Do speaker cables.....
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The Green Hornet
New member
YO:
If the 12 GUAGE doesn't work, try linguini, cooked a bit longer.
Hee, hee, haa, oh, bah!
I really don't know if oxygen free cables are better, but most people say they are. I like the idea of good cables; I have Monster cables, two of them; one for de mic, and one for de synthesizer; they do good stuff; so man, what do you think?
Quality is quality; however, does more $$$ mean quality: Yea, verily, methinks so.
Green Hornet
If the 12 GUAGE doesn't work, try linguini, cooked a bit longer.
Hee, hee, haa, oh, bah!
I really don't know if oxygen free cables are better, but most people say they are. I like the idea of good cables; I have Monster cables, two of them; one for de mic, and one for de synthesizer; they do good stuff; so man, what do you think?
Quality is quality; however, does more $$$ mean quality: Yea, verily, methinks so.
Green Hornet
drstawl
Banned
I don't know.
I think the stranded advantage comes into play at the connectors.
More surface are to actually connect with.
The price advantage of 14 gauge is so small it's not worth even thinking about.
Basically you don't want the stuff to heat up during use as that might change some of the transmission characteristics.
I think the stranded advantage comes into play at the connectors.
More surface are to actually connect with.
The price advantage of 14 gauge is so small it's not worth even thinking about.
Basically you don't want the stuff to heat up during use as that might change some of the transmission characteristics.
skippy
New member
Stranded wire is primarily useful at audio freqencies because it is flexible. It is nice not to have to use a conduit bender to get it to go around corners. (;-)
Seriously, the most important property of a speaker cable is low DC resistance. This primarily helps in improving the damping factor of the amp/speaker system. The lower the DC resistance of the interconnect, the less deterioration it causes in the damping factor, and the better controlled the system's low end will be. This is something that you actually *can* measure and hear, and it is why 12AWG is often audibly better than 14- or 16AWG for monitor hookups. These damping effects occur at much lower than the "heatup" threshold for real-world audio. But going bigger that 12AWG is usually an exercise in diminishing returns, unless you are connecting a bridged 400W/ch amp to a 2x18" subwoofer bin. How big should you go? Try it and see. I just use 12AWG for pretty much anything these days, but for that degenerate worst-case whompin' bass bin example above, I'd probably use 10AWG...
Some audiophiles make great hand-wavings about the "skin effect" causing the high frequencies to become "veiled" unless Really Expensive Wire is used. Stranded wire certainly does have more "skin" (a higher ratio of outer surfaces to inner volume), which is claimed to reduce the characteristic impedance of the wire at high freqencies. This is certainly a real, physical, meaureable effect. But the onset of real skin effect is well up above 20kHz, and effects from it really do not occur anywhere near our audible range. In other words, it's a semi-plausible thing that some marketers have grabbed and run with, and turned into a religion.
There are people who can hear the speaker wire, Gawd bless 'em. More power to them! Not me, though. Except for really gross misuse (like trying to drive a nice clean monitor with 200W through 24AWG cable) I'm not one of 'em. But in the interest of presenting some other points of view, here are two web pages to look at for more information: one simple one I like to point out to newbies, and one more sophisticated one that is really good for other nerds like me.
The second one, I personally can only laugh at, while thinking of the impact of missing the forest for the trees. It is a great example of audiophile self-delusion. It's neat that after measuring complete meltdown (ultrasonic oscillations!) because of the reactivity of some of the ultra-high-zoot super wire, and illustrating with well executed measurements that some of the most expensive cable there is has high-frequency characteristics that are actually the *shits*, the authors still cannot bring themselves to say anything but good things about it.
Good grief. I'll never understand audiophiles.
http://ethanwiner.com/myths.html
http://cygnus.ipal.org/mirror/www.passlabs.com/spkrcabl.htm
Read through those, and then make your own decisions about spending beacoups bucks for the high-zoot stuff.
No audiophiles were harmed in the posting of this article. Opinions of the author are widely believed to be lunatic ravings. Your mileage may vary. Post no bills.
