[Poleary]

The rope I received was 5/8” thick. This was challenging to get inside the cable. In his video Danny mentioned 1/4” rope.  Maybe they sent the wrong thickness.

I will add tube connectors on the speaker ends. What is the best connector to use for the amplifier ends?

[Hobbsmeerkat]

In the original video, we used 1/4" rope, but have moved to 1/2 inch cotton rope, as it did a better job spreading the braids apart than the 1/4 rope did.
5/8 rope is what we normally use in our B24 power cables, so it's possible you did get the larger 5/8 rope by accident, which is a bit of a tight fit for the 16-strand cable. I definitely had a similar issues feeding 5/8" polyethylene rope through my 16-strand cables as well.

It won't hurt performance tho, just takes a little more effort to feed through.

[Poleary]

Very good. Thanks for explaining. It was challenging but not impossible and we got there in the end. At the least, the cables look very impressive and I’m sure they will start conversations when we start having guests over again.

[E-Zee]

I also would recommend using at least 1/2" rope for the 16-strand braided speaker cables.  I have assembled them with 5/8" rope and didn't find it to be of any significant additional difficulty.  They are labor intensive by nature, but I didn't find 5/8" to add noticeable difficulty. 

I would not recommend using a smaller rope such as 1/4" or even 3/8" at all. 

My purpose for commenting, is slightly off-topic but hopefully worthwhile for anyone looking here who might also have interest in using a braided cable assembly for power cables.  There is some potentially significant considerations to be made related to which power connector ends are used. The relevance, is that the difference of 1/2" rope vs 5/8" rope does have an effect on the final outer dimension of that cable and there are power connectors that are not able to accept the larger diameter of a 24-strand or even 16-strand braided cable over the 5/8" rope.  I can't provide an exact minimum opening as there are many factors including the thickness of any heat shrink tubing used, or even the inclusion of a flex-tech type of sleeve. 

The point is simply that it's something to be aware of.  If your building a braided power cord with a 5/8" rope and covering the end with some heat shrink before attaching the connector, than a connector with a16mm or 17mm maximum opening just won't be sufficient.

If somebody was looking for more specific details they are welcome to email me and I can share some info about which connectors I've used and have large enough openings.

Elon

[email protected]

[Early B.]

Speaking of connectors...

...has anyone done a comparison of connectors using the B16 or B24 cables? I'm curious about the Furutech NCF connectors, in particular. A few months ago, Elon built a power cord for me using the Furutechs with B24 cables, but I have no way of knowing if they're "better" than the stock connectors or to what extent. 

[Digi-G]

I'm also in the midst of building a set of these cables (16 strand) and asked the same question about feeding the rope thru, in another thread.  Not sure if it's 1/2" or 5/8" rope but it was snug and tricky getting it thru.  I'm going to add tube connectors on the speaker end and although I bought banana connectors for the amp end, I'm considering changing to spade.  I didn't think it really mattered but have read a couple of threads since I placed my order that spade connectors might be better than banana.  So I too, am looking for an answer on this.

[Poleary]

One thing to be mindful of is that as the thicker rope causes the wire mesh to expand more it shortens the length.  I ordered 5 ft cables but after getting the rope in I was down to 4.5 ft. 

P

[Hobbsmeerkat]

The average shrinkage with the rope is ~20% or roughly 1 foot of cable lost for every 5 feet of cable you start with. So 10' cable will become 8' once the rope is inserted. 1/4 inch rope Should only lose about 6-8" for every 5 feet of cable.

The 5/8" rope is really only intended for our B24 power cables, and will cause the most loss of length ~20-25%
1/2" rope is easier to work with and will achieve all of the same benefits as a longer cable.

[Poleary]

I'm also in the midst of building a set of these cables (16 strand) and asked the same question about feeding the rope thru, in another thread.  Not sure if it's 1/2" or 5/8" rope but it was snug and tricky getting it thru.  I'm going to add tube connectors on the speaker end and although I bought banana connectors for the amp end, I'm considering changing to spade.  I didn't think it really mattered but have read a couple of threads since I placed my order that spade connectors might be better than banana.  So I too, am looking for an answer on this.

This chap on YouTube provides some good information on the subject:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BYYZZNuO-GY

P