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Speaker cable question. Not the usual ones....

bob atherton

bob atherton

pfm Member
I am going to need some speaker cable to go through two, three foot deep walls. At the moment I have lashed up the system , not going through any walls, using some copper cable, 4mm I think, in a dumb bell configuration. Sounds great, much, much better than some silver stuff I tried.

The challenge I have is that I need to feed the cable through some sort of plastic conduit through the wall. Ideally the cable would be round. I believe that Van Damme make some decent copper cables that might do the trick. Would 2.5mm sound any different to 4mm? Cable lengths will be about 6 meters.

I do believe that speaker cables do sound different, so for our subjective friends, I would favor a warmer, more natural sound.

Thanks, Bob
 
Initially you had me with your title. Then I realised it was pretty much the same question as usual ;)

This aside, I have used VD cables for a long time in my systems. Very good quality. 2.5mm is perfectly adequate for the length you stipulate but 4 will work too if it makes you feel better. You won't hear a difference.

By the way, I too believe cables may make a (minute) difference.

The above replaced a set of Naim NACA cables I had for years but were becoming too unwieldy. I thought I heard a tiny bit of difference if I remember right but after probably 5 minutes did not really notice anymore.
 
RoA said:
Initially you had me with your title. Then I realised it was pretty much the same question as usual ;)
Click to expand...

I guess the difference with my question is that I need to coax the cable through two very thick walls. Didn't mean to mislead, honestly.

2.5mm will be just great as I wont need to drill such a big hole.
 
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How thick is too thick? I use Mogami W-2972 which is quad core 2mm^2 conductor that can be paired to yield 2x 4mm^2 in a super flexible cable that is just 10.5mm in diameter.
 
You won't need a conduit, which will help out. It's only a speaker cable, no safety implications. You need an electrician's cable threading kit.

A thought, before you get your SDS drill, 3 ft drill extension pieces, and all the rest, is there any way you can go up, down or around the wall?
 
You'll need a long drill bit!

I used copper pipe for my RCA leads through a wall and they were stiff enough to push through.

For speaker cables i normally use Supra Classic 4 or 6mm, total overkill as they're only 1.5m long.

if you want a starter string hit a nail through on a piece of cotton.
 
That's going to be fun, drilling one 3ft wall is bad enough but two? Anyway, it can be done, not easy but possible, I recently drilled a 4 inch hole through the back of a chimney firebreast to install a direct air Wood burner, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to pull a bit of speaker cable through, I doubt if you'd need a conduit, though it may prove easier to pull the cable through and maybe if its a cavity wall filled full of little insulation balls a conduit would be a good way to prevent the beggars escaping.
 
Are you going to be drilling through a straight forward material like brick / block / sandstone or is it fieldstone or cobble type of wall? If the later be prepared for a lot of heartache and consider conduit.
 
Conduit makes sense as it will stop the cable chafing on the wall material, whatever it is.
You can hire SDS drills and drill bits to do the job but, half a lifetime ago, when I priced that up, it was cheaper to buy a very long drill bit.
If the wall is old - which seems likely given the thickness - your actual chances of drilling through it are slight - the fill will be random and although not neccessarily loose, it will not be firmly secured so a drill will try to meander all over the place and at best you are likely to have a hole big enough to put a drain-pipe through - been there, done that as well, in a stone-built house.
Drilling such a hole is made FAR worse if using a small drill bit (8-10mm, maybe bigger at that length) as they WILL flex and meander.
 
Vinny said:
If the wall is old - which seems likely given the thickness - your actual chances of drilling through it are slight - the fill will be random and although not neccessarily loose, it will not be firmly secured so a drill will try to meander all over the place and at best you are likely to have a hole big enough to put a drain-pipe through - been there, done that as well, in a stone-built house.
Drilling such a hole is made FAR worse if using a small drill bit (8-10mm, maybe bigger at that length) as they WILL flex and meander.
Click to expand...

Obvs one of the downsides of living in a castle, i'm grateful for soft reds "held together" with mortar.
 
Is this a case of wanting two holes through walls, one each to feed a speaker? Can you just use longer run and thread both cables though one hole, then route one cable as required to reach the other speakers? or run under-floor, making one f'big hole easily, and route up from there? What are your constraints ..?


There are ways of drilling holes like that as all suggestions above and all will work depending on your patience - but simply - having completed one hole you may not want to go through it again IYSWIM (Esp if one slightly-larger, sleeved hole would have done; Vinny makes a good point about 'small' drill bit sizes)

(Pulling cables is easier at any scale, from using a 'fish-tape' - screwfix offer several cheap options - to just dropping a weighted string through a bit of conduit before installing it - both as suggested previously above.)
 
The walls are about 500 years old and are stone with probably a lot or rubble in the middle. The conduit was for ease of use rather than any safety issues.

I will be having building work done over the next few months and think I'll ask a favour from the builders on this one. They seem to have all the gear with plenty of idea as well.

FWIW I just looked at the copper cable that I found and its Van Damme UP-LCOFC 4mm. It sounds just the job so I will use that and get the builders to drill a slightly larger hole...!

Thanks for all the great advice. Bob
 
bob atherton said:
The walls are about 500 years old and are stone with probably a lot or rubble in the middle. The conduit was for ease of use rather than any safety issues.

I will be having building work done over the next few months and think I'll ask a favour from the builders on this one. They seem to have all the gear with plenty of idea as well.

FWIW I just looked at the copper cable that I found and its Van Damme UP-LCOFC 4mm. It sounds just the job so I will use that and get the builders to drill a slightly larger hole...!

Thanks for all the great advice. Bob
Click to expand...
Thinking about it the conduit option is future proor. Something like a steel gas pipe can be smacked through a hole like that with a mallet, once done any additions or changes are easy. Watch out for firestopping if you are relying on that wall as a fire stop, unlikely in a domestic setting.
 
bob atherton said:
The walls are about 500 years old and are stone with probably a lot or rubble in the middle. The conduit was for ease of use rather than any safety issues.

I will be having building work done over the next few months and think I'll ask a favour from the builders on this one. They seem to have all the gear with plenty of idea as well.

FWIW I just looked at the copper cable that I found and its Van Damme UP-LCOFC 4mm. It sounds just the job so I will use that and get the builders to drill a slightly larger hole...!

Thanks for all the great advice. Bob
Click to expand...

Good thinking !
Getting the builder to do it as there's a good chance that's going to be a complete barsteward of a job, having lived and worked around a few old stone houses there's not much chance of not hitting a big stone especially if the drilling is being done close to floor level.
 
simon g said:
I think there may well be some regulations regarding wire in walls; related to its performance in event of fire?

Audioquest do a version:

https://www.futureshop.co.uk/audioquest-flx-slip-14-4-speaker-cable

Many other suppliers with appropriate certification.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. So the cable might not perform so well in the event of a fire.. Will have to do an A/B..

No, seriously, thanks for this link. I will have to give this some thought. As the building is listed we can, quite curiously, seem to get away with all sorts of things that normal regs apply. I will check it out.
 
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