Seriously, the most important property of a speaker cable is low DC resistance. This primarily helps in improving the damping factor of the amp/speaker system. The lower the DC resistance of the interconnect, the less deterioration it causes in the damping factor, and the better controlled the system's low end will be. This is something that you actually *can* measure and hear, and it is why 12AWG is often audibly better than 14- or 16AWG for monitor hookups. These damping effects occur at much lower than the "heatup" threshold for real-world audio. But going bigger that 12AWG is usually an exercise in diminishing returns, unless you are connecting a bridged 400W/ch amp to a 2x18" subwoofer bin. How big should you go? Try it and see. I just use 12AWG for pretty much anything these days, but for that degenerate worst-case whompin' bass bin example above, I'd probably use 10AWG...
Some audiophiles make great hand-wavings about the "skin effect" causing the high frequencies to become "veiled" unless Really Expensive Wire is used. Stranded wire certainly does have more "skin" (a higher ratio of outer surfaces to inner volume), which is claimed to reduce the characteristic impedance of the wire at high freqencies. This is certainly a real, physical, meaureable effect. But the onset of real skin effect is well up above 20kHz, and effects from it really do not occur anywhere near our audible range. In other words, it's a semi-plausible thing that some marketers have grabbed and run with, and turned into a religion.
There are people who can hear the speaker wire, Gawd bless 'em. More power to them! Not me, though. Except for really gross misuse (like trying to drive a nice clean monitor with 200W through 24AWG cable) I'm not one of 'em. But in the interest of presenting some other points of view, here are two web pages to look at for more information: one simple one I like to point out to newbies, and one more sophisticated one that is really good for other nerds like me.
The second one, I personally can only laugh at, while thinking of the impact of missing the forest for the trees. It is a great example of audiophile self-delusion. It's neat that after measuring complete meltdown (ultrasonic oscillations!) because of the reactivity of some of the ultra-high-zoot super wire, and illustrating with well executed measurements that some of the most expensive cable there is has high-frequency characteristics that are actually the *shits*, the authors still cannot bring themselves to say anything but good things about it.
Good grief. I'll never understand audiophiles.
http://ethanwiner.com/myths.html
http://cygnus.ipal.org/mirror/www.passlabs.com/spkrcabl.htm
Read through those, and then make your own decisions about spending beacoups bucks for the high-zoot stuff.
No audiophiles were harmed in the posting of this article. Opinions of the author are widely believed to be lunatic ravings. Your mileage may vary. Post no bills.
John Weigel
New member
You're a good man, Skippy. this is stuff everybody with a soldering iron ought to know.
I thought I would just add some info here (not that I am an expert).
First, electrical current flows on the ourtside of a strand of wire. It does not flow through the middle. Since larger guage wire has more strands, more current can flow through it.
Second, Oxygen Free cable will be less likely to corrode. Corrosion can cause resistance since the current can not pass through this nasty stuff.
Just my two cents.
First, electrical current flows on the ourtside of a strand of wire. It does not flow through the middle. Since larger guage wire has more strands, more current can flow through it.
Second, Oxygen Free cable will be less likely to corrode. Corrosion can cause resistance since the current can not pass through this nasty stuff.
Just my two cents.
skippy
New member
JC Lives wrote: "electrical current flows on the outside of a strand of wire. It does not flow through the middle."
This is a common misconception, helped along tremendously by the marketers at the high-end speaker wire companies. The bummer is that it is simply not true at low frequencies, like audio. At DC, the distribution of current throughout the "thickness" of a wire is uniform: the same per unit area at the surface as right down the center. With AC, as the frequency rises, the current *will* tend to congregate at the surface of the conductor, all right (caused by eddy-current effects) until at true RF frequencies (10MHz and up), the current is indeed essentially all glommed together at the surface, with little penetration into the bulk conductor.
See? there is some truth to this "skin effect" business. The problem is that for all intents and purposes, audio signals might as well be DC. The onset of the skin effect really begins to make itself felt for copper conductors at roughly 100kHz and up: the magnetic permeability and electrical conductivity of copper doesn't lead to significant eddy-current-driven current distribution effects until those frequencies and above.
