Internal speaker Wire

[JBLOG]

What are folks using for internal wiring on their DIY speaker projects?

[ChopsMX5]

I usually use 14awg OFC cheapie speaker cable for internal wiring. Heck, what am I talking about... I even use that wire for running to the amps as well.

I think that wire is waaayyy too over-rated. I've tried Kimber 8TC, Analysis Bi-Oval 12, Cardas Quadlink, Transparent Audio, Moster M series, etc, etc, etc. All of them sounded the same when you get right down to it. The wire business is just a gimic and they're just out to get your money.

I say, as long as you have the proper gauge wire for the length you need, you're perfectly fine with any decent quality OFC wire.

Just my 2 cents.

[tweeter]

I´ve just replaced the cabling and binding posts of my 4301B´s for Supra classic 2.5 and WBT0764.

[JBLOG]

How are you connecting to the driver? Pins?
The older JBL push type and the newer plastic driver terminals don't allow much room for today's gauge wire. Do you think this is a weak link in the chain?

[toddalin]

How are you connecting to the driver? Pins?
The older JBL push type and the newer plastic driver terminals don't allow much room for today's gauge wire. Do you think this is a weak link in the chain?

I use 12 gauge low voltage cable or OFC cable (if I have it around).

What I do when the terminal holes are too small is to gather and twist the end strands as tight as I can. I then apply silver-bearing solder to the strands. Finally, I use an x-acto knife, a file, or sandpaper to reduce the diameter of the soldered end to where it fits the hole.

[Zilch]

Do you think this is a weak link in the chain?Not hardly. Woofers are lucky to get 16 Ga. here, and mid/high runs on 18 Ga. or Cat5e cables, premium....

[hjames]

Not hardly. Woofers are lucky to get 16 Ga. here, and mid/high runs on 18 Ga. or Cat5e cables, premium....

Hmm I usually strip down a few feet of 3 conductor Romex solid copper electrical cable and use that - solid copper has to be better than stranded, right? Its not a moving part, so there should be no real need for stranded ...

[Rolf]

What are folks using for internal wiring on their DIY speaker projects?

Whether you are building new or upgrading your speakers I recommend using a high quality audio cable. The woofer needs at least AWG 12. The upper frq don't need this thickness. The shielding of the wire is also important.

[toddalin]

- solid copper has to be better than stranded, right? Its not a moving part, so there should be no real need for stranded ...


You're kidding..., right? :o:

It is supposedly documented that the the electrons associated with sound travel along the surface of the wire. More strands increase the surface area.

[hjames]

You're kidding..., right? :o:

It is supposedly documented that the the electrons associated with sound travel along the surface of the wire. More strands increase the surface area.
I don't know about that.
I'll preface this by saying that I had an FCC 1st Class Radiotelephone License in the 80s - so I do have some RF and Microwave engineering background, familiar with, say, VHF through 4 gig or so. At the really high frequencies that surface conduction is called Skin Effect - but that shouldn't be true at low frequencies like the Audio range. Its electrical properties, not acoustical properties like JBL horns. In large RF networks, hollow tubing can be used in place of solid rods with little or no loss of efficiency.
I tuned and swept 64 transmitters at one location, all connected via hollow waveguide - at a frequency of nearly 2gHz. Far beyond anyone's audio range.


I don't know this site personally, but here's what I found with a quick Google:. http://www.google.com/search?q=Skin+Effect+and+Audio

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/skin-effect-relevance-in-speaker-cables

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~jcgl/Scots_Guide/audio/skineffect/page1.html (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/%7Ejcgl/Scots_Guide/audio/skineffect/page1.html)

There's more - but feel free to google your own info.
(You COULD buy 12 gauge solid silver wire instead of solid copper if you like - but that would get pricey pretty quickly).
But if you can hear a difference, I recommend you pay no attention to me and just buy the wire you hear the difference in.:) Its not worth an argument - my money is already spent!

No doubt you'd notice a change in upgrading your crossover caps or getting an improved amplifier before a simple change like speaker inner-cables.

[JBLOG]

It is curious...the industry, marketing or otherwise, focuses our attention on anaconda like power cables, special hospital grade duplex outlets, mystical metallurgical interconnects, 2nd mortgage speaker cables and van-de-who terminations.

But whats inside the box .. Should we pay more attention to this? Again.. Is this the weak link in the chain?

I like simple secure speaker connections, give me banana plugs or lugs with lots of surface area for decent interface contact.

When you really stop and think...How much surface area is at play when we connect to the driver terminals?

Is surface area the metric we need to pay attention to at an interface?

Excuse me while I get another Sierra Nevada to wet my interFace:)

[Zilch]

It's gastight what counts.... :yes:

[JBLOG]

Zilch,

Your talking about the new Sierra Nevada Cap...Right?

No more Twist-Off Caps for the Chico Pale Ale!

