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Good chunky Speakon cables? Where to buy?


fretmeister
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41 minutes ago, BassmanPaul said:

Simplest way is to make them yourself. You also do not need the cable to be chunky. 18 gauge will be fine over that distance. 

I don’t even do my own pickup swaps!

 

you know instructions on a soldering iron that say “don’t hold the hot end”? 
That’s my fault! 

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13 minutes ago, BassmanPaul said:

The plugs themselves NL4 don't require soldering they have screw connections. Always buy the NL4 connectors 'cos they are pretty much standard. Wire plus 1 to plus 1 and minus 1 to minus 1. Just ignore the second pair.

So I could order the parts and then have to find some time to assemble it and then be paranoid that I’ve done it wrong and I’ll cause a fire or something, or I could just order a ready made one?

 

That’s a tough choice! 😂

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28 minutes ago, three said:

 Amazon have the EA Siren 3' at about £72

That's an insane price for a one meter cable. As for all the claims they make, they're piffle, the entire lot. A pair of these, along with a meter of zip cord from a local hardware store, is all you need. https://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=NEUNL4FX

 

Just be sure to get Neutrik, not an imitation. The knock-offs have been known to cause problems.

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So I could order the parts and then have to find some time to assemble it and then be paranoid that I’ve done it wrong and I’ll cause a fire or something,

You're a bass player. You're supposed to be the smart one in the band. 🙄

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6 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

That's an insane price for a one meter cable. As for all the claims they make, they're piffle 

I tend to agree Bill but I don’t pay for them and I’ve found them to be very reliable (the most important consideration in my case). The Designacable seem similarly reliable. Soldering/screwing my own isn’t a cost effective use of my time

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17 minutes ago, three said:

I tend to agree Bill but I don’t pay for them.... Soldering/screwing my own isn’t a cost effective use of my time

There isn't a reliable cable made that can compete with anyone's time when they are free.

 

For most workers 72 quid for a cable they can put together in ten minutes with 10 quid worth of parts and a screwdriver is crazytown.

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1 hour ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

The reliability factor is determined by the quality of the connectors

 

1 hour ago, Downunderwonder said:

There isn't a reliable cable made that can compete with anyone's time when they are free

I’m really not trying to convince anybody that they should spend £70 plus - just offering options for chunky cables. On reliability, I’d agree in large part on connectors, though I’ve had speaker cables on which the cable itself has failed (without rough handling). On ‘free’, of course, I’d agree. If I was paying I’d probably go Designacable or BA. I’d consider EA. I’ve had one for over 10 years and would expect to get a further 10 of reliable service. It’s a cable I use pretty much every day so less than a penny a day. Almost disappearing

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I bought EA Siren cables a while back and have some spare ClearTone cables kicking around.

 

If I have a 1 metre one it's yours. I'll check later today.

 

Why EA? When a guy who can afford anything replaces all his cabling with it, even the wiring in his cabs, then I figure it's worth it.

 

The Reveal cables are brilliant. 

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1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

Silly question about gauges.

 

I see on some sites that a chunky gauge should be used with amps that are about 1000W, but up there ^ 18 gauge has been suggested as ok.

 

So what's the deal? And why do some sites use mm measurements rather than gauges?

 

ta

 

It's an imperial vs metric thing. We used to use gauges for wire diameters in the UK but it's still used in the US. It saves having to use weird fractions of an inch.

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As above, make them up yourself... but I would recommend H07RN-F cable (2 core). Once you've used that cable, you'll want to use it for everything, super flexible, no kinks in your cables, easy to coil for transport... and lies flat on stage. Brilliant stuff.

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13 hours ago, three said:

Soldering/screwing my own isn’t a cost effective use of my time

Agreed - that's why I do such things whilst watching TV. If you are going to burn time in front of the idiot box, you may as well get something productive out of it. For the less than 10 minutes to make a reliable speaker cable (I reckon I could make one in less than 5) - it seems a good investment to support the knowledge that your gear is good to go. But maybe that's just me.

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2 hours ago, fretmeister said:

 

Did someone really need a difference between 0.9119 and 1.024mm?

 

Almost certainly! The difference is probably around 5 Ohms/km. 

It's not just about a couple of metres of speaker cable... 😄

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6 hours ago, fretmeister said:

Silly question about gauges. I see on some sites that a chunky gauge should be used with amps that are about 1000W, but up there ^ 18 gauge has been suggested as ok. So what's the deal? And why do some sites use mm measurements rather than gauges?

You need sufficient gauge to handle the current without overheating and not cause voltage drop. At 1 meter it doesn't take much. Wire gauges are typically used in the same locales that use inches and feet, mm where they use metric, for the same reason. This is a must read if you don't know anything about cables. It's aimed mainly at the hi-fi crowd, as they tend to be more easily scammed by cable mountebanks than professional musicians, but the physics still apply. http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

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