This is a good thing, of course, since all the 60Hz supply current that lights our homes and runs our 'pooters routes through solid copper wire (no stranding at all!) for the last many feet of the distribution chain. If the current all congregated at the surface for *this* case, we'd be paying a lot more for wiring, and burning down one heck of a lot of houses.
I was going to type in the formulae for skin effect, and then I realized that sombody must have done it already- and let's face it, I'm a lazy sod. A quick web search resulted in a boatload of hits. But the best of them I found for a more detailed overview of the topic with respect to audio is probably this one:
http://members.tripod.com/nightstormer/skin.htm
The really useful part of this page is the graph of resistance versus frequency for a single strand, which you can use to see the results of skin effect on copper at different frequencies. As the current congregates into less and less of the cross-sectional area of the conductor, the resistance will necessarily go up. In that graph, you can see that the effect really begins to be noticeable in copper at about 100kHz.
Now, if you had _solid silver_ speaker wires, you'd be in a different ballpark altogether, because the magnetic permeability and electrical conductivity of silver is such (significantly higher for both) that you *will* begin to get noticeable skin effects at much lower frequencies (perhaps as low as 10 kHz). Which, I suppose, is yet another reason not to have solid silver speaker wires. You should definitely make your silver speaker wires stranded. (;-)
High-power RF systems (1 MHz and up) use hollow tubular conductors- because why pay for the metal to fill the middle if there's no current there? However, for us low-frequency folks, there's little impact at all, except in the marketing ploys.
No offense intended, JC Lives, please believe me. Sorry to rant on about this, but I do hate to see people dragged along by the marketers, when their claims really don't map well onto reality... Read for yourself, form your own opinions, and caveat emptor! Now let's get back to making music...
This is a common misconception, helped along tremendously by the marketers at the high-end speaker wire companies. The bummer is that it is simply not true at low frequencies, like audio. At DC, the distribution of current throughout the "thickness" of a wire is uniform: the same per unit area at the surface as right down the center. With AC, as the frequency rises, the current *will* tend to congregate at the surface of the conductor, all right (caused by eddy-current effects) until at true RF frequencies (10MHz and up), the current is indeed essentially all glommed together at the surface, with little penetration into the bulk conductor.
See? there is some truth to this "skin effect" business. The problem is that for all intents and purposes, audio signals might as well be DC. The onset of the skin effect really begins to make itself felt for copper conductors at roughly 100kHz and up: the magnetic permeability and electrical conductivity of copper doesn't lead to significant eddy-current-driven current distribution effects until those frequencies and above.
This is a good thing, of course, since all the 60Hz supply current that lights our homes and runs our 'pooters routes through solid copper wire (no stranding at all!) for the last many feet of the distribution chain. If the current all congregated at the surface for *this* case, we'd be paying a lot more for wiring, and burning down one heck of a lot of houses.
I was going to type in the formulae for skin effect, and then I realized that sombody must have done it already- and let's face it, I'm a lazy sod. A quick web search resulted in a boatload of hits. But the best of them I found for a more detailed overview of the topic with respect to audio is probably this one:
http://members.tripod.com/nightstormer/skin.htm
The really useful part of this page is the graph of resistance versus frequency for a single strand, which you can use to see the results of skin effect on copper at different frequencies. As the current congregates into less and less of the cross-sectional area of the conductor, the resistance will necessarily go up. In that graph, you can see that the effect really begins to be noticeable in copper at about 100kHz.
Now, if you had _solid silver_ speaker wires, you'd be in a different ballpark altogether, because the magnetic permeability and electrical conductivity of silver is such (significantly higher for both) that you *will* begin to get noticeable skin effects at much lower frequencies (perhaps as low as 10 kHz). Which, I suppose, is yet another reason not to have solid silver speaker wires. You should definitely make your silver speaker wires stranded. (;-)
High-power RF systems (1 MHz and up) use hollow tubular conductors- because why pay for the metal to fill the middle if there's no current there? However, for us low-frequency folks, there's little impact at all, except in the marketing ploys.
