Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Cheap Speaker Wire Alternative

Peter, you're just muck-raking.

Thanks, John, that helps.

Chess, the Allen article was interesting and for the most part very well written, but I suspect that John may have drawn the wrong conclusion on p.6 from the favorable result he measured. Although it was a bit difficult to follow exactly what was being compared, I gathered that two 6ga THHN single conductor wires somewhat loosely twisted together were compared with a 10ga 4 conductor solid wire cable with each pair joined to form the equivalent of two 7ga conductors. He comments that one effect of joining the pairs would be to "cancel inductance", and of course this isn't the case, but rather that closely spaced conductors minimize inductance. Note for example Gene DellaSalla's article on measuring speaker wire inductance which points out that it's directly proportional to the distance between the centers of the two conductors and for that reason the spacing should be minimized. Allen had the closely spaced conductors in the 4 conductor cable compared with the wider and variable spacing of the two THHNs. Presumably the wider spacing significantly increased the inductance, which would have resulted in a greater high-frequency rolloff. He comments that "In addition to flat frequency response, the inductance was also minimized", but it would appear that the latter caused the former and that the solid/stranded factor may have been irrelevant.

Continuing to add to the thread on inexpensive components, buyers may want to check out Solens in Quebec.

Click on Accessories on the left, then scroll down to see the pdf list of parts prices. You need the part #s first though so browse the parts list and note the #s before you open up the prices pdf file.
They have Prolink 12ga wire for 53 cents Cdn a foot (part # 2/C 12GA). The 16ga is only 23 cents per foot.

An update to the search for ultimate cheap (but quality) cable:
A brother in law of a friend's tech at work buys cable as a local contractor through some of the wholesalers previously mentioned. He provided us with 12ga cable for 20 cents Cdn per foot!! I've included pics of the cable quality (sorry for the fuzzy webcam snaps).
The cable is designed for audio use, has a blue PVC jacket, is flexible, etc. etc. The thread count is probably between 40 and 80 for those who care to know this information.





I also came across a good price for banana plugs on ebay. Since these plugs looked alot like the Ultralink bananas being sold at another site for $2 a piece, i asked the seller for more info on these plugs. Here was his reply:
"they are all made by the same few OEMs in asia. I buy them direct, but everyone from Ultralink to RadioShack sell them."
Brand name buyer beware is a good mantra to follow indeed.

What's the manufacturer/part number on that stuff? Looks good.

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What's the manufacturer/part number on that stuff? Looks good.

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Herein lies the tricky part of this search for ultimate cheapness. Once you find it, allowing others access to it is rather difficult and often the material itself has no real brand name and is just the unstamped product being sold prior to getting a brand name label.
When i first started searching i was looking for an online or local shop that i could walk into at any point in time and find/buy what i needed. Then the search sort of turned into a "just how cheap can we find good cable" kind of thing. Sidvicious did find a local place in which he bought cable for about 23 cents a foot. However when trying to buy more cable last week, my friend got shot down b/c he was not a contractor with a business account at the place. Sid lucked out.
Our present search revealed this latest hit but we had to go through 2 other ppl to locate it. At one point we were told the source gets this stuff for 12 cents a foot.

So here was my big question, if a contractor with any business name can setup an account, pay cash for each wire purchase and pay a really low rate, then why not allow any customer to walk in off the street and pay the same amount in cash for what they wanted?
Why does the wholesaler deny the walk in (or even the call ahead) customer?

Some would say, well many customers would only want a small amount of wire and hence the wholesaler cannot be bothered with such ppl wanting small sales. I can agree with that but then why not simply setup a policy, say, "minimum purchase of x feet or dollars required"? This is what Solens does although their wire price is still double that compared to what we found at local wholesalers but decidedly cheaper than anything bought online even at places like Partsexpress.

I've never been more disgusted with the markup of products than i am now knowing how much increase is added from wholesaler to retailer. We are not talking about a couple of cents per foot. We are talking about markups in the several hundred percent range and this is just for the so-called low end zip cord type stuff!!
I cannot imagine the thousands of percent markup that go into the wires at even $6/ft and beyond.

It makes me furious. No wonder ppl in this world are greedy. They have to be to afford the RETAIL prices for things.

As someone who works for a reseller of computer equipment and is associated with a reseller of cables, I can safely say that margins in the computer business are nothing like the margins in the cable business, which are enormous. In the computer business, we get 5-20%. In the cable business, they get 100% +.

Chess, I hereby crown you King of the Cheap Speaker Wires. Can't beat that deal.

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The thread count is probably between 40 and 80 for those who care to know this information.

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Chess, not trying to open a can of worms but what on earth would the thread count have to do with anything?