I’m in the market for some hi-fi speaker cables, for regular passive speakers.
I’m of a mind that you don’t need fancy cables, and that regular mains power cable will do the trick.
But I also know from experience that guitar cables make a massive and obvious difference to the sound, depending on capacitance and length.
Why are both of these true? And is there anything else I should look out for?
In my experience fancy and expensive speaker cables can influence the sound which may make certain aspects sound more pleasing but are unlikely to be good over the full sound spectrum.
Standard copper speaker cables (assuming a reasonable conductor cross sectional area) do not influence the sound and therefore ensures greater High Fidelity.
Speaker signals are orders of magnitude larger than guitar signals, so the problems associated with guitar cables with poor shielding and conductors do not apply. However as @Stickhit says standard stranded copper wire with a reasonable cross section will be good enough. I tend to look at the available diameter of the speaker and amp terminals and use cable that fits. If you go too thick you can have stray strands, splaying out, so ideally go for just under the maximum size that will fit the terminals.
Van Damme do some good and reasonably priced speaker cable, there are probably other brands too.
Ideally try to keep the same length of cable for each speaker, and do not coil it if there is excess.
Edit: If your amp and or speakers have 4mm banana terminals as well as binding posts it is better and more convenient to use those, you can buy solderless 4mm banana plugs specifically for this.
Solid copper conductors are just as good as stranded copper (i.e. you will not hear any difference) although they are less flexible.
The speaker cables I use are Naim NAC5 but only because I bought them 25 years ago when they were nowhere near the ridiculous price per metre they are today.
I would say that the only difference between my NAC5 cables and 6mm twin and earth cable is that the NAC5 does not have the third (earth) conductor.
Oh and 6mm T&E does not have directional markings (which probably explains the price difference 
).
Agreed, solid core electrical cable is fine if a little impractical due to the stiffness. I used it once where the installation was permanent and cable clipped it under a bench for a neat and tidy look.
Yeah my NAC5 cables are a pain in the butt to route because they are so stiff.
I think it’s worth getting ‘proper’ hifi cable but not the ridiculously expensive kind. I’ve had mine for over 30 years and it’s still perfectly fine so it’s not like you need to buy it very often
Use some decent size twin and earth if you have that where you live? 2.5mm2 is more than enough and it’s relatively cheap compared to ‘proper’ branded speaker cable. You can find the resistance/m figures (which are minuscule) and compare those to some of the branded stuff. I never bothered as my audiophile mate swears by twin and earth. Plus my training tells be it’s gonna do the job perfectly.
If you want you can go to 4.0mm or even 6.0mm but I just used 2.5mm and bi-wired them.
Thinking about it a bit more I’d suggest the capacitance of twin is very good between the conductors (two layers of insulation, the sheath between them and the spacing) compared to other similar cables so capacitance should be negligible across the sort of lengths commonly used between the amp and speakers.
I have some audiophiles around with collections of different cables to match.
First conclusion:
Very cheap cables usually sound thin.
Then if you go up from cheap: from affordable up to ridiculously expensive: all cables sound different.
Which brings me to my second conclusion:
trick is to find the cable that matches your system well instead of buying the most expensive cable and hoping it works with your system. And maybe the one that matches is the affordable cable….
My local hifi store has a bundle of different cables to try at home before you buy. Maybe you can find a shop that does the same in your city?
Another vote for Van Damme cables, they really are great price vs performance.
I have their 4 mm² UP-LCOFC version rather than their studio or tour grade stuff as it is more flexible and shielding isn’t really required in a domestic setting.
I was always led to believe this was not true and it was a bit of a con to sell expensive cables, but I’d be interested to know if there are true blind tests prove otherwise
Don’t listen to people who pay more per meter of cable than you pay per synth.
High capacitance speaker cables can make an audible difference to an audio signal however, it will be at the expense of fidelity.
@darenager @lostmotel 100% on Van Damme cables for guitar. Not against using them for speakers either, but I shall see what my local store has in stock.
I was also thinking of getting some of that fancy mains cable with the woven sleeve, just because it looks cool, and this will be in the living room.
That page is great, thanks for the link!
The reason why it makes (more of) a difference for Guitar / instrument cables is the high impedance of guitar connections, which has the effect that cable parasitics (inductance, capacitance) have more influence (on frequency response).
For low impedance connections like speakers there isn’t much difference. My recommendation is to use good quality “pro” cable like Cordial CLS. The relevant difference to power cable is that speaker cable is a twisted pair, which due to the geometry rejects interference. Also, use good quality connectors and install them properly (i use SpeakOn but have pro/diy amps and diy speakers).
Many cables that are specifically advertised as being speaker cables are not a twisted pair.
absolutely right, especially most hi-fi market cables are simple parallel conductors. I was thinking about the mentioned “pro” cables which are generally twisted in a round jacket. Sorry!