No offense intended, JC Lives, please believe me. Sorry to rant on about this, but I do hate to see people dragged along by the marketers, when their claims really don't map well onto reality... Read for yourself, form your own opinions, and caveat emptor! Now let's get back to making music...
Skippy, As I stated, I am no expert. The part about the current traveling on the outside of the wire was not placed in my head by marketeers. This is something that I vaguely remember learning in my electronics class in high school. This was may years ago. And just to let you know, I am not put out by anything you said. I will always be the first to admit that I am not an expert and I can always stand to be corrected. Your post was very inforative. Thanks.
Joe
Joe
John Weigel
New member
Done it again, Skippy, nice that's there's some real (non-oral tradition) information on the net. For the rest of youse, check out Gary Davis' Sound Reinforcement Handbook for abt $35. It has more facts than you can swallow, but it tells you how to, for ex, wire up a mono 1/4" to an XLR or maybe a TRS 1/4" to same. Lots of stuff in there I don't use, but the practical advice is, believe me, practical. everybody who tinkers with wire and solder oughta have a copy. No, I don't sell it. I'm a solderer/music fiend like everybody else who welcomes clarity and sense. Gawd knows there's plenty of the other stuff out there.
regebro
Insane Genious!
Ehm, I don't get it...
The page has a graph that shows that the resistance thanks to the skin effekt DOUBLES already at 1000Hz, and that it is 4-5 times the DC resistance at 10-20Khz. And then he claims it is insignificant below 50kHz? That just doesn't make sense to me.
And about stranded vs non-stranded, since the skin effect is happening because of the currents self-generated electrical field, if it's stranded or not won't make any difference, as far as I can understand. To get rid of the skin effect you would have to screen every single strand.
This Mr Naegels seem to agree with in the link above.
Cables are stranded to make them more flexible, since a solid copper bar breaks if you bend it...
The page has a graph that shows that the resistance thanks to the skin effekt DOUBLES already at 1000Hz, and that it is 4-5 times the DC resistance at 10-20Khz. And then he claims it is insignificant below 50kHz? That just doesn't make sense to me.
And about stranded vs non-stranded, since the skin effect is happening because of the currents self-generated electrical field, if it's stranded or not won't make any difference, as far as I can understand. To get rid of the skin effect you would have to screen every single strand.
This Mr Naegels seem to agree with in the link above.
Cables are stranded to make them more flexible, since a solid copper bar breaks if you bend it...
skippy
New member
He is showing you the analysis for a single strand. Stranded cable is made of multiple strands in a single jacket. Given single strands in parallel and in close proximity, you significantly reduce the overall effect of the resistance increase by the number of strands. How much is "significantly"? That's been the source of endless debate in the audiophile world for many years now.
It can be (and has been, ad infinitum!) argued that having multiple strands allows the electric fields of each strand to interact. This has the net effect of forcing the currents in each strand slightly away from the surface, and back into the bulk where we want it, wherever they come in contact. This case is hard to quantify in the real world, because it is highly dependent on the strand packing, whether there's oxide there at the interface between the strands (or air, or insulation...), and a long list of other really boring and disgustingly nerdy issues. Gawd, the shouting has gone on for *years*. Handwave, handwave. Sigh. Nobody's ever going to win this one.
But, what the hell- let's work an example. Just for the sake of argument, let's take the case of a given speaker with a tweeter that has a resistance of exactly 8 Ohms at 20kHz. Let's power it through 10 feet of #16AWG solid wire (good ol' Romex house wiring, for example), and then again through 10 feet of Belden #9716 speaker wire, which is stranded as 19 strands of #29AWG wire, according to the datasheet. #16AWG is a minimum of .0503" dia., and #29AWG is .0112" diameter minimum, according to my dog-eared old copy of Buschbaum's.
We could calculate the DC resistance for these from Ro, but like I said, I'm lazy. Buschbaum's also has that data ready for us: #16AWG is 4.016e-3 Ohms/ft, and #29 is 8.183e-2 Ohms/ft.
