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Monoprice Flat Adhesive Super Slim Speaker Wires... what's your view, is it a decent cable? The idea isn't totally stupid.

TunaBug

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Quite a brilliant idea actually

I think so too, but it's not a new idea. I recall seeing ads for this kind of stuff when I was reading Stereophile in the late 80s. Sadly the little gray cells don't remember as much as they used to, and I don't recall the company, but I'm thinking it was somebody well known, à la audioquest?
 

Jdunk54nl

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This is also an interesting study:
 

Chrispy

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I think so too, but it's not a new idea. I recall seeing ads for this kind of stuff when I was reading Stereophile in the late 80s. Sadly the little gray cells don't remember as much as they used to, and I don't recall the company, but I'm thinking it was somebody well known, à la audioquest?

There's been flat speaker wire available for a while (like for running under a carpet), but this particular version with adhesive and being paintable for use on walls is a twist I haven't seen before....
 

bluefuzz

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I used 64-wire pc ribbon cable as speaker wire for years when I had to run the speaker cable under a carpet. It sounded fine, but a pain to strip all those wires at each end and get them into the banana sockets in an elegant way ...

iu
 

preload

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Rather inductive actually.
Correct. And the very high inductance associated with the separated conductors combined with the high DC resistance is going to result in larger than acceptable deviations in frequency response flatness. Someone should measure or calculate it just for jaw dropping purposes.
 
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mhardy6647

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I used 64-wire pc ribbon cable as speaker wire for years when I had to run the speaker cable under a carpet. It sounded fine, but a pain to strip all those wires at each end and get them into the banana sockets in an elegant way ...

iu
In the name of all things holy...
Don't ever.
Ever.
EVER.
.. tell the audiophile community about that. ;)
You know what they did when they discovered CAT5, don't you?

cfivecable.jpg


4_CAT5_IMG_1593.jpg


:cool:
 

MarkS

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what happens exactly when you exceed 2m?
You MIGHT get VERY SLIGHT (fraction of a dB) changes in frequency response, which MIGHT be audible under very careful listening with rapid switching.

Moving your speakers by a few inches will produce much larger changes.
 

Jdunk54nl

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This was that research article I posted. This is for a pretty extreme example for huge venues like sports stadiums and things where they need huge amounts of power and very long runs, but it still can illustrate the point of what wire size and length can do to the outcome.

This is going from 50m to 100m to 150mm using 4mm^2 wire or like 6 gauge wire (this was for stadiums with huge power demands)
It appears every 50m additional length caused about 1db loss.
1632950215535.png



This was varying size from like 6gauge to 000 gauge. About 1db difference by using a smaller gauge wire.
1632950268352.png
 

phoenixdogfan

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Audiophile review #1: "I enjoyed the spacious sense of air that these thin, lightweight cables provided, it's like the music is skating happily over a frozen lake on a cold winter day."

Audiophile review #2: "These thin cables caused my sound to become horribly compressed, there were no dynamics and everything sounded flat."
At long as they don't lend a "hooded" quality to the midrange.
 

phoenixdogfan

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There's been flat speaker wire available for a while (like for running under a carpet), but this particular version with adhesive and being paintable for use on walls is a twist I haven't seen before....
All the Nordost wire is flat, and leaves your wallet that way as well.
 

bluefuzz

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You know what they did when they discovered CAT5, don't you?
Actually I've used CAT5 as speaker wire too. It also works fine. Crocheting the wires into pretty patterns is unnecessary even though it looks rather nice I think. It won't go under the carpet though ... ;-)
 

escksu

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In the name of all things holy...
Don't ever.
Ever.
EVER.
.. tell the audiophile community about that. ;)
You know what they did when they discovered CAT5, don't you?

Lol, this is actually very very old news. At least 20yrs ago. I did try it myself before. But its extremely tedious. Depending on how you do it, you may end up having worse than normal due to high capacitance.
 

preload

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Lol, this is actually very very old news. At least 20yrs ago. I did try it myself before. But its extremely tedious. Depending on how you do it, you may end up having worse than normal due to high capacitance.
The increased capacitance from braided cat5 has 0 effect within the audible range.
 

wwenze

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For your information.

I asked their support if this cable would become available from their EU site and got the following reply:

"The product is not certified for the EU market and there are currently no plans to sell it here. However, we are getting more and more enquiries for various US products and will soon sit down and make new plans for new products for the EU market.

Please check back with us in 3-6 months. Maybe we will have more products of this kind in our shop by then."

Hmm...

Not fireproof enough or something? Or carcinogens?
 

preload

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Actually I've used CAT5 as speaker wire too. It also works fine. Crocheting the wires into pretty patterns is unnecessary even though it looks rather nice I think. It won't go under the carpet though ... ;-)
Twisting the wires is necessary if you want the cable to have low inductance. Keeping inductance low (or at least reasonably close to 12GA paired/stranded) is necessary to prevent potentially audible deviations in frequency response.
 

jhaider

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I think so too, but it's not a new idea. I recall seeing ads for this kind of stuff when I was reading Stereophile in the late 80s. Sadly the little gray cells don't remember as much as they used to, and I don't recall the company, but I'm thinking it was somebody well known, à la audioquest?

There was a company called DeCorp that had an expensive (by my standards - I remember paying around 5 bucks a foot for 12AWGx2 ca 2006, with expensive specialized banana plugs) similar product. I used it for surrounds and a rear sub at that time.

You’re probably thinking of Goertz though.
 

escksu

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Hmm...

Not fireproof enough or something? Or carcinogens?

Yes, I think this is a likely reason.

Since they are being installed on walls, it is possible that they may need to conform to iec60332.

However, there is no information about any certification listed on the website. So, maybe its just a matter of getting certified.
 

Chrispy

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I think so too, but it's not a new idea. I recall seeing ads for this kind of stuff when I was reading Stereophile in the late 80s. Sadly the little gray cells don't remember as much as they used to, and I don't recall the company, but I'm thinking it was somebody well known, à la audioquest?

Yeah as was mentioned Nordost has flat cables, but there were other basic brands, think Radio Shack or Monoprice or someone basic like that offered such as well....I can't remember either altho I didn't notice such a product until probably 2008-9 (after I ran some regular speaker wire under a rug of course, but didn't replace it).
 

mhardy6647

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Lol, this is actually very very old news. At least 20yrs ago. I did try it myself before. But its extremely tedious. Depending on how you do it, you may end up having worse than normal due to high capacitance.
The increased capacitance from braided cat5 has 0 effect within the audible range.

Yes, very old news indeed. :) Thus did I say "you know what they did when they discovered CAT5..." ;)
Full disclosure, I used a couple of much (much) simpler CAT5 recipes for loudspeaker cabling for a year or two ca. 20 years ago myself.

I also used some enamel-insulated 18-ga single conductor magnet wire -- someone does actually sell such stuff as speaker cabling. :)
(I didn't buy them, though).

I've never used any flat cables -- although I will note that way, way back in the early days of massmarket hifi, even equipment manufacturers suggested the use of (flat) 300 ohm twinlead antenna cable (once the staple of VHF TV antenna hookups) for (short) runs that had to go under carpeting. :)
 
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