Gastight...and....hoppy

[hjames]

Zilch,

Your talking about the new Sierra Nevada Cap...Right?

No more Twist-Off Caps for the Chico Pale Ale!

Gastight...and....hoppy

Yummm IPA ahhhhhh!

[cvengr]

Is surface area the metric we need to pay attention to at an interface?


From past studies in Mat'l Sci, I'll try to answer yur question, although I haven't taken this to the lab recently, and I suspect there may be some others in this forum who are also better qualified to answer.

Let's begin with Paris & Hurd, Basic Electromagnetic Theory, p.50, discusses the experimental evidence faced by Maxwell when he wrote his treatise in 1873. The fifth experiment he performed established what is known as Ohm's Law. Ohm kept a constant current flowing through a section of many different conductors, and measured the voltage difference between the ends of these sections, thus establishing the relationship between voltage and current as I = (1/R) V, where the resistance R, was determined to be a constant dependent upon the geometry and composition of the material as follows: 1/R = (sigma) x cross-sectional area normal to current flow / length of material, where (sigma) is the conductivity of the material.

At this point, a vector field called the current density, J, is introduced, which is related to current flow in a conductor by the Surface integral of current density dot product of the surface normal unit vector dA = I (the current).

In differential form, we note dV = E dot dL
so J dot ndA = (the conductivity)(da/dn)E dot dL

since n and dL as vectors have the same direction as E(the Electric Field vector) and J(the current density vector), we mathematically state this as
J = sigma E

The current density is probably more closely identified with the physical observable in the lab or in practice. Since we usually have decent connectivity in our measurements and measure over time, we frequently think in terms of voltage and current, although the current density is probably the more direct observable at issue.

Now lets identify the conductors we are considering.

We might range from the ideal of a single crystal, all the way to a homogeneous, multi-crystalline, grained, cylindrical wire, to a multistrand twisted wire.

A different perspective on conduction, from field theory, beginning with conservation of energy, might argue that the electric conduction of uniform electric plane waves in unbounded, linear, homogeneous, isotropic, charge-free regions whose conductivity is finite, but not zero, results in high attenuation of the plane wave with depth from the surface in a good conductor, and is frequency dependent.

In a nutshell, for copper, the skin depth or depth of penetration of the plane wave, delta, is typically 0.85cm for 60Hz and 0.007cm at 1,000,000 Hz as given by the simple formula of : delta(skin depth) = 1/alpha = SqRt [2/(freq)(conductivity)(magnetic permeability)]

So technically, if we want to conduct frequencies from 20Hz to 20,000Hz, the depth of the lower frequencies will conduct a wave to a depth of about a Cm, and for high frequencies to less than one tenth the depth of a 40 gage wire.

These numbers are also assuming homogeneity (when they melted the copper or alloy, they alloy is well mixed, material is uniformly mixed when physically processed), isotropic (conduction occuring along one direction of the crystalline structure in a multicrystalline solid, unbounded (other currents, magnetic fields, or stresses aren't inhibiting conduction inside the material or along its surface), linear (2 interpretations, one is that the geometry is linear, the other is that the medium conductivity is not based upon nonlinear mathematical expressions, such as semiconductors-not really but as a crude example.., or unique conducting media materials), and charge free (implying the media isn't a salt or providing other forms of conduction other than electric conduction,..so the math is different for a corroded wire).

Now common sensically, we know we can conduct electric audio signals using many times even the finest filaments of steel wire. (Remember that high school 8-track tape player connected to the custom van loudspeakers using the cheap 28 gage multistrand wire with only one to three strands of twelve only touching the speaker terminals by being loosely wrapped, and the damned thing still worked?.) So there is more to the issue than simply the wire material, diameter, and conductivity.

Issues which probably have more effect include: Corrosion, connections, strain on conductors, twisted vs untwisted conductors, crossing conductors and magnetic fields, magnetic susceptibility, parallel vs perpendicular connections. wire ductility, etc.

To a large effect, the mechanical features of electrical connections over time outweigh the electrical conduction parameters by many ordrs of magnitude. Many of those mechanical features are what allow short circuits or open circuits or enormous changes in conductor cross-sectional area along the circuit path, resulting in large impedances involving inductance, capacitance as well as resistance. Additionally these comments really only address single signal, single frequency studies, whereas high fidelity music will also involve many multiple harmonics and group waves not clearly discussed here.

(To be cont'd in next post...)

[Thom]

There isn't much to be added. The advantage of solid wire would be physical strength. The disadvantages would be a weak area easily broken if you nick it and the rigidity may break terminals on amps and speakers. The fact that some pretty well thought out speakers use regular wire should say something, while the fact that some use exotic wire only says that they knew someone was going to look. What the fact that some people who swear by their favorite wire, claim MP3's sound as good as any other format, says I'll leave to you to decide. If you are crazy (or can get it free) and use 00 gage wire I recommend going back down to something reasonable a foot or two before the terminals just so as not to rip the terminals off the amp. I wonder if 00 requires a really strong amp to push all those electrons. (just kidding)

I'm thinking that if you are going to use one of those super tweeters that only play way beyond human hearing you might be interested in skin effect. You wouldn't want to attenuate the signal that was never recorded that you wouldn't be able to hear if it had been. If you think about it, it already has enough going against it.

