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Speaker Cable Experiment Opinion

I'm probably going to turn a number of you off with this experiment but, hey, not much harm in this! I have a pair of the DIY White Lightning Moonshine speaker cables made from Woods Yard Master extension cord. It got popular a number of years ago and you can read about it at 6Moons here: https://6moons.com/audioreviews/whitelightning/moonshine.html I jumped onboard with these a number of years ago and use them to this day. I love them, they did wonders for my system. Now, I plan to experiment and want to try doubling them up to see if I can hear an improvement. My question is, I have a few options on how I can wire these up and not sure which way sounds like the best course of action. You'll notice that the White Lightning Moonshine cables have three conductors - white, black and green. The recipe calls for the white and green wires to be wired together to the positive side at the amp and speaker and the black is wired as the negative at the amp and speaker. It's odd that the positive conductor is twice the AWG as the negative but, hey, it works and they sound great. See the constructed cables at the link above to help visualize this. So, I have more of this Yard Master cord and here are my wiring options if I double up the cable:

1. Keep the same wiring scheme as it is now but add in another run by connecting the white and green of the new cord to white and green of the original cord to the positive side at the speaker and amp and then the black wire of the new cord to the other black wire from the original cord at the speaker and amp. So, the positive side would have four 16 AWG conductors and the negative side would have two 16 AWG conductors.

2. Try to follow me here. Wire up the green and white wires in cord #1 to the single black wire of cord #2 to form the positive side. Then, vice versa, wire the green and white wires of cord #2 with the single black wire from cord #1. This way I end up with the same AWG for both positive and negative which would be three 16 AWG wires. Essentially each positive and negative lead will share one wire inside the opposite cord.

3. The simplest option of all and am guessing this would be the dumbest. Use one extension cord with the green, white and black wires all twisted together to form the positive side and then of course another cord with the three wires twisted up for the negative side.

With any of those scenarios I wonder about whether I should twist the double run of cord or not regardless of which option, or just run them parallel side by side, maybe even zip tie them together?

Any insight would be appreciated, thanks!


128x128figuy
16 responses Add your response
figuy's avatar
figuy OP
44 posts
 
Quick update. Thanks @elizabeth for your suggestion on the blue teflon tape! I found some 3/4 wide at a local store and it worked great. I twisted up the cables and while I didn't measure the length of the twists I think it's around 2.5". You can see them here: https://imgur.com/ZAoSTR0 They are looking a little like a blue spiral lollipop at the moment! https://tinyurl.com/y37hmuv7 :)

I haven't had a lot of time to critically listen and am experimenting with the wiring of the polarities as I described in the first post. I will say I noticed that tightly twisted like this that the sound followed suit, as expected, and tightened up, some treble came back, they sound quicker, more focused. Still greater transparency as I reported before twisting them compared to the original single-run recipe which was a notable difference. I need to listen some more and then I'll report back!

@ozzy Yep, just doubling up for fun!
mitch2
3,969 posts
 
@twoleftears 
Where did that guy go who wanted us all to use 0 awg gauge battery cable for speakers?
Wow, thanks for reminding me of that thread - talk about fun!  I regret not trying out a pair and I seriously considered it but never got around to it.  Oh well, the day is young.  The poster was b4icu and below is last post (as you can see, a man of his word) and a link to the thread below the post.
Ok guys. This is going to end now and here. If your boss, of the cable industry you may represent wish to have a conversation, I'm here. For you: I'm no more available.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/no-one-actually-knows-how-to-lculate-what-speaker-cable-they-need
twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears
5,318 posts
 
Where did that guy go who wanted us all to use 0 awg gauge battery cable for speakers?
lak's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
lak
4,626 posts
 
@figuy, please keep us posted regarding your experimentations with the various combinations.
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ozzy's avatar
ozzy
7,461 posts
 
It sounds like what you are doing is increasing the overall wire gauge. That could help the bass but I doubt if it helps with the upper frequencies.

ozzy
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figuy's avatar
figuy OP
44 posts
 
@lak Thanks! I’ll keep that in mind as I try to twist these up. It’s good to know that twisting is the way to go. Right now they are not twisted very well and imagine it is why I hear some additional high end delicacy (hesitant to say roll-ff) and some pronounced midbass and lower midrange (which I happen to kind of like) due to the increased inductance.

@mitch2 Thanks! Unfortunately I do not have biwireable speakers nor two sets of posts on my amp. I’m curious your quick suggestion to maybe try scenario #2 and would love to hear your reasoning on that because I don’t understand the electrical properties to know why it might be good. Is it simply a matter of intermingling the conductors with that one conductor from each cord sharing polarity within the other cord that helps keep the overall scheme of conductors closer together? Reducing inductance?
mitch2
3,969 posts
 
My "off the cuff" thoughts would be that your option 2 may reduce inductance and thus be a good way to go for speaker cables, and particularly for MF/HF drivers.  You would want to keep both cables in close proximity and probably twisted together would be best.

Additionally, if you bi-wire, what works best for the MF/HF drivers may not necessarily be required for the LF drivers.  In the case of LF, it may be sufficient to simply run two separate cables, connecting white, black, and green all together for each of the two polarities (i.e., pos and neg).  This would decrease the resistance to the LF drivers, which is typically a good thing.  It would also open another option that would be to connect the MF/HF drivers using your existing cables and configuration (since it seems to work for you), and then connect the LF drivers using one full (three strand) cable to each polarity.

As the others have already pointed out....experiment!
lak's avatar
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lak
4,626 posts
 
For what it's worth the twist rate that worked best for me with Duelund tinned copper in cotton oil-impregnated was every three inches.
Carry on, I think it's great to experiment... :-)
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figuy's avatar
figuy OP
44 posts
 
Thanks, all!

@blindjim Great thoughts, thank you. I will experiment. I was thinking maybe there was an obvious choice or I had flawed thinking and thought I would ask these questions to see if it might help negate any specific wiring solution.

@gregm Perfect, thank you! It would be very hard to twist every couple of inches though as the overall diameter thickness of each cord would make that difficult. But I’ll get close.

i did wire them up quickly last night in scenario #1 and while I need to keep experimenting and get the twisting right the preliminary results are nuts! Amazing increase in transparency with increased dimension of the soundstage in all directions, better mid and deep bass, increased dynamics and a more palpable sense of realism and natural tone. The treble is a little sweeter and I expected that but It is so natural. There’s something amazing about these hillbilly cables. Sort of reminds me of my Analysis Plus Oval cables in some way.
gregm
3,405 posts
 
@figuy  
Would you twist the shotgun run
Yes you would lightly twist (say, a twirl every 2 inches or so), BUT as Elizabeth says, try the doubling & if you like it don't fix it any further!


blindjim
3,092 posts
 

the only thing standing between you and finding out which path will butter your bread is you.

I’d go with what has worked for me in the past, first. listen. then maybe…

but what the hey! change it all up.

the important bit is to have a reference, a Baseline. then perhaps go mess it up, uh, rearrange things.

I had a pair of ICs reterminated from XLR to single ended RCA from Synergistic Audio. they chose to put the two conductors onto the negative which suprised me a bit. but, all in all, the tone never changed following that alteration. all else remained faithful too. usually the makers of these things know what works best in their various models.

good luck.
figuy's avatar
figuy OP
44 posts
 
Thanks, Elizabeth! I appreciate it. That sounds like sound advice and makes sense and a good place to start. Would you twist the shotgun run at all or at a minimum tie them together in parallel by zip ties? Or just left them be? I thought I’ve heard if they aren’t close together it can cause inductance issues. 
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