So, at DC, our 10-foot run of #16 solid is 4.02e-2 Ohms- call it 40 milliOhms, just for round numbers. The #16AWG stranded is (8.183e-2 *10)/19 (since we have 19 parallel strands), or 4.30e-2 Ohms. 43 milliOhms. Pretty much a wash.
For the sake of laziness, let's just take Naegel's 5x number as gospel for the increase factor for a single strand- that means the resistance at 20kHz should be 210 milliOhms for the solid #16AWG.
What does that give us as the voltage delivered to the speaker with the solid #16AWG cable at 20kHz, versus voltage at DC, into our 8 Ohm load? Let's express it as dB loss, since that actually matches with our perceptual apparatus pretty well, and we (well, I, anyway) mostly care about whether we can hear this. Since we're talking voltage ratios, that'll be 20(log10 ((8/8.042)/(8/8.21)) or -.18dB.
There you go. That's a fair description of this worst case situation for the solid wire. I think that we can agree that this is the worst case: that the stranded wire will be "better" to some extent, because of the interactions of all the eddy currents at the surfaces of the strands where they come in contact. How much better? Search me- I tuned out on that pointless argument a long time ago. The battle raged between "no improvement" and "a 3x improvement", but it may have been refined better in the intervening decade. I leave the web search on that topic to the interested student! But since I'm lazy (and this is too freakin' wordy anyway!), I'm gonna drop the analysis right there.
The bottom line for me is best expressed as "so what?". The difference between -.18dB and maybe -.1 dB is completely meaningless to me in this context, because *I can't hear it*, especially in the face of real-world speakers with plus and minus 6 dB lumps all over their response curve up there... Now, if the wire were silver, the drop would be nearly 3dB, and we might have somthing to talk about: mostly "why the hell did we spend all that money on that expensive speaker wire?" (;-).
Good question, Regebro. But now just look what you made me do. You made me get all nerdy. Worse yet, with all that numerical ca-ca up there, people are going to start mistaking _me_ for an audiophile. Argh! Yucko! Fuggeddaboudit: I couldn't stomach that. I hereby apologize most humbly to anyone who might have got that impression.
So, I've said my piece. I use simple old 12AWG stranded for most normal speaker runs, and I'm perfectly content both that I'm not missing anything important in the signal, and about the cash left in my pocket. I sleep well at night, in other words. Your mileage may vary, of course...
It can be (and has been, ad infinitum!) argued that having multiple strands allows the electric fields of each strand to interact. This has the net effect of forcing the currents in each strand slightly away from the surface, and back into the bulk where we want it, wherever they come in contact. This case is hard to quantify in the real world, because it is highly dependent on the strand packing, whether there's oxide there at the interface between the strands (or air, or insulation...), and a long list of other really boring and disgustingly nerdy issues. Gawd, the shouting has gone on for *years*. Handwave, handwave. Sigh. Nobody's ever going to win this one.
But, what the hell- let's work an example. Just for the sake of argument, let's take the case of a given speaker with a tweeter that has a resistance of exactly 8 Ohms at 20kHz. Let's power it through 10 feet of #16AWG solid wire (good ol' Romex house wiring, for example), and then again through 10 feet of Belden #9716 speaker wire, which is stranded as 19 strands of #29AWG wire, according to the datasheet. #16AWG is a minimum of .0503" dia., and #29AWG is .0112" diameter minimum, according to my dog-eared old copy of Buschbaum's.
We could calculate the DC resistance for these from Ro, but like I said, I'm lazy. Buschbaum's also has that data ready for us: #16AWG is 4.016e-3 Ohms/ft, and #29 is 8.183e-2 Ohms/ft.
So, at DC, our 10-foot run of #16 solid is 4.02e-2 Ohms- call it 40 milliOhms, just for round numbers. The #16AWG stranded is (8.183e-2 *10)/19 (since we have 19 parallel strands), or 4.30e-2 Ohms. 43 milliOhms. Pretty much a wash.