[cvengr]

Thom, do you know of any good basis of design commentaries which discuss at what point one shifts from direct connections to distributed sound reinforcement?

For others, IMHO, the significant issues are first the type of physical connections to insure continuity, anything from 18Ga to 8 Ga is probably OK for reasonable connections within 20 ft, but between 10 -50 ft one might argue that heat loss on impedance might be improved upon by transforming up then stepping back down at the speakers, treating the conductors as simple ampacity issues in between.

I haven't quantified the issue to see where the controlling/constraining factors reside. Distance conventionally is closer to 200ft for distributed sound from what I've seen, but again for the high dollars spent, higher quality might come into play going distributive within 50 ft with conventional wiring, rather than funky exotic element and alloys, becasue quite frankly, even with exotics, there are still dissimilar metals involved in the connections, allowing differing thermal expansion coefficients and/or corrosion or thermionic conduction to creep into play.

IMHO, keeping it simple with 8-14Ga, stranded or solid, good connections, spring-loaded to allow for unforeseen corrosion/stress/strains which occur by happenstance, provides a more robust connection system than all the oxygen free junk one would ever encounter.

[Thom]

I'm way beyond my expertise here, but I thought distributed was primarily for multiple "listening stations" that need to be able to adjust their level without effecting anybody else. I guess distance would really be a factor, but I thought number of stations was the main one. If you want really good sound you'd have to use really good transformers. Like I said in the beginning no expert here.

[Thom]

I read that the very slight advantage that oxygen free copper has in resistance is caused by having little or no iron in it not actually by being oxygen free and the advantage is slight. Most copper contains some iron. Playing with pieces of copper and a very strong magnet will sometimes reveal this. Many high copper content motor brushes which list no content of any Ferris metal are attracted by a magnet I think that is because of iron in the copper. I have no way of verifying it.

[westend]

From past studies in Mat'l Sci, I'll try to answer yur question, although I haven't taken this to the lab recently, and I suspect there may be some others in this forum who are also better qualified to answer.

Let's begin with Paris & Hurd, Basic Electromagnetic Theory, p.50, discusses the experimental evidence faced by Maxwell when he wrote his treatise in 1873. The fifth experiment he performed established what is known as Ohm's Law. Ohm kept a constant current flowing through a section of many different conductors, and measured the voltage difference between the ends of these sections, thus establishing the relationship between voltage and current as I = (1/R) V, where the resistance R, was determined to be a constant dependent upon the geometry and composition of the material as follows: 1/R = (sigma) x cross-sectional area normal to current flow / length of material, where (sigma) is the conductivity of the material.

At this point, a vector field called the current density, J, is introduced, which is related to current flow in a conductor by the Surface integral of current density dot product of the surface normal unit vector dA = I (the current).

In differential form, we note dV = E dot dL
so J dot ndA = (the conductivity)(da/dn)E dot dL

since n and dL as vectors have the same direction as E(the Electric Field vector) and J(the current density vector), we mathematically state this as
J = sigma E

The current density is probably more closely identified with the physical observable in the lab or in practice. Since we usually have decent connectivity in our measurements and measure over time, we frequently think in terms of voltage and current, although the current density is probably the more direct observable at issue.

Now lets identify the conductors we are considering.

We might range from the ideal of a single crystal, all the way to a homogeneous, multi-crystalline, grained, cylindrical wire, to a multistrand twisted wire.

A different perspective on conduction, from field theory, beginning with conservation of energy, might argue that the electric conduction of uniform electric plane waves in unbounded, linear, homogeneous, isotropic, charge-free regions whose conductivity is finite, but not zero, results in high attenuation of the plane wave with depth from the surface in a good conductor, and is frequency dependent.

In a nutshell, for copper, the skin depth or depth of penetration of the plane wave, delta, is typically 0.85cm for 60Hz and 0.007cm at 1,000,000 Hz as given by the simple formula of : delta(skin depth) = 1/alpha = SqRt [2/(freq)(conductivity)(magnetic permeability)]

So technically, if we want to conduct frequencies from 20Hz to 20,000Hz, the depth of the lower frequencies will conduct a wave to a depth of about a Cm, and for high frequencies to less than one tenth the depth of a 40 gage wire.

