Since it came up a couple of times in the thread, I've been thinking a bit about barbed wire as speaker cable and would there be any benefit to using it.
Most modern barbed wire appears to be a twisted pair of uninsulated steel with barbs made of the same steel wrapped around it at intervals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbed_wire
Steel is usually considered a no no for audio but has anybody actually tried listening to it? Of course the resistance of steel is much higher than copper but for short distances, the actual difference is small. Using a larger wire gauge for the steel would obviously lessen the difference in resistance.
Obviously the steel wire would need to be insulated but insulated steel is available.
I am open to the idea that a copper cable would sound different to a steel cable, but in a blind test would I say the copper was better?
And finally, the barbs which appear to be a short wire wrapped around the main wire at intervals. There is a school of thought that says that your speaker cables should be raised above the floor. Barbed wire would do this for you. I don't know what the distance is supposed to be but if you built your own cable, you could create bigger barbs than usual.
And of course, since the barbs are sharp, any badness coming from your amplifier to your speakers will ooze out at the sharp points leaving you with the best sounding speaker cables ever!!
I'll have to make a pair and take them to our Bottleneck meeting later this year to try them out. I think it will be held in Sterling VA.
ray
