Lamp cord for speaker wire?

[Wayne2]

 

Manufactures have caught on to the whole DIY thing though and are raping DIYers to make pocket change off those trying to save a buck.

 

 

I really doubt anyone's getting rich off musicians and their stupid little 1/4" plugs. More likely it's such a hassle dealing with it that they have to charge appropriately for their time. Hence the reason assembled cables are sometimes cheaper than components.

[WRGKMC]

 

I really doubt anyone's getting rich off musicians and their stupid little 1/4" plugs. More likely it's such a hassle dealing with it that they have to charge appropriately for their time. Hence the reason assembled cables are sometimes cheaper than components.

 

 

I'm in the business, I dont guess, I know because I deal with it daily. The cost used to be $1 for the best switchcraft connectors and maybe 10 cents a foot of beldin cable.

Where the markup occurs is between the manufacturers and sellers. Manufacturers still sell at low cost if you buy directly from them wholesaler in large bulk in thousands of units.

As far as handeling goes, it takes just as much time to box a cable as it does connectors. Thats not why they raise the cost. They raise the cost because they can sell things with a 400% mark up.

There are still ethical companies like the one I work for that sells parts at 100% above cost to manufacturer. It doesnt matter if its a $1 switch or a $6000 board you cannot gouge a customer.

Our company uses a global database and some like myself have access to view vendor costs. Noone in the company can override that cost for any reason. Doing so could put a company out of

business if it leaked to the public. You saw what happened with the smear campaign aimed at Toyota. Big companies dont screw around. You have buyers that buy world wide.

If some companies buys parts in different parts of the country or the world and find they are paying different costs at different locations, there would be hell to pay.

Its your fly by night companies that are free to rip people off. Purchasing costs are hidden from the ones doing the selling so they have no idea wht the markup is.

[WRGKMC]

 

So, no word on the topic of not using shielded wire for speaker cabling? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

 

 

I already mentioned shielded wire is designed for less than a volt. Used as a speaker cable the insulation melts inside when you run up to 100V through it.

It can cause the cable to short, or it can cause the soft plastic insulator inside to melt into the stranded wire and cause air gaps through out the cable. This allow oxygen to get in and then you have oxidation of the copper which will make the cable crackely and microphonic.

[Wayne2]

 

I'm in the business, I dont guess, I know because I deal with it daily. The cost used to be $1 for the best switchcraft connectors and maybe 10 cents a foot of beldin cable. Where the markup occurs is between the manufacturers and sellers. Manufacturers still sell at low cost if you buy directly from them wholesaler in large bulk in thousands of units. As far as handeling goes, it takes just as much time to box a cable as it does connectors. Thats not why they raise the cost. They raise the cost because they can sell things with a 400% mark up. There are still ethical companies like the one I work for that sells parts at 100% above cost to manufacturer. It doesnt matter if its a $1 switch or a $6000 board you cannot gouge a customer. Our company uses a global database and some like myself have access to view vendor costs. Noone in the company can override that cost for any reason. Doing so could put a company out of business if it leaked to the public. You saw what happened with the smear campaign aimed at Toyota. Big companies dont screw around. You have buyers that buy world wide. If some companies buys parts in different parts of the country or the world and find they are paying different costs at different locations, there would be hell to pay. Its your fly by night companies that are free to rip people off. Purchasing costs are hidden from the ones doing the selling so they have no idea wht the markup is.

 

 

Interesting. I wonder if they're doing like the drug companies and trying to make all their profiit in the U.S. while the rest of the world gets the parts cheap.

[WRGKMC]

Alot of them are internet sellers that buy in bulk and sell stuff for whatever they can get for it. Many sell on EBay too.

The industry has changed alot. There used to be alot of reputable companies like mouser around. Allied Radio, Layfayette, and others who would sell out of catalogs. many have gone defunct or sold out like Allied selling out to radio shack back in the 70s.

 

Electronic parts were mostly sold to electronic technicians. they wouldnt gough the techs for small parts because they knew the tech would be a regular buyer and buy big and small. They also knew that tech either worked for a company or was self employed. Some vendors would only sell to techs abnd you would have to have an account set up with them.

 

Thats all changed over the years to some extent. It still exists for the most part though. Its only the hobby stuff like what musicians would buy where you get gouged. The industrial stuff is still pretty much a business to business wholesale model. you do have to deal with the orient to get the good deals now though. 95% of all parts are made in china, Tiwan, Japan etc so you have to buy form them now and they can be difficult if you dont know the language or buy in bulk. most of their sites do allow you to buy, but thay have minimum orders of say 100 or 1000 on smaller items. So you need to put up a grand to get something for a dollar then sell off the other 999 to get your money back.