These numbers are also assuming homogeneity (when they melted the copper or alloy, they alloy is well mixed, material is uniformly mixed when physically processed), isotropic (conduction occuring along one direction of the crystalline structure in a multicrystalline solid, unbounded (other currents, magnetic fields, or stresses aren't inhibiting conduction inside the material or along its surface), linear (2 interpretations, one is that the geometry is linear, the other is that the medium conductivity is not based upon nonlinear mathematical expressions, such as semiconductors-not really but as a crude example.., or unique conducting media materials), and charge free (implying the media isn't a salt or providing other forms of conduction other than electric conduction,..so the math is different for a corroded wire).

Now common sensically, we know we can conduct electric audio signals using many times even the finest filaments of steel wire. (Remember that high school 8-track tape player connected to the custom van loudspeakers using the cheap 28 gage multistrand wire with only one to three strands of twelve only touching the speaker terminals by being loosely wrapped, and the damned thing still worked?.) So there is more to the issue than simply the wire material, diameter, and conductivity.

Issues which probably have more effect include: Corrosion, connections, strain on conductors, twisted vs untwisted conductors, crossing conductors and magnetic fields, magnetic susceptibility, parallel vs perpendicular connections. wire ductility, etc.

To a large effect, the mechanical features of electrical connections over time outweigh the electrical conduction parameters by many ordrs of magnitude. Many of those mechanical features are what allow short circuits or open circuits or enormous changes in conductor cross-sectional area along the circuit path, resulting in large impedances involving inductance, capacitance as well as resistance. Additionally these comments really only address single signal, single frequency studies, whereas high fidelity music will also involve many multiple harmonics and group waves not clearly discussed here.

(To be cont'd in next post...)Do you mind if I borrow a little of this post for signature purposes? Thanks for a learned viewpoint, as well. Here is another bit of information on wire: http://www.zedaudio.com/Technical/Cables.htm

[cvengr]

Do you mind if I borrow a little of this post for signature purposes? Thanks for a learned viewpoint, as well. Here is another bit of information on wire: http://www.zedaudio.com/Technical/Cables.htm

No problem.

Probably the only thing worth quoting is:

In a nutshell, for copper, the skin depth or depth of penetration of the plane wave, delta, is typically 0.85cm for 60Hz and 0.007cm at 1,000,000 Hz as given by the simple formula of : delta(skin depth) = 1/alpha = SqRt [2/(freq)(conductivity)(magnetic permeability)]

So technically, if we want to conduct frequencies from 20Hz to 20,000Hz, the depth of the lower frequencies will conduct a wave to a depth of about a Cm, and for high frequencies to less than one tenth the depth of a 40 gage wire.

-----------------

Thanks for the link. Decent read.

[Thom]

I sort of hate to encourage you but when you are talking about high frequencies are you speaking of 1,000,000 hz and if so why.

[cvengr]

A simple example.
Page 324, Paris & Hurd, Basic Electromagnetic Theory, McGraw-Hill Physical & Quantum Electronic Series, Copyright 1969. Said text is a Freshman to sophomore level beginning textbook for EM Field Theory which many ABET accredited schools in EE happen to use. I've found it to clearly explain from fundamental principles and experiments the origins/meaning of many more advanced mathematical arguments in EE field theory. The 10exp6 example was taken verbatim.

Freq less than 20kHz are probably what is more germane to these discussions. So with that said, using the said formula for skin depth and changing freq from 10MHz for Cu at STP, delta = just less than 0.0495cm at 20,000Hz or 0.0195in. So if we modeled the conduction to occur by skin depth we could use 18Ga wire at 0.0403 in thick and conduct along the outside perimeter of the wire extending down and nearly attenuating to 1/e of its initial value at the very center of the wire (for 20,000Hz that is...)

Since most electric frequencies used in audio reproduction are less than this, the skin depth is considerably larger, i.e. use the entire cross section.

I'm left with the impression from these numbers, that skin depth really doesn't have much to do with significant audio quality issues.

Half of my post here is simply reasoning on electronic paper through the problem. What this exercise reveals to me, is that the sizing of the conductors for speaker and component cabling, probably has a lot more to do with calculating ampacities per typical NEC and NESC tables than it does with actual audio quality.

Ergo, if there is any doubt, IMHO, just buy some thicker wires, perhaps opt for Copper instead of steel wire, and drop the extra finances on increased power from the amp.

[Zilch]

Every time we go through this exercise, it comes out saying that the wire sizes traditionally used internally in loudspeaker manufacturing, i.e., 16 - 20 Ga, are adequate to the task, and any subjective declaration of that as "wimpy" has little engineering merit.

What wire size does JBL currently use in its big pro SR subs, for example?

[hjames]

Every time we go through this exercise, it comes out saying that the wire sizes traditionally used internally in loudspeaker manufacturing, i.e., 16 - 20 Ga, are adequate to the task, and any subjective declaration of that as "wimpy" has little engineering merit.


Amazing - we danced all around this for over a week and came to the same thing I said in an early post:
skin effect is moot at Audio frequencies.
fat copper is better than skinny wires.
Silver isn't worth the expense for short, internal wires.

Did I miss anything?

