How to test the quality of speaker cables?

[trcns]

I have some Speaker cables in the wall and some patch cables out of the wall. I don’t know the manufacturer of these cables but they look very good. I want to test the quality of these speaker cables, (not just connectivity at each end) how clean the signal can travel through these cables? Can somebody recommend me a good speaker cable quality tester that can tell me, how good or bad these cables are?

 

[Julf]

The only "absolute" quality criteria for a cable is resistance/series impedance, and by measuring the DC resistance, you get pretty far. The effects of all other characteristics (capacitance etc.) depend on the amp and speakers, so there is no single criteria for "good" or "bad". Then there is your ears, of course.

 

[trcns]

How do I measure it, which meter does it? Any direction to you could give me, I will appriciate. I have a multimeter. All I want make sure that the cable has good conductivity. The copper used is a good copper.

 

[Julf]

Connect both conductors at one end, and measure between the conductors at the other end, using the lowest (most sensitive) resistance/ohm range. It all depends on how sensitive your multimeter is - I assume it is a modern digital one.

 

A decent cable has a resistance around 0.002 ohm/foot (or 0.006 ohm/meter) - you have to multiply the length by 2 because we are measuring down one conductor and back the other, doubling the effective length.

 

A 5 m / 15 foot cable should have a resistance around 2 * 15 * 0.002 or 0.06 ohm, pretty tricky to measure with a household multimeter, but as long as you are not showing more than 0.2 ohm or so, you should be OK.

 

There are more sophisticated ways to measure, but just direct measuring of ohms is a good start.

 

[trcns]

THanks. I will try on the weekend. I have fluk digital meter.