[beat]

Hi guys,
I'm looking to do my internal speaker wiring with the best I can but refuse to pay vampire prices. I have always just used zip cord. Is there another continuous cast or single grain copper wire supplier? magnet wire maybe?
thanks,
beat

[_scotty_]

I would suggest 12ga. stranded THHN wire from Home Depot or Lowes.
It has very good dynamics,excellent frequency extension and good focus.
It is also 7cents a foot.  The best available technology for a given application is not always the most expensive or most  marketed.  Worst case,you have spent a small amount of money on an experiment.  Good luck with your project,  Scotty

[Tonto Yoder]

I'm not sure what the going rate for Vampire wire is, but even if it was halfway expensive,  the lineal feet wouldn't be very much: sell a couple Grande latte frappacino mocha nut fudge espressos and you'd be even.

BTW, Parts Express has 16 ga. wire for that purpose that's $7/ 100 foot spool (that's 7 cents/ foot if that figure rings a bell).

[Ulas]

I'm looking to do my internal speaker wiring with the best I can but refuse to pay vampire prices.

As TY pointed out, you probably don't need a lot of wire. Percy has 12awg, stranded, Vampire cast copper wire for $1.50/ft. That's not too much to pay for "the best." Or you could spend a little more for 11.5awg Cardas wire at $2.95/ft. Some consider Cardas "the best." I think “the best” is plain copper litz wire at a few cents/ft for 24awg. For speaker wire I parallel enough strands to get the desired awg.

[Tonto Yoder]

I'm looking to do my internal speaker wiring with the best I can but refuse to pay vampire prices.

As TY pointed out, you probably don't need a lot of wire. Percy has 12awg, stranded, Vampire cast copper wire for $1.50/ft. That's not too much to pay for "the best." ....

Michael Percy, though, has a minimum order of $25 before shipping ($7.50) which complicates things a bit.

I just remembered some Nordost cable I bought to try (I didn't like it) as speaker wire.  It was $5/foot unterminated, but I only got two four foot pieces.
Wonder how THAT would work internally???  It's the 1/8 wide superflat copper with FEP dielectric (though I have NO idea what FEP is).

[Ulas]

Michael Percy, though, has a minimum order of $25 before shipping ($7.50) which complicates things a bit.

If a DIY audiophile can't find $25 of "got-to-have" stuff from Percy, he ought to go back to buying off the shelf at Circuit City.

[Occam]

If a DIY audiophile can't find $25 of "got-to-have" stuff from Percy, he ought to go back to buying off the shelf at Circuit City.

Getting a bit dogmatic aren't we?

While I certainly agree that wire might make a difference, I would hope such things as proper topology and layout take more precdence, lest we find ourselves polishing a turd.

While many 'good' wires are bespoke with 'street cred', not all good wires are bespoke and have that cachet you seem to place so much stock in.

Whatever wires you use, and like in your loudpeaker cables, should do fine as your internal speaker wires. How could it not be so?

I use the wire from my Tara Phase II Space & Time zippitydodah speaker cable (snip snip) and it nets out to $0.50 to wire my amp.

Does it mean that because I use industrial non-audio jewelry binding posts, Superior BP30BRs, they are can't be any good?
Its not hard to make worthwhile tweeks by throwing money at it, but its not that difficult to do so as a cheap SOB  

[Gordy]

Hi TY

FEP is a chem. designation for one of the Teflons.  Pretty middle of the road, properities wise, but has excellent weather resistance, good for 20 "Florida Years", an actual standard!  Thought you might appreciate that...

Gordy

[beat]

Thanks alot everyone,
I can't see why whatever speaker cable you subscribe to wouldnt therefore be the "best" to do your innards. I myself seem to have faith in the whole continuous cast thing..for what it is worth anyway. I know what is going to make more difference is cap and coil choice as well as cabinet tweaking...I just wanted to get off on the right foot and I have witnessed first hand the niceties of OFCCC and figured if I had all confidence in my wire I can be more critical on my other adjustments. Anyway, who is this Percy guy? The price I saw on vampire was like almost 3 bucks a foot!!  And I wanted to go fatter than what that price was for..I think it was 16 or 18. Must admit, I like scottys take and just go with thhn or just plain PE hookup wire as TY suggested.
anywho, Thanks again
beat

[Tonto Yoder]

...

Michael Percy offers a DIY paradise of audiophile bits and pieces--
http://www.percyaudio.com/

[StevenACNJ]

About a month ago I replaced all the internal wire of my HT speakers and sub (5.1).

I used Audio Consulting 24g solid core silver wire for the tweeters - from Reference Audio Mods

I used 12g cryo treated Vampire CCC wire for the woofers - speakers & sub - from take Five Audio - for the sub I ran a quad run to the driver.

The result was fantastic.

The Vampire wire on the woofers gives me very clean, tight, detailed mid range and bass. Dramatic improvements.

This combo of internal speaker wire was one of the best improvements I ever made to my audio system!

[Tonto Yoder]

I've offered beat my few pieces of Nordost "4flat" speaker wire (and he has wisely accepted)---it's unterminated flat copper ribbon:
http://www.nordost.com/Cables/speaker-flatline-4-flat.htm

Any suggestions how to connect this for internal speaker wiring???  I'm not sure he'll like it, so I don't think I'd want to solder it to the drivers without first listening to it.  Would some of those cheapie crimp-on connectors work best??

[beat]

This combo of internal speaker wire was one of the best improvements I ever made to my audio system!

Thanks for sharing your experience steven..and thanks a ton Tonto. I think the nordost should really perform well. I have some little solid copper aligators that might suit me well for this application.

beat