For the sake of laziness, let's just take Naegel's 5x number as gospel for the increase factor for a single strand- that means the resistance at 20kHz should be 210 milliOhms for the solid #16AWG.
What does that give us as the voltage delivered to the speaker with the solid #16AWG cable at 20kHz, versus voltage at DC, into our 8 Ohm load? Let's express it as dB loss, since that actually matches with our perceptual apparatus pretty well, and we (well, I, anyway) mostly care about whether we can hear this. Since we're talking voltage ratios, that'll be 20(log10 ((8/8.042)/(8/8.21)) or -.18dB.
There you go. That's a fair description of this worst case situation for the solid wire. I think that we can agree that this is the worst case: that the stranded wire will be "better" to some extent, because of the interactions of all the eddy currents at the surfaces of the strands where they come in contact. How much better? Search me- I tuned out on that pointless argument a long time ago. The battle raged between "no improvement" and "a 3x improvement", but it may have been refined better in the intervening decade. I leave the web search on that topic to the interested student! But since I'm lazy (and this is too freakin' wordy anyway!), I'm gonna drop the analysis right there.
The bottom line for me is best expressed as "so what?". The difference between -.18dB and maybe -.1 dB is completely meaningless to me in this context, because *I can't hear it*, especially in the face of real-world speakers with plus and minus 6 dB lumps all over their response curve up there... Now, if the wire were silver, the drop would be nearly 3dB, and we might have somthing to talk about: mostly "why the hell did we spend all that money on that expensive speaker wire?" (;-).
Good question, Regebro. But now just look what you made me do. You made me get all nerdy. Worse yet, with all that numerical ca-ca up there, people are going to start mistaking _me_ for an audiophile. Argh! Yucko! Fuggeddaboudit: I couldn't stomach that. I hereby apologize most humbly to anyone who might have got that impression.
So, I've said my piece. I use simple old 12AWG stranded for most normal speaker runs, and I'm perfectly content both that I'm not missing anything important in the signal, and about the cash left in my pocket. I sleep well at night, in other words. Your mileage may vary, of course...
barefoot
barefootsound.com
skippy,
Everything you’ve said is right on the mark, but you’re in dangerous territory. The danger is that you’ll developed carpal tunnel syndrome trying to convert the faithful! I’ve gone down this road too. It’s a trap. Get out while you can! And pretty soon the inquisitors are going to get wind of your heresy and burn you at the stake for your dreaded scientific witchery!
It’s amazing to me how readily people will embrace all these great tools science and engineering bring to them, but then completely ignore scientific arguments which conflict with their superstitions – “hey, this is art man, not science”. Who do they think designs all this shit in the first place?
But really, good job sir. Every day we’re being sold such a load or crap by the flesh mongers, big and small, who would have us slave our lives away for them, trying to attain the illusions they invent for us. Yeah, diamonds are rare, daycare is just as good as parents, and expensive wire opens up your sound, so sayith THE MAN. Work, little bees! Work! (Unfortunately I’m only half joking)
barefoot
Everything you’ve said is right on the mark, but you’re in dangerous territory. The danger is that you’ll developed carpal tunnel syndrome trying to convert the faithful! I’ve gone down this road too. It’s a trap. Get out while you can! And pretty soon the inquisitors are going to get wind of your heresy and burn you at the stake for your dreaded scientific witchery!
It’s amazing to me how readily people will embrace all these great tools science and engineering bring to them, but then completely ignore scientific arguments which conflict with their superstitions – “hey, this is art man, not science”. Who do they think designs all this shit in the first place?
But really, good job sir. Every day we’re being sold such a load or crap by the flesh mongers, big and small, who would have us slave our lives away for them, trying to attain the illusions they invent for us. Yeah, diamonds are rare, daycare is just as good as parents, and expensive wire opens up your sound, so sayith THE MAN. Work, little bees! Work! (Unfortunately I’m only half joking)
barefoot
John Sayers
Solar Power!!
Thanks for that Skippy - with a name like that you've got to be an aussie.... but I suspect not. 
cheers
John
cheers
John