[Tyson]

Interesting stuff!  I just finished building my own speakers from scratch and I'm also using active crossovers all the way.  I bought some teflon coated silver-plated copper wire for all the internal speaker wire, but I'm not too happy w/the sound of it.  I think that it suffers 2 problems for me.  1st, the silver plating makes it a bit too bright sounding for my tastes.  2nd, I live in a high EMI/RFI area also, and the lack of braiding or shielding means crap is entering into the signal just as it is entering my speaker boxes. 

Jeenie,
What is that extra bit of blue wire coming out of your speaker wire?  A ground?  If so, how did you build it in, and what do you connect it to?

[jeenie67]

...you took my RF's away-aay....now it's just music that play-ays..my cables have touched my heart.
     Hi, a little song to start with! The two red wires (12 AGW solid copper - & +) woven around a piece of chemistry tubing are for the woofers (I didn't designate color coding, but shrink wrapped a short piece of that material on the wires end to signify positive). The outer loose weave of blue Cat-5e wire is for the Altec mid-HF horn. A complete peruse of this thread will explain much. For the short time I had to analyze these speaker cables before I had to pack everything up for storage, the results were excellent. I hope I've given you some insight and ideas. "Tanx"  Jeenie.

[LFM]

Jeenie, I have just purchased everything I need to try your interconnect recipe. I have studied all the pics but still am uncertain about the exact geometry of the braid you use. How does your method differ from the XLO geometry of the X1and X3 cable at TNT audio DIY. You mention that you chuck everything into a drill motor to wind the cable which suggests a single helix arrangement. The pics seem to show a bidirectional arrangement but then how do you wind the third twisted pair? Your help would be much appreciated.

[jeenie67]

Hi. For the IC's I secured the inner tubing (1/8"ID) to a door hinge pin along with the stock braided Cat5e wire (all 4, 6, or 8 strands depending how many you wany to use in pairs woven from the factory and stripped from the blue jacket). Now you hand weave them around the tubing achieving a 45 degree angle cross-hatch (the 45 degree angle is what suppresses RFI as each wire cannot turn itself into an antenna). A friend to help here saves time, but it's not that bad of an operation. TNT has a few good explanations on this procedure (that's where I got it from). When the wires are wrapped around the tube I secure them all together to a fish wire (any thin solid copper wire, preferably bare, grease them up with soap, Armor All, etc, and fish them through the outer tubing. For the speaker wires I just chuck everything up in a drill and slowly wrap them together. They will follow a 45 degree angle by themselves. I return to this site every 4 or 5 days during the summer so ask away. Hope I helped.  Jeenie.