Cable Repair?!

Hi

I have two runs of Chord Rumour 2 and the one has some scags that have left the bare silver coated wire exposed. It occurs in about 8 places and I was looking for the best way to repair these. The coating is white Teflon so I was wondering if there where alternatives to white insulation or heat shrink? Something that would paint on would be ideal. I know that the some wire has a really thin enamel coating - any idea if this is avaialble and whether it will adversely effect the cable?

 

damaged insulation will compromise the performance......allows oxidation [ & sulphination] etc depending on the level of damage may be a threat to the health of your amp ....

remidies
cost no object ......replace

budget solutions include sheathing in heat shrink

you could try plumbers tape wrapped round the cable or small peices in the gashes painted over with a pva type adhesive...

 

i recommend to replacing it

 

rusting of the cable is easily heard on my speaker wire. The easiest test is to listen, can you hear the difference?

I used an ever cheaper option to cover the hole in my cable tip-ex.

If the oxidation damages the sound, find some way of cleaning it off before repair.

What is the cable material?

 

you have me curious, what metal sulphinates?
Where would it get the sulphur from, it does not naturally occur in the atmosphere (unless you cook a heel of a lot of onions)

 

:yikes:

I'm almost afraid to close this thread down in case it turns out i dreamt it.............. :lol:

 

I would use heatshrink too.

Using something you paint on might cause a short and damage to your kit - not worth it.

If you've got 8 holes in it I'd go and get some shark cable from Maplins. It's only about £20 for a reel.

 

You have ferrous cables??

 

rusting seemed a generic term for chemical degredation of metals.
it seemed easier that looking up what kind of cable he had then assumably writing either nitrating or oxidising. then again I could have said oxidising using the modern defenition but that would have been to easy.

Anyway what speaker cable metal rusts, i really want to know~!

 

nickel for the interconnects and silver and copper for the speaker

 

Thanks for all the replies - not wanting to throw away 5m of Chord cable I will go for the heatshrink route.

 

Perhaps Peter could register a different name for each of his personalities, to make the threads easier to follow

 

I was just curious, Zanash said cables sulphinate.
He is supposedly the resident expert.
I wanted to know which material used is cables sulphinates and where it gets the sulphur from!

not a hard question, why won't he answer =(

 

Zanash is away all this week. Real life etc. has got in the way of another forum discussion.

 

It's the copper.
Sulphur exists in the atmosphere
as a result of burning fossil fuels and volcanic activity. It's the sulphur in the air that causes the tarnishing of brass and copper objects.
Hence all the brass cleaning that occurred during the Victorian era
due the vast quantities of coal burnt.

 

Use normal insulation tape. Silver is prone to attack by atmospheric sulphur (that's why silver ornaments tarnish - you're looking at silver sulphide), but it's only a surface effect and will have no effect whatsoever on the performance of the cable. I personally wouldn't bother replacing unless you (a) really must have the aesthetics and/or (b) wish to contribute generously to the coffers of the snake oil merchants.

 

<-- Chuckles to self.

So much for my expensive education.

I was told it nitrated when I was about 15.

The fact i studied chemistry for two futher years at the best 6th form in the country followed by a further 4 at a top 5 university should have made me consider another option.

This is going to have me giggling all day.
Almost as bad as when i couldn't work out why the light kept of flickering in the hall, even got an electritian to look at it (bulb wasn't screwed in properly).

sigh, I can be really thick at times.

 

I just read tones post and I disagree heavily. Then again why trus someone who can't screw in a lightbulb!

In my experience tarnished silver makes a huge difference to sound quality. I use silver coated copper speaker cables. When the cables tarnished to too great an extent, I would cut the ends off and reattach the speakers. The improvment would be massive, especially in the middle bass region.

For those that are interested the cables were getting too short So I soldered them directly to the cross-overs, and the amps. problem fixed.

 

you could of course strip the wires from their sheaths. add to a boiling solution of sodium carbonate solution and aluminium foil.
The sulphur will jump across to the aluminium leaving perfect wires.
You then have the fun job of pushing them back into the sheath.

 

Silver tarnish on the surface of a conductor comprising silver oxides and silver sulfides will be microns thick (1 micron = 0.001mm). In other words, bugger all of nothing. Of course bugger all of nothing is more than enough for your average audiophile to worry about.