differences between speaker and guitar cable?

[scaesic]

whats the main differences?

if i was to buy my own cable to use with neutik connectors, what cable is reccomended for the best quality?

maplin sold van damme insturment cable but they are out of stock now.

[markm]

Guitar cable is shielded whereas speaker cable is not.
Not a good idea to use speaker cable as guitar cable.

[mjones99]

There is shielded coax type speaker cable that looks just like  guitar cable...dont use it for guitar, its designed for low impedance, and will be noisy with guitar pickups, also dont use guitar cable for speakers, its high impedance will hurt the output stage of your amp.

[blanik]

when i need to make a speaker wire i usually use any electrical cord... always worked fine for me...

R.

[Mark Hammer]

Amplifiers EXPECT to see fairly low impedance loads at their output, sometimes as low as 2 ohms.  Naturally, with speaker cables sometimes running great distances, the wire needs to be much heavier gauge so that that the cumulative impedance of the wire itself doesn't alter what the amp sees noticeably.

INPUTS expect to see much higher impedances.  Even ostensibly "low impedance" loads (e.g., 150-600 ohms) are many times higher than what amps see.  Here, the cumulative resistance/impedance of a hunk of cable linking source and input jack is negligible relative to the source itself.  Given the amount of amplification that follows, though, and the weakness of the signal relative to the potential noise sources, the wire is more concerned with keeping interference out and cable-capacitance driven leakage low.

Then there is the issue of speakers not moving around while guitars and their players wander.

So, speaker cable = thick, unshielded, emphasis on low impedance, guitar cable = flexible, shielded, emphasis on maintaining bandwidth and noise immunity.

And yes, unless one is dealing with very high end speakers and both wide bandwidth music and high quality equipment in between music and speakers, you won't find a whole lot of difference between 16-gauge lamp cord and more expensive audiophile alternatives.  There aren't a lot of instances where rock and roll is cheap, but this happens to be one of them.

[scaesic]

manufacture reccomendations for both then?

[Elektrojänis]

And yes, unless one is dealing with very high end speakers and both wide bandwidth music and high quality equipment in between music and speakers, you won't find a whole lot of difference between 16-gauge lamp cord and more expensive audiophile alternatives.

And there are some audiophile alternatives that cost more than your typical guitar amp and are worse than that lamp cord. 

Anyway... Typical guitar cord might melt if you use it as a speaker cable. It depends on the current that goes through the cable ofcource. Half wats of Little Gem should be ok with a good guitar cable... 100W Marshall Super Lead is not (would probably hurt the amp itself and the cord).

[Doug_H]

I've been using 18 gauge to make speaker cables but I'm going to move over to lamp cord to keep it neater.

[markm]

I've been using 18 gauge to make speaker cables but I'm going to move over to lamp cord to keep it neater.

Yeah, I've seen lamp cord used quite a bit now that you mention it.
Should work fine.

[scaesic]

post up some links! do you just solder on a mono jack to 2 core wire?

[Mark Hammer]

post up some links! do you just solder on a mono jack to 2 core wire?

Yes, unless the amp itself uses screw-on or spring-loaded terminals.  Certainly the standard 1/4" phone plug/jack can handle the current without burning out like a fuse, so if the amp provides a phone jack out for speakers, that's what you use.

Given that there is no formal "hot" and "shield" as there is with shielded cable, it would not be an entirely unreasonable thing to build an inline switch (maybe using one of those much smaller Hammond cast aluminum boxes) that allowed you to phase-flip the speaker by reversing which wire goes to the tip and shaft, just in case you were combining speakers that were inadvertently wired opposite.