Ferrite Cores, Banana Plugs, and tinning (soldering) speaker cables.

[Owen Bartley]

I've been thinking about making some DIY speaker cables for my speakers lately, and stumbled across a link to these Ferrite Cores at Monoprice. Since looking around a little more, I've also seen them called Ferrite Beads and various other things. They usually seem to appear on things like USB and HDMI cables, and are supposed to provide some RF shielding I think.

Would there be any advantage to having these on speaker cables, or is there no way they would be picking up the type of interference these are meant to reduce? Even with potential runs near power wires or sources?

[eugovector]

Speaker cables, regardless of what pricing cable vendors will tell you, are very unlikely to pick up AUDIBLE interference. Sure they pick up interference, but the signal being sent over the cables, post amplifier, is so much louder than any interference that you won't ever be able to hear it. My opinion, of course...

[Owen Bartley]

Thanks Marshall. So would they be more valuable to add to signal wires before amplification? Like RCA interconnects? If there's definitely no negative effect, I might still clip one on, depending on what the rest of the cable components end up looking like.

I've just discovered these ViaBlue TS2 banana plugs, which I like quite a bit, and they are carried by one of our sponsors (RAM). I like the split tube plugs for the increased contact they make, but they are tough to find, especially for a reasonable price.

[eugovector]

There shouldn't be a negative effect (unless you count spending money with no performance increase), but there likely won't be a positive audible one either.

Same with banana plugs. I like plugs (using monoprice) for neatness, but the fact is, the best connection is bare wire, likely followed by spades, then banana plugs. Once again, one will likely sound as good as the next, but there are less opportunities for failure with bare wire.

[Owen Bartley]

I could do spades, I've seen some very nice cables terminated that way. I guess there's really no need for any though, since I'm not likely to move anything around very often, so I can just stick to my bare wire for now, until I really get restless for another project.

Thanks again Marshall.

[eugovector]

You're welcome.

[Goldenbear]

Owen Bartley wrote:

I could do spades, I've seen some very nice cables terminated that way. I guess there's really no need for any though, since I'm not likely to move anything around very often, so I can just stick to my bare wire for now...

One thing to keep in mind with bare wire is that you need to be careful that you don't have stray wire shorting between terminals.

And don't tin the ends either, since solder cold flows.

That's why I just use spades for most connectors, with bananas when the plugs are too close together for spades (like in the back of a receiver or some faceplates).

[eugovector]

Goldenbear: can you expand on what "cold flow" means and why you wouldn't want to tin the ends of a bare wire connection?

Thanks,
Marshall

[Goldenbear]

What happens is the solder will creep under constant pressure, and eventually the connection will become loose.

The bottom line is that if you tin the ends, you'll have to check and re-tighten the speaker terminals over time.

On a sort of related note, if you're concerned with getting the maximum contact area, stay away from locking banana plugs. The ones I've seen generally have three fingers that push apart to give you a tight connection. But what that means is you only have contact at three points. Not even three pad, or lines... three points. Still adequate, obviously, or the plugs wouldn't work at all, but not great. Most non-locking banana plugs I've seen have more "fingers", so you generally have five or more contact points (sometimes lines).

Spades, on the other hand, have a much larger surface contact area.

Again, only important if you're concerned about getting the maximum possible contact area at your connection points.

[andrep]

have tried with ferrite cores on the power cable coming from the PSU into a cheap studio DA converter.

The high resolution ADAM S3A monitors revealed some change in the mids sort of a bit of a more compressed quality.


Read somewhere that the distance from the plug is crucial to the end-result.