[Robh3606]

Did I miss anything?

I don't think you did. I use 14ga all around and 12ga on woofers which is heavy compared to what you would find in any SR cabinet. That's just what I like to use. It's a personal preference thing. If you look at any of the Monster Wire crossovers like an XPL series I think it's 16ga.

I am a lot more concerned about speaker placement and if I have the crossover right. Wires are way down on the list of things to get right.

Rob:)

[cvengr]

To emphasize the consequences of say, let's allow skin depth to matter,...worst case in some calculations imply the resistance of the wire might increase for AC loads as opposed to DC calculations because the resistance is averaged over the outer circumference of the wire, instead of the entire cross sectional area.

Accordingly, a given length of wire might have an actual measured resistance of 3% greater than the non-skin effected cross sectional resistance (because current density changes with reduced conductive cross sectional area assuming a constant voltage drop) (additionally, some calcs indicate the theoretical increase to be as great as 134% of DC resistance values, but lab measured seem to be at 3% max from various reports...indicating some math errors in the calcs, IMHO)
Bottom line,..all skin depth effects is total line impedance in these calculations, which is naturally overcome by increased power from the source.

All this assumes linearity and scalable attenuation across the freq domain in the resistance.


Now at this point is where some better modeling is prudent, because the impedance as a function of frequency has not been compensated in these models. IMHO, we also haven't quantified the order of magnitude these impedance variances in the freq domain effect the speaker response functions.

At this point, though, if I were accountable for the design as a PE, I'd take the point of view of, what the heck, instead of using wires for the speaker conductors from terminals to the coil, use a bus bar, coat it for longevity, corrosion, resistance, possibly some magnetic shielding, and couse the bus bar as mechanical support within the basket to deliver the signal to the speaker motor. Then leave the connection from speaker terminal to power amp up to the customer.

Could go rigid connectors, leaving room now for thermal expansion and possible thermionic effects, which wiring absorbs in its flexibility, but it would simplify the identification problem in finding audio attenuation along the conduction path.

Besides, if the market supports people buying silver and oxygen free wire, it would be a lot less expensive to install buss bars and easier to model. Besides, if you want a pseudo-exotic sales candy, theres plenty of room to dabble at that point, while the pros are able to sit down and remodel the problem qualitatively and quantitatively.

I must leave now, as I have programmed my automaton to remove me from my keyboard after more than 1.5 bottles of Cabernet Sav ahve been consumed from the wine cupbaord. have a nice evening.....

[pelly3s]

i think i need a bottle of patron after reading all this. i normally wire speakers with either 14 or 12 gauge because its what i have a ton of laying around. i am yet to hear the difference between anything i have used. i've opened a lot of high power pro boxes to find normally nothing more than 14ga laying around in there, so if it's good enough for Meyer its good enough for me. I personally get all confused with the technical number stuff i just base it off what i hear and see on an RTA (which is no difference)

[Robh3606]

i think i need a bottle of patron after reading all this.

The tequilla?? Let me know when, I can leave now.

Rob:bouncy:

[Rolf]

Back on topic.

Whatever cable idiots says: use hi quality cables. -those who cant hear the difference, sorry for them.

[hjames]

Back on topic.

Whatever cable idiots says: use hi quality cables. -those who cant hear the difference, sorry for them.


Well, thats certainly not a very friendly or persuasive way to share in a conversation :blink:


Whether you are building new or upgrading your speakers I recommend using a high quality audio cable.
The woofer needs at least AWG 12. The upper frq don't need this thickness. The shielding of the wire is also important.

Shielded wire at final output levels ... inside the speaker cabinet ... an interesting perspective!

But for most folks the money may be better spent elsewhere. I've no doubt that most people will notice an improvement quicker by upgrading their crossover caps or getting an improved amplifier, before they could hear any change from something like internal speaker wiring,

[clubman]

For fixed installs I use 10 gauge stranded THHN (electrical wire). Tie one end of the pair to a fixed object then chuck the other end up in the drill and twist the pair together till real tight. The runs are typicaly not over 100ft. I cant hear the diff between that and the standard NL4 of the same gauge. Some codes around here require highpower speaker lines to be in conduit depending on location and aplication. So the THHN pulles nicely in the conduit.

For home use/installs I use monster 14 gauge in-wall rated. I use this for any speaker repairs or custom builds in the box itself (from xover to speaker)

[ChopsMX5]

Like I said before, the whole "special" wire thing is a scam. Just give me some good ole' 14awg OFC and I'm good. ;)

[Thom]

Like I said before, the whole "special" wire thing is a scam. Just give me some good ole' 14awg OFC and I'm good. ;)

What you get with stranded is flexibility. If you are concerned about skin effect (general consensus is you shouldn't be) you need litz wire as stranded acts just like solid.

Some of that stuff sounded like prof Irwin Corey. You lost me when you jumped from 10 Mhz to 20 khz as if they were almost the same thing.

