Good Inexpensive Speaker Cables

I'm having to rearrange my Home Theater and Audio setup so I'm needing longer speaker cables than I currently have. I need about a 12' run going to some large 5 - way towers (about $3000). I'm powering these speakers with a Bryston 4BST. There was a time when I wouldn't even consider using anything but the best cables out there when it came to speaker cables and interconnects but I can no longer afford to do that. Through the years I've used Discovery, Audioquest, Tara labs, Kimber, Cardis, Sonoran, DH Labs, Straight Wire and many more but I've forgot their names. I guess at this time I should confess to believing cables all sound different or at least that's what my ears have told me through the years.

My instincts tell me not to use cheap cable for my revealing speakers but my budget says otherwise. So would something like Blue Jean cable's Beldon 10 or 12 gauge be something I could live with or is there something better out there that is inexpensive but very good quality? I would like to spend $100 or less for a 12' pair if possible.

I've also read that some are using cable from Lowes but I don't know if they would be as good or better than Beldon. Probably if money wasn't a factor I would just buy 4 meters from Cobalt (it seems decent) but that would run close to $200 with connectors. I'm not really into terminating my own cables because I feel like that can make a real difference in sound let alone build quality and I'm afraid I might not do a good job. I not only like my cable to sound good but also look good pertaining to a perfessional looking termination.

I'm also open to buying used speaker cable so where would a person look besides Ebay?

audiogon would have cables.

too bad you need 12 ft.i've got a 8ft pair of straightwire 'encore' gathering dust.

Just use Canare 4S11 "star quad" cable. It's the equivalent of approximately 11AWG cable and is available for 69 cents/foot at Markertek. Then you put whatever connectors you prefer (banana or spades) on the end and you're done. Even with exotic ends, you can do both cables for well under $100.

There are folks on Ebay that will build custom length speaker cables using Canare cable, but it will cost more.

Also, Canare microphone cable makes outstanding audio interconnect cabling.

Cheers,

I have been using Blue Jeans Cables with no complaints at all. All that I have received have been in good working order, fairly inexpensive, and good quality.

Good luck on your search.

I use haveinc.com speaker cables which use the Canare "star quad" cable. Very well built.

I ended up going with Blues Jeans and they seem to be very good quality. I've ran into another problem when I rearranged things my surround speaker cables (either 16 or 18 gauge) are about 5ft short of my amp (140W), do you think it would hurt to just solder on a short piece of cable? The surround speaker cable run is about 40ft so it would require a little work rerunning a new longer cable but do you think it really is necessary?

no i wouldnt lengthen a cable.

Okay maybe lengthening a cable is not a good idea. I just remeasured and my cable run is 35' so would 14 gauge be adequate? What I had ran before and this was several years ago was some flat cable but I can't tell if it's 16 or 18 gauge. Looking back I really should have ran a heavier cable even though I had plenty of volume out of the surrounds so I don't know the negatives of running a lighter gauge like I did if the end result is plenty of gain (unless it's something you just don't do).

14ga would be fine. surrounds are not the most demanding. i presume higher gauge would be fine as well. if i was buying, it would depend on the price. for pennies more i would keep getting as low of a gauge as possible, for dollars i would not (per ft).