installation is just 2 screws first screw makes contact with the wire and second one holds the wire into the banana plug so it can make contact with the sleeving.
yeah. I was just doing this on the fly. I actually use the automatic wire strippers for my other stuff but I thought it would be funnier to do it the other way...
@@cheapaudioman I did find it amusing haha. Yeah that red handled one I've seen other people use and it looks so much easier since you can specify how long you want it.
@@TylerStout Gah. I didn't know until right now that I need to have an automatic wire stripper. This feels kind of like the moment when I discovered electric erasers (in the days before CAD).
One trip to Amazon and now my TH-cam recommendations are filled with videos about wire stripper shootouts: Search for the best wire stripper.
@@cheapaudioman Not funnier, just dumb! If you use good strippers yourself, why make yourself look like a cheapo guy and show crap ones? Doesn't make sense. Those ones you're using are garbage!
I’m an idiot but what is the baseline for the wire you selected and where do you buy it? What is it called if not speaker wire?
I find that the rubber sleeved amazon basics 14 gauge speaker wire works very well.
I wonder if the 12 gauge sounds any different.
I just got the 12 gauge for insurance. I haven’t had the time to really start going down the cable rabbit hole yet. I was wanted to show folks how to make a decent looking cable that doesn’t get tangled up.
its funny i just made up all 5 cables for my 5.2 system almost exactly the same way. If i could give any advise for receivers with spring clip connections please spring for the connectors. i did the bare wire route 12 gauge is a bit too much for the connection points on my onkyo sr 393 . did find a braided cover that came close to my svs subwoofer cables
What's that watch you have it looks almost like a daytona chronograph
@cheapaudioman
Try a Marley sport in a Erie contractor wheelbarrow.
Soundstage and bass is excellent.
Can you please review this
I pulled a Hammy running with the Scissors.
Yeah, but how long do these cables take to burn in?!?!?!?! (Snark font)
Just finished raiding two 15 ft / 14 ga wire. It took me the weekend to do 1 braid. Gonna Finnish the other this weekend.
Not looking forward to it tho. It's rough on your hands and it takes too damn long! You have to constantly untangle. There has to be an easier way.
If you braid two 14 ga together, does that now make it 7 ga?
FYI... braided speaker cables is SNAKE OIL. Unless your goal is to very slightly decrease the bandwidth of the output due to increased capacitance.
LEARN ABOUT the differences between line-level and load-level impedance. Also learn about balanced and unbalanced loads, and something called SNR.
Now, if your goal is to make your system sound the best it can, keep any line-level input cables as far away from any power cables, and if you can't, make sure that they are not parallel with them, that they cross them at right-angles.
I design cables for a living.
2:00 Christ! I'll just order from Blue Jeans. They have the knowledge and the power!
Great tutorial but now you're going to start getting death threats from those speaker cable companies.
Haha
Yeh, the same ones that sell optical cables with gold plated plugs for ultimate sound quality 👍 🤦♂️
Very awesome video, you explained it perfectly well for me to be able to get a mental visual on what you’re doing I am impressed and thank you for doing it
So if I'm correct it looks like the jacket doesn't actually do anything? I was thinking perhaps it was shielding but really just to make it look pretty?
🤣🤣🤣👍 Awesome
Randy, did you catch Gene of Audioholics review and test of Audio Quests $5000 battery powered speaker cables? His 10 AWG Blue Jean cables ($50 ish) out performed them! BTW, loved your demo, I've made my own cables that are almost identical to yours accept for the cable jacket. Why would one need the jackets.......for aesthetics?
Saw another TH-camr measure those cables and he found the cause much more noise than the cheap cables.
The jackets (AKA cable pants) are for aesthetics. So is heat shrink.
Audio Science Review.
I quit at exactly 2 minutes!
Then I just ate a banana & sobbed.
So much for the kitchen table.
Adds character
Possibly a very dumb question but when buying cables how do I spot the difference in quality? Is it just gauge sizes? Are there particular materials to look out for?
The thicker the gauge (which is measured in awg) the least resistance. The lower the number, the thicker gauge. 12 to 14 awg is probably the optimal size. If the cables are going to be of length, say for surround or height speakers, then I would recommend shielded cables, otherwise once the novelty wears off one will probably be wondering what's that faint background signal noise (noise floor)
I make mine from outdoor extension cord. Jacket already included. LOL. It's stupid easy. I usually get black but I hear red and orange add 5 more watts