Electrically buss bar is no different than wire. When it is used it is used for it's mechanical properties.

When you see silver used in contacts it's not because it conducts so much better than copper. It's because silver oxide conducts and silver contacts don't weld, almost.

[Rolf]

Well, thats certainly not a very friendly or persuasive way to share in a conversation :blink:





Sorry if you see it that way. Maybe I do not have the right way of saying it in English, but I am a Cable idiot.:)

[ChopsMX5]

What you get with stranded is flexibility. If you are concerned about skin effect (general consensus is you shouldn't be) you need litz wire as stranded acts just like solid.

Some of that stuff sounded like prof Irwin Corey. You lost me when you jumped from 10 Mhz to 20 khz as if they were almost the same thing.

Electrically buss bar is no different than wire. When it is used it is used for it's mechanical properties.

When you see silver used in contacts it's not because it conducts so much better than copper. It's because silver oxide conducts and silver contacts don't weld, almost.

Yes, but we all know that skin effect is well beyond the limits of human hearing, so multi-strand OFC is just fine and is really all that one needs.

And gold, eventhough it isn't as good a conductor as copper, it doesn't oxidize, hence why people use gold for connectors.

[Ian Mackenzie]

My recipe is to use 18 gauge (0.12mm strands) for tweeters, 16 gauge for the midrange and 14 gauge for woofers.

The thing is to ensure low inductance/capacitance via the filters but have sufficient cross section for transient currents. For numerous unexplained reasons really thick cable seems to have an adverse effect on the imaging depending on the cable geometry.

As I have said on numerous ocassions make sure you use hi quality terminations. Most times poor terminations account for loss of signal quality.

If you have a stock JBL system look for posts on bypassing the biamp switch.

I usually specify Cardas binding posts / RCA or Speakon for safety on loudspeaker outputs.

Of course mid fi equipment users need not loose sleep over any of this.

Ian

[SMKSoundPro]

I'm using Belden Brilliance with GREAT results for all of the nightclub installs, and home and internal cabinet wiring!!

check out this sight,

http://bwccat.belden.com/ecat/jsp/Index.jsp?&P1=null&P2=null&P3=null&P4=null&P5=null&P6=null


I WILL NEVER USE THHN IN A TWISTED PAIR FOR THE NIGHTCLUB OR ANYWHERE ELSE!

Once you re-pull this plenum rated cable in your conduit, hook it up, dial the rig in....you will agree to never use thhn again, also!!!

It sounds completely different, and yes, I can hear it!

Stubbornly Submitted,

Scotty.

[clubman]

I WILL NEVER USE THHN IN A TWISTED PAIR FOR THE NIGHTCLUB OR ANYWHERE ELSE!



I really dont think in a night club setting, with house full of people and sound levels at peak you could honestly tell weather the club is wired with THHN or Belden. Im not saying your wrong, I will give it a try and see. I will pull one line with this belden line and then A,B them side to side and see if I can tell. Most DJ's now days play crappy(MP3) source material so whats the point.

[hjames]

Again, the discussion is on the short pieces of wire INSIDE the cabinets - not household or clubwide wiring

Your link just goes to the "search" page of the Belden online catalog, with nothing specified


I'm using Belden Brilliance with GREAT results for all of the nightclub installs, and home and internal cabinet wiring!!

http://bwccat.belden.com/ecat/jsp/Index.jsp?&P1=null&P2=null&P3=null&P4=null&P5=null&P6=null

Stubbornly Submitted,

Scotty.


maybe something from this page?? http://www.belden.com/03Products/03_MasterCatalogProdCat/03_MasterCatalogBrilliance.cfm

[triold]

We keep bringing this up on every forum I have been on. http://forums.beyondunreal.com/images/smilies/deadhorse.gif

(Edit - Sorry, this is bit off topic as I am talking about wiring in general, but that includes inside the cabinet)

So why am I posting this??? Oh well.
I use magnet wire all over the place. It works fine. It is cheap. :)

More (current) discussion can be found here:
http://www.audiodesignline.com/howto/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=E5B1CPNZNY3ROQSNDLPCK HSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=201805860

Cheers,
Jim

[Thom]

Back on topic.

Whatever cable idiots says: use hi quality cables. -those who cant hear the difference, sorry for them.

I've watched your postings on cables to the point where I think you must think you spent too much on cables and are trying to make yourself feel better about it. You are not the only one who argues in favor of expensive cables, but you are the only one who's whole argument is to call anybody who disagrees with you a tin eared idiot. Come up with a real argument (even my mother said so) or leave it alone.

[Thom]

My recipe is to use 18 gauge (0.12mm strands) for tweeters, 16 gauge for the midrange and 14 gauge for woofers.

The thing is to ensure low inductance/capacitance via the filters but have sufficient cross section for transient currents. For numerous unexplained reasons really thick cable seems to have an adverse effect on the imaging depending on the cable geometry.

