Internal Wirng - Car Battery Power Cable

[Vikash]

I'm at the stage where I need to buy some cable do the internal wiring of my enclosure.

Something on the Maplin website caught my eye:
Car Battery Power Cable
"High quality OFC 4AWG copper cable made from 1050 strands of 0.16mm diameter copper"

Based on hearing of people using Cat5 for speaker cable for example, I was wondering whether this 'Car Battery Power Cable' is feasible/advantageous over (often expensive) cable branded as 'speaker cable', considering it's a lot more copper for the money (£4.98 a meter).

Worth considering? Or is there a fundamental difference between speaker cable and other cables?

[jackinnj]

only valid if you are unmarried, or have a wife who doesn't minding the cobras on the floor.

[Circlotron]

Originally posted by Vikash
"High quality OFC 4AWG copper cable made from 1050 strands of 0.16mm diameter copper" Worth considering?

What is your crossover inductor wound with? If it's anything less than wire of truly heroic proportions, then save your money for something that will actually make a difference.

Of course, if you simply *want* to have such nifty wire, go for it!

[Da5id4Vz]

Couldn’t find a photo, but if your headed in that direction Id suggest (factiously) these for your connectors. They are available for up to 4/0 cable at 600 amps:

http://www.hubbell-wiring.com/library/Section-F.pdf

[Vikash]

What is your crossover inductor wound with? If it's anything less than wire of truly heroic proportions

There is no crossover yet . It will (eventually) be on the outside of the enclosure.

Does your reasoning not apply to the wire gauge used in the voice coil too? I see a fat wire leading up to a driver and then see a thin strand that carries the signal from the driver posts to and around the former and wonder if this makes a difference when talking about cables?

[GM]

No matter what marketing hype or folks who just like to endlessly debate say, wire is wire and it's all about L-C-R and how it interacts with the amp, with the biggie being resistance (voltage drop), so if your wire run needs to be 4ga to keep VD vanishingly low (no audible power compression), then battery/welding cable wire is the next best thing to solid core. Otherwise, from a performance POV, it's a waste of money.

If you do need wire this big, then I recommend you bi- or tri-wire with the appropriate size solid core wire (preferably silver plated) for the mids/HF.

GM

[Vikash]

If you do need wire this big, then I recommend you bi- or tri-wire with the appropriate size solid core wire (preferably silver plated) for the mids/HF.

And what does the silver do? It sounds to me like copper plumbing pipe will do the trick.

Plumbing inside the speaker...hehe

[Vikash]

I've just made a cable using Cat5e. It looks pretty cool

I measured the resistance at 0.2-0.3 Ohms over the ~1.2 meter cable. Does this seem high?

[Volenti]

Originally posted by Vikash
I've just made a cable using Cat5e. It looks pretty cool

I measured the resistance at 0.2-0.3 Ohms over the ~1.2 meter cable. Does this seem high?

Sounds a bit high for that length, I just tested a handy bit of 10 gague copper wire (standard multistrand stuff) that was around 3m (10') long and it was ~.05-.1 Ohms

[Vikash]

Hi Volenti,

Yeah, I thought so too. But after downloading the wire gauge calculator spreadsheet from TNT-Audio.com, the theoretical SPL loss is only 0.06db and damping factor = ~117. A helpful little spreadsheet.

I don't know what I'm looking for in the damping factor. A higher number the better I guess?

For comparisson, the 3m 10 AWG cable has SPL loss of 0.07 and DF = ~100. Not much different.

I'm guessing anything less than ~0.1db SPL loss is acceptable for a cable over its distance?

And another pic...I can't believe there's so much cat5e lying under my nose, and it never occured to me to try it...duh.