Copper Ribbon Speaker Cables (DIY)

[Legolas]

I am reading good reviews on copper ribbon speaker cables in general. The concept seems to have been around for a decade at least.

To buy a set its quite expensive, so I am thinking of building a DIY set.

My question is - has anyone here built any? And if yes, how did they sound, and any pics of the construction would be great. I think the challenge is going to be doing the end connections, and finding a sleeve suitable to cover the copper ribbon. The ribbon I found is by Mundorf, at 70mm wide and 0.07mm thick.



Is there any risk of high capacitance? I am assuming if the cables are arranged a separate non attached pairs, they would not act like a capacitor?

 

[agisthos]

Many years ago there was a guy on Head-fi making these with Mundorf 50mm wide copper foil and I went through multiple iterations as he perfected it. They were probably the best speaker cables I ever heard, but the key was doing sandwich construction with the positive/negative runs back to back, not separated runs.

How he did this; he had double sided teflon tape custom made. Not your normal double sided tape, but teflon tape (it sounded better). And then each of the outer sides had a layer of (single-sided) telfon tape. The tape was 1mm wider than the foil, so it would not short, as long as you were careful. You could sleeve the cable at that point but it sounded best without sleeves.

How he did the end connections was just folding the corners almost to the centre, then soldering a banana z-plug onto the foil, for example one of these....

https://www.mundorf.com/audio/en/shop/cables/mconnect_bpg/MConnect-Banana-Plug/?card=2376

70mm is quite wide and you may have trouble managing the foil.

 

[Legolas]

Thank you Agisthos, that is good information. I would question the sandwich route due to capacitance though. I read (may be incorrect) that SS amps can interact badly if the cables have high capacitance, as a sandwich could exhibit some form of capacitor bahavour? The commercially available foil cables I have seen seem to have separate runs, not sandwiched.

 

[morricab]

I use Goertz copper foil speaker cables…if you can find them, they are not so expensive (they are all used now as Goertz went out of business). I also love my Goertz silver foil interconnects.

 

[Legolas]

Thank for that information. I am super interested in this route. I may buy the Mundorf 70mm foils, and DIY it. My main worry is the capacitance issue on SS amps. I will ask Passlabs advice before building them.

 

[Republicoftexas69]

I use Goertz copper foil speaker cables…if you can find them, they are not so expensive (they are all used now as Goertz went out of business). I also love my Goertz silver foil interconnects.

Alpha Core Goertz | Speaker Cables, Adapters | The Cable Company

The Cable Company carries a wide range of speaker cables, audio cables, adapters and more from Alpha Core Goertz. Zero distortion and effective over long runs.

www.thecableco.com

 

[DasguteOhr]

DIY and Tuning High-End Audio Cables | SOLIDCOREAUDIO

✂ DIYer who like to do it yourself, will find the basic ingredients for selfmade high-end audio cables here.

www.solidcoreaudio.com

All what you need for diy in copper or pure silver.
When Pass uses a boucherot filter in the output no problems with high capatiance.

 

[Republicoftexas69]

I am a big fan of the Townshend Audio EDCT Isolda Speaker cable

 

[agisthos]

Thank you Agisthos, that is good information. I would question the sandwich route due to capacitance though. I read (may be incorrect) that SS amps can interact badly if the cables have high capacitance, as a sandwich could exhibit some form of capacitor bahavour? The commercially available foil cables I have seen seem to have separate runs, not sandwiched.

I think its a non issue for modern SS amps. People used to run the popular Goertz cables all the time and did not report many issues, from memory.

 

[Tuckia]

Omega Mikro has been making ribbons for quite a while in the US. He (Ron) seems to have them well optimized. I use them as interconnects. My tube amp doesn’t drive the low end in the speaker cables very well though as dynamics get soft, although definition is excellent.

They do quite a lot well. Clarity is much better than I’ve heard with more expensive cables. The overall downside is that a loom of them can result in a tipped up sound. System dependent.

They use single conductors of 200 microinch for interconnects and 500 microinch for speaker cables. Super thin. Super fragile. Very low dielectric open mesh sleeves.

I’m selling my speaker cables if anyone is interested. 8 ft. with spades.

 

[agisthos]

Mojo Audio, before they moved into DAC manufacturing, used to make a series of really good foil ribbon IC's and power cables. Very natural sounding.

That's also how I remember the copper foil speaker cables as sounding, very natural.

 

[Argonaut]

Have experimented with DIY ribbon collations and several commercial ribbon SC’s , and for an excellent well balanced cable I would recommend:

Speaker Cables

The Signature Speaker Cable is the perfect companion to our interconnects. Unique construction with a single 4½” wide, flat, thin copper ribbon for each polarity on each speaker. The outer jacket o…

magnancables.wordpress.com

 

[Cellcbern]

Been using these Verastarr flat copper ribbon speaker cables for some years now. Moved on from their PC's and interconnects, but nearly a decade later I am still pleased with the speaker cables. Still a good value if you can find a used pair.

Verastarr Grand Illusion 2 interconnects, speaker wire and power cords Review

Who could have guessed that some 20 years after my first experiment with upgrading my radio shack wire with some entry level MIT Cables (Music Interface Technologies Cables) that I would still be investigating the effect of different wire on my ever evolving system. Even on my modest system of...

www.dagogo.com

6moons: audioreviews Verastarr Grand Illusion