As I have said on numerous ocassions make sure you use hi quality terminations. Most times poor terminations account for loss of signal quality.

If you have a stock JBL system look for posts on bypassing the biamp switch.

I usually specify Cardas binding posts / RCA or Speakon for safety on loudspeaker outputs.

Of course mid fi equipment users need not loose sleep over any of this.

Ian

I have to agree about terminations easily making more difference than the wires. I imagine on runs of 200 or 500 feet the wire could make a great difference but I wouldn't bet that the expensive stuff would perform well there.

In my work we can put a signal on a wire and pick the wire out at the other end but it works much better in houses than in industrial where 500 feet later the signal is on every wire in the bundle.

Some cars used a length of wire in the harness as a shunt for the in dash ammeter. I learned long ago if that wire was interrupted solder it back together. No mater how well I tried to crimp it it would make the ammeter more sensitive (read too high)

The crimps that are as good as soldering are called compression connections plain crimps always loose something.

[SMKSoundPro]

I really dont think in a night club setting, with house full of people and sound levels at peak you could honestly tell weather the club is wired with THHN or Belden. Im not saying your wrong, I will give it a try and see. I will pull one line with this belden line and then A,B them side to side and see if I can tell. Most DJ's now days play crappy(MP3) source material so whats the point.


The Rear Admiral and myself pulled all of the hanging speakers in the ceiling with 14ga thhn of different colors, twisted in pairs with a drill motor. The runs were 30' - 60' each. When repulled years later with the Belden 5200, the difference was really night and day!

Try it. Don't think like an electrician. Think like an electron on speed!

My comments are my own personal experience with years of playing with speakers and amps in professional audio for over 25 years. If you have something that works well, please share it with the rest of us!

Try searching for Belden Brilliance speaker cable. It comes in a single twisted pair in 18, 16, 14 and 12 ga. Also avaliable in four conductor 14 ga. Perfect for himids, or biamp configurations.

I am very pleased with it and use it everywhere I can.

I was never crazy about oversized zip-cord regardless of guage, or name brand. Just my $.02.

Scott.

[Mike Caldwell]

I was doing some work on a friend of mines expensive very professional brand name sub woofers and took a double take at the size of the wire used inside. The jumper wires between the Speakon connectors was at best 20 gauge and the leads to the speakers were 18 gauge. The smallest in my of my cabinets 16ga with most being 14ga.

Mike Caldwell

[UreiCollector]

My personal feeling / recomendation is.....

Use the largest stranded wire that will fit into the binding posts / spring clips of your drivers, and keep the length as short as you can, while still allowing installation and removal of the driver from the cabinet with the leads attached.

My reasoning is as follows....

stranded wire = more flexibility, and better contact at the binding posts or spring clips, as the stranded wire will 'squish' and provide more surface area and therefore less resistance at the contact junction

largest wire possible = less dc resistance

shortest practical length = less dc resistance



your money will be better spent on more JBL/Altec Lansing/Urei speaker parts, than on 'audiophile grade' speaker wire.

your money would also be wasted if your buying ceramic insulators to suspend your speaker wire above the carpet in your listening room....the attached picture shows that plenty of fools love to give away their money......

[ChopsMX5]

your money would also be wasted if your buying ceramic insulators to suspend your speaker wire above the carpet in your listening room....the attached picture shows that plenty of fools love to give away their money......


What if you're like me and don't have carpet?! LOL :p

j/k of course.

[Mr. Widget]

My personal feeling / recomendation is.....
Use the largest stranded wire that will fit into the binding posts / spring clips of your drivers, and keep the length as short as you can, while still allowing installation and removal of the driver from the cabinet with the leads attached.That is what I recommend too. However, a customer of mine recently had me remove some perfectly good Cardas litz wire from the inside of his speakers and replace it with battery pack laden silver wire from Audioquest. The longest run of wire was 28". Did it make a difference?

You bet it did! He was thrilled with the results. Did I hear a difference? Maybe, but I think it was a reflection on his enthusiasm more than anything else... the bottom line was, I was happy with the original 12 ga copper wire, the Cardas was also fine, and so was the Audioquest. Since the Audioquest wire made the speaker's owner the happiest, it was obviously the best choice.:)


Widget

[Rolf]

I've watched your postings on cables to the point where I think you must think you spent too much on cables and are trying to make yourself feel better about it. You are not the only one who argues in favor of expensive cables, but you are the only one who's whole argument is to call anybody who disagrees with you a tin eared idiot. Come up with a real argument (even my mother said so) or leave it alone.

Well, what is a "real argument" in this matter? The best argument must be to say I hear that the sound is getting better if you compare a thin old type wire with a better so called "hi quality" wire. That said I do not claim to say that a pair of 10 ft speaker wire at $10.000 is better than a pair of 10 ft speaker wire at $500. I also find it easier to hear differences between interconnect cables than speaker cables.

