@boxer12, Chris at VH Audio is an honist stand up guy. Whay not email him with your question?
Will power cable work well as speaker cable?
The reason I'm asking is I'm trying to find oyaide tunami nigo speaker cable in the U.S. & nobody has it. This is supposed to be the same as the tunami power cord with the exception of the ground. VH audio has the power cable. I've made a couple of these using Neotec connectors & am thoroughly impressed with it as power cable. Hearing things I've never heard before in amazing clarity. VH audio (which BTW is a great company) does have Oyaide Across 2000 they sell in bulk for speaker cable. Anyone using that? If so what are your thoughts?
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Treadman, Yes, that is what I'm looking for. Have you ever done business with them? lak & bar81, I agree that Chris is a great guy to work with. I took your advice and asked him. He said it will work as speaker cable. He isn't fond of shielded speaker cable though which is why he carries the Across 2000 instead of the Nigo. I'm going to try it. Worst case if I don't like the results, I'll make 2 more power cords out of it. Thanks for the suggestion. |
@boxer12 - having tried many different cables types over the years I would not personally opt for a power cable to drive my speakers. The third conductor can cause lots of noise. There are lots of options out there and if you are looking for great quality copper, something Oyaide is renown for, take a look at the various options from Van den Hul. I've personally owned their Clearwater (small speakers), CS-122 (mid to large) and D352 (floor standing) models. All are excellent perofrmers. A big step up from that are the KLEI gZero2 speaker cables from KLE Innovations. Excellent all round performers with deep rich but very controlled bass - I have a 3 meter set if interested or a 3m set of the gZero6 (even better) If DIY is your thing take a look at these ... http://image99.net/blog/files/d048bbacfce9bcad4a025be804771d9a-76.html The HELIX are the best I've tried to date - superb details, deep, controlled bass, lightning fast dynamic performance and an immense image - but they do take around 200 hours to sound therm very best. Hope that helps - Steve |
Well I have the Oyaide Tunami power cord set up as speaker cable. They replaced Morrow SP5's. They are still "cold" & there is the tinge (slight grain) in the treble that these cables have until about 100 hours (they gradually lose this). There is something about this wire that I absolutely love. There is a there, there. That wasn't much of a sentence, but maybe you know what I mean. Even when they are cold I have more depth, width, & detail than I had with the morrows. Don't get me wrong, the morrows are not bad at all but there is a purity to these wires that is fantastic in my system. Toddverrone, I really want to try the shield to see if it's an improvement in this application. If they don't work out that way I'll use them as designed (imagine that) for power cords & buy the across 2000 speaker wire or one that williewonka recommended above. williewonka, The thing I like about asking questions here is getting sincere recommendations from other audiophiles. Thank you for that. |
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I've not tried it, but I've read many anecdotes that proclaim Romex to be an amazing speaker cable. But a bear to get into place. If you do use your 10/5 Romex, (you sure about that? 5 conductors plus a ground? I've never heard of that..) don't use the whole thing, just strip the conductors out that you need. 2 for regular cables, 4 for biwire. You might even want to try a helix configuration, based on williewonka's post above.. |
Hahaha! I had to read that last part three times.. Man, 2 x 10awg per polarity is a bit crazy. I mean, unless you’re pushing 2000 watts.. I’ve been making lots of cables and was loving some braided cat 5 cables. However, I recently made a pair of cables like williewonka’s link above, the helix. They sound great. They key parts of the great sound are the coil architecture and the double neutral. Check it out. It could sound amazing with Romex, but your hands will be sore, making the coils! Whatever you do, those are going to be some stiff cables! How the crunk are you going to fit all that wire into a binding post?! |
@todverrone & @timlub - Actually - if you stick to the formula of 2 neutral and 1 signal... - The neutral, being coiled, is quite flexible and it’s weight helps with flexing the signal conductor - so cables made with Romex are actually quite flexible. I started with a Romex helix when I developed the power cable. It worked very well, but I was concerned with the live conductor breaking because of fatigue due to a lot of flexing, so I decided not to promote it. Other things with Romex that I found (especially for power cables) - Crimped terminations fail very quickly so you have to solder all connectors (e.g. spades, bananas etc...) - not using spades (for power cables) results in less than optimal power transfer Other than that - It should work very well for speaker cables, but again, I do not promote Romex use for the signal conductor because of the fatigue issue. I prefer a stranded signal conductor just for that reason. But give it a whirl - it’s easy to change to a different signal conductor once you hear the abilities of the Helix geometry. I think you will be pleased with the outcome. Cheers - Steve |
Update: I replaced the power cable with 12ga oyaide speaker wire. Now using the power cable as it was designed to be used. Although it worked well as speaker cable I couldn't get past the fact that it wasn't designed for it. That and in my experience I get more bang for the buck (sound improvement wise) with power cables in my system than speaker cables. The beauty of this upgrade is that I now have Oyaide Tunami power cables going to all the electronics (except the TT motor) associated with the analog portion of my system. I will be replacing the IC's with Oyaide as well as soon as funds allow. There is simply something very right about this wire. |
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