I’m almost done with my DIY speaker cable project. I bought some Van Den Hul Magnum Mk II Hybrid speaker cable. The reasoning behind this cable is that “each lead consists of 483 x 0,15mm high purity Matched Crystal (MC) OFC strands with a dense and very pure silver coating”. The conductive area is 8,54mm2 or close to AWG8. As a result the cable imposes close to zero point zero ohms of resistance, keeping damping factor up. Also capacity and inductivity are negligible. The meranti blocks are to prevent the cable from tearing up. That’s one design flaw of this cable. I made real short ones for my ribbons and the longer ones are for my new BHK250’s and Conquistars. I terminate the ends with silver coated beryllium copper banana plug tubes that I soldered using silver/tin. If y’all are interested I’ll keep you posted on the results. If not, I’ll still do that… LOL
What do you mean, “prevent the cable from tearing up?”
Thanks! I now understand.
What brand are those banana plugs you used to terminate your cable? I’ve been looking for a banana plug or spade connector that I can use to terminate two 10 AWG wires (Belden 5T00UP), which is an effective 7 AWG equivalent. My hope is to be able to maintain a bi-wire setup to my speakers, but not require that my amp has dual output binding posts.
Thanks,
Dan W.
Hi @drybeveridge730… Here’s the exact link I used:
Also make sure you have sufficient power in your soldering iron, cause with that fat cable it takes a lot of heat to let the tin flow…
Thank you! How powerful of an iron did you use?
80W… With the biggest tip it takes about a minute to get to 350 degrees C…
Today I will finish the 4 long cables. They are going to sit between the BHK250’s and the Conquistars. The Conquistars have their connections rather high up on the case. One needs at least an extra 3 feet for that. Here’s the progress:
Beautiful job, thanks for the education.
Chas
@ronaldwanders, Hi Ronald, I realy like van den Hul cables myself and certainly the was you terminated them.
A couple of questions:
- Do you also make your low power interconnects?
- Why did you decide to use banana plugs? Optically The way you did it looks absolutely best.
But from a contact resistance point of view, I am under the assumption that bundling the strands, feeding them into the little hole in the post of the speaker terminal, allowing the ends to protrude for like 5 mm and squeezing the terminal nuts real tight on the stranded wires would result in a lower contact resistance. What is your experience, or have you maybe done some research on this topic?
Hallo Rudolf,
Usually I buy my IC’s from Tubulus or Grimm Audio. The latter begins to develop some attitude. The reason I make my speaker cables is that the same quality would be to expensive and still not good enough. I have a specific set of demands regarding speaker cables, since there’s length, current, dynamics and bandwidth involved.
Your suggestion of “clamping” the bare cable in the terminal is a no-go as far as I am concerned. I am open for a debate regarding spades or bananas. I prefer banana’s while they are easier to swap and there’s less mechanical strength involved.
Hope this answers your questions, always open for new ones… 
Groetjes,
Ronald
P.S. All my cables are high quality, oxygen free copper with silver coating and Teflon insulation. Same goes for connectors. I always use balanced XLR. Never RCA…! You will not find any SE device in my house or office, besides maybe the microwave… 
Great looking cables. Personally, I wouldn’t use silver plated copper for anything. Either solid copper or, solid silver. Plated copper always makes the high frequencies bright and unlistenable IMO.
Let me guess Kyle… You are from Millsap TX… Am I right…? I know Millsap because I use the VOR often enough to know the frequency by heart: MQP 117.7… Back to business: What you claim is totally up to you. I respectfully do not agree, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I think you’re wrong… But remember: A Cuba Libre has rum and coke together, not separate… 
Ronald, I’m not from Texas! LOL. Truth is, my speakers are very sensitive, and silver plated copper makes for unpleasant sounds, especially at high volume. Solid silver gives all the detail without the harshness of plated copper. I’m sure your cables match your system well. They look really good!
@kylemillsap yeah lol, but you sure have lot of Texas in your name. For the first part of your name: I used to be an Expat in Texas and there is little town called Kyle just north of San Marcos heading out to Austin.
Interesting discussion about the conductors, Resistance for AC signals depends on surface skin depth on of each individual conductor strand. The skin depth depends on ohmic resistance of the conductor material and the frequency of the signal.
So in theory, you are correct. The higher the resistance and the frequency, the more shallow the skin depth, thus the higher the resistance. Thus, if a lower resistance layer is added to the surface of the conductor, this enhances the high frequency more then the lower frequencies. Bur a lower resistance also means lower noise, which enhances the quality.
Now, the cable is only one (rather passive) part of the complete output circuit of the amp. The full equation is the output impedance (active) crossover (non linear) and the driver (active). And as you said, with any combination of amps and speakers the effect differs.
Really cool we have so much different cables to choose from.
Howdy, howdy, from The Netherlands 
and oh boy, do we miss Texas, we did love living there.
Funny! I was born in the next state west. Many people think it’s in another country, New Mexico!
Interesting stuff. I’m using MG Audio, Planar 3 speaker cables (foil type). Compared to my set of Straightwire Crescendo 2s (Stranded round) they are more forward and detailed, without a doubt. That can certainly be a good thing, or, a bad thing, depending on your system. Synergy is the pot at the end of the rainbow!
This cable reminds of an “Ask Paul” video where he was talking about making interconnect (RCA I think) cables using two wires separated by holding them a part with masking tape stuck to both sides.