Regarding "cable idiots" I was referring to myself and the ones like me, but I think it is strange that people can't hear differences between some cables.

Anyway, it was meant as a funny way of saying it.

[89-300ce]

but I think it is strange that people can't hear differences between some cables.



They're blessed.

Jorg

[Thom]

Well, what is a "real argument" in this matter? The best argument must be to say I hear that the sound is getting better if you compare a thin old type wire with a better so called "hi quality" wire. That said I do not claim to say that a pair of 10 ft speaker wire at $10.000 is better than a pair of 10 ft speaker wire at $500. I also find it easier to hear differences between interconnect cables than speaker cables.

Regarding "cable idiots" I was referring to myself and the ones like me, but I think it is strange that people can't hear differences between some cables.

Anyway, it was meant as a funny way of saying it.

I hadn't considered that English might be your second language. I apologize.

[Rolf]

I hadn't considered that English might be your second language. I apologize.

That is Thom. What is I trying to say is that 0.00000 wires is not as good an another one.

[00Robin]

oh....I must have been a real do-do. I did mine with Phoenix Gold,and I buried it in the edges of the carpet and under and it sounded perfect to me.

At this house,I just have it laying there and it still sounds perfect. mmmmm,maybe I need to listen to some other wire somewhere else?

[Fred Sanford]

I usually use 14awg OFC cheapie speaker cable for internal wiring. Heck, what am I talking about... I even use that wire for running to the amps as well.

I think that wire is waaayyy too over-rated. I've tried Kimber 8TC, Analysis Bi-Oval 12, Cardas Quadlink, Transparent Audio, Moster M series, etc, etc, etc. All of them sounded the same when you get right down to it. The wire business is just a gimic and they're just out to get your money.

I say, as long as you have the proper gauge wire for the length you need, you're perfectly fine with any decent quality OFC wire.

Just my 2 cents.

Nothing aimed at Charles here, but I do have to mention that there are potential problems with some "cheapie" wire. I just came across some no-name clear jacket zip cable that had one silver colored conductor and one copper colored conductor. I say 'had' because the silver colored conductor still looks fine, but the copper colored conductor is a greenish-bronze color for the entire length of the cable. :blink:

The jacket must have reacted with the metal, and allowed/caused the cable to deteriorate right inside the jacket. A VOM measured significant resistance, obviously. YMMV, of course.

Here's an example pic I found on line (guess it's happened before), not of my cable:

[ChopsMX5]

Nothing aimed at Charles here, but I do have to mention that there are potential problems with some "cheapie" wire. I just came across some no-name clear jacket zip cable that had one silver colored conductor and one copper colored conductor. I say 'had' because the silver colored conductor still looks fine, but the copper colored conductor is a greenish-bronze color for the entire length of the cable. :blink:

The jacket must have reacted with the metal, and allowed/caused the cable to deteriorate right inside the jacket. A VOM measured significant resistance, obviously. YMMV, of course.

Here's an example pic I found on line (guess it's happened before), not of my cable:

Hi there. No problem at all. What I was referring to when I said "cheapie cable" was something like the 14awg "Theater Series" cable from Monster, AR or RatShack. Nothing special or expensive with regular ole' OFC on both sides.

And as for your one cable turning completely green for the entire length, I have some original 12awg Monster cables that are completely green for the entire 15' lengths. Then again, these cables date back to about 1983 and obviously are no longer used!! They look just like the ones in your picture.

Just as a side note, I do miss the smell of fresh Monster cables in a room. LOL!

[cvengr]

Those Cable supports look they'd go nicely with some air break switches. (always wondered what people did with old ceramic line insulators.)

[Zilch]

What if you're like me and don't have carpet?! LOL :p

j/k of course.Well, you gotta rig 'em from the ceiling then.... :yes:

[Hoerninger]

... from the ceiling then.... :yes:
Industry has some appropriate offers [first picture]. :thmbsup:
The second picture shows what will happen if cables are not properly burnt in. :(
____________
Peter

[ChopsMX5]

Well, you gotta rig 'em from the ceiling then.... :yes:

Yeah, but if I do that, I might pick up short wave radio or CB radio traffic, and I don't want that. :thmbsup:

[00Robin]

Yeah, but if I do that, I might pick up short wave radio or CB radio traffic, and I don't want that. :thmbsup:

seriously?

[ChopsMX5]

seriously?

LOL... No, I hope not.

I was just remembering back in the day as a kid, sitting in church, and all of a sudden hearing someone on a CB coming over the electronic organ speakers. Everybody would get a kick out of that.

[00Robin]

LOL... No, I hope not.

I was just remembering back in the day as a kid, sitting in church, and all of a sudden hearing someone on a CB coming over the electronic organ speakers. Everybody would get a kick out of that.

oh,sorry....that WAS funny..I just take what you guys say so seriously sometimes. Trying to learn around you all's slang and all.....