 

I have a few local shops I do business with and if I buy through my company I can get a commercial discount. Local businesses often do that so they have steady buyers who buy from them in bulk and the contractors still have a margin to make a profit. The public usually pays full price. There was a time when many suppliers didnt bother with public retail pricing becuse there wasnt enough of it to set up that structuire for the public. 99% was sold to contractors and there werent many DIYers.

[katillac]

 

I already mentioned shielded wire is designed for less than a volt. Used as a speaker cable the insulation melts inside when you run up to 100V through it. It can cause the cable to short, or it can cause the soft plastic insulator inside to melt into the stranded wire and cause air gaps through out the cable. This allow oxygen to get in and then you have oxidation of the copper which will make the cable crackely and microphonic.

 

 

Wait. We're talking about the cable that goes between an amp and a speaker cabinet, right? I was completely unaware that the full voltage was being sent along that cable. Okay, then. So, it's the cable shielding that, by nature of being braided around the core wire, would heat up that much, and that's if it's included in the circuit? That, I can understand. Plus, the core wire would probably be too small of a gauge, and the braided wire would cause signal loss by virtue of the wires being separated, yes?

 

If I have that right, then I "get it" now. It's not the fact that the shielding itself serves as signal shielding, but as a conductor. I hope that's it, because then it's crystal clear why using a metallic cover over everything and not a part of the circuit is harmless. Great. Now I'm gonna want to bling out my cables, too.

[WRGKMC]

A shielded cable has capacitence which isnt good nor needed but mainly its the insulation between the center wire and the shielding that melts easily. You've made guitar cords up before and seen how easily it is to melt that center insulation with a soldering iron before. Its soft and flexable to make it good for a guitar and not have it get twisted up easily. Its also soft to absorb noise.

In a speaker application, The core wire is thinner heats up and melts that insulation.

 

With dual speaker wire, the two wires will take the currently evenly and the insulation is designed to take high current without melting. With shielded wire the shielding will conduct better than the core wire and the core wire being thinner will heat up like a filiment and melt the soft insulation surrounding it. How badly depends on the amp wattage.

 

As I mentioned before the oxigen gets in and the copper turns brown and oxidizes badly.

Then instead of having the stranded wire condict nicely and act as a single wire through close contact with each other, the strands start to act as single conductors.

The oxidation on the single strands acts as an insulators on each of them.

 

Then when you move the cord around, it crackles as the tarnished/oxidated strands rub together and make and break contacts due to them making and breaking contact through the tarnish.

As thay do theres is resistance changes and this is like having a dirty pot, it crackles.

 

The cable also becomes microphonic. If the core wire inside isnt held tightly, and you whack it on the floor, the movement of the core wire inside changes capacitence. You could say it works like a capacitive mic does and you hear a thump from the cable when you whack it. It would also be like an unpotted pickup and oscillation occurs when the outer shield is vibrated simular to an unpotted pickup cover. Its not exactly the same because most cords dont contain any ferris, so the noise is capacitive.

[Wayne2]

 

Alot of them are internet sellers that buy in bulk and sell stuff for whatever they can get for it. Many sell on EBay too. The industry has changed alot. There used to be alot of reputable companies like mouser around. Allied Radio, Layfayette, and others who would sell out of catalogs. many have gone defunct or sold out like Allied selling out to radio shack back in the 70s.

 

 

Well what have we learned?

1) Manufacturers learned that undercutting their distributors worked in the short term, but that dealing with individual customers actually is a service that is worth charging for.

2) The flood of inexpensive products from the far East was just going to last so long as it took to drive our own guys out of business.

 

i.e. There is no free lunch.

 

I honestly don't mind dropping a little money into a project if I'm planning to spend hours working on it. My time is worth something to me.

 

RadioShack, whatever its other faults, at least has stuff on the shelf and the salespeople are nice.

 

I also had a good experience with Newark Electronics. They sold me some transistors for cheap.

[katillac]

 

I also had a good experience with Newark Electronics. They sold me some transistors for cheap.

 

 

If Newark, Mouser, or Digikey doesn't have it, I don't even want to think about finding it. I had to plead with Mouser and Newark for a few years not to send me any more paper catalogues. Thin as the pages were, there were SO many of them. Made for good bed-time reading, though. I'm such a dork hehe