Favorite speaker wire?

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#141
planet10 said:

I've gone from 20 g zip to 10 & 12 g OFC,
to what works well in my current system which is 24g cryo-treated aingle strand [[ everytime i switched to less wire things got better.
Click to expand...

Are you using single strand = 1 solid 24 AWG here?

I just come across this table
AWG vs. Maximum frequency for 100% skin depth for solid conductor copper

10 2600 Hz
11 3200 Hz
12 4150 Hz
13 5300 Hz
14 6700 Hz
15 8250 Hz
16 11 k Hz
17 13 k Hz
18 17 kHz
19 21 kHz
20 27 kHz
21 33 kHz
22 42 kHz
23 53 kHz
24 68 kHz
25 85 kHz

In copper, the skin depth at various frequencies is shown below.
frequency depth
60 Hz 8.57 mm
10 kHz 0.66 mm
100 kHz 0.21 mm
1 MHz 66 µm
10 MHz 21 µm
Click to expand...
What I can understand, above a certain freq, depending on wire thickness,
the skin depth is no longer '100%'.
Questions:
1. what is this 100% skin depth?
2. will this effect alter the signal current to the driver in the audioband
3. will such an alteration effect our perceived sound
 
#142
Well, I found the answer to if SKIN EFFECT has any relevance in Speaker Cables, myself.
Skin Effect in Speaker Cables - Conclusion
Bottom Line
The bottom line is Skin Effect is not a relevant factor of concern when choosing / designing high performance loudspeaker cables for hifi audio systems. The DC resistance and inductance of the cable are far more important factors as can be seen in our Speaker Cable Face Off and Cross Coax vs Zip Cord articles where we modeled lumped element parameters (R,L,C) of speaker cables.
Link: Skin Effect in Speaker Cables - Conclusion
 
#143
Skin effect is the phenomenon where the increasing frequency of the current flowing through the wire has the effect to move towards the edge of the wire.
IE DC current will use the entire cross sectional area of the wire, whereas a high frequency current will only use the outside surface.
This "penetration" that we're talking about is the maximum frequency that you can put through that gauge of conductor and still be using the entire cross section of that wire.

The result of this is that the physical RESISTANCE (because of the change in cross sectional area) is different for DC vs. frequencies higher than your "100% skin depth penetration".

Hope that helps!
 
#144
Cat 5 network cable.
I like this comment by a BBC research engineer in a general research paper on loudspeakers, published in 1988. In summing up he writes,
".......the author's intention........ to try to describe the aspects of subjective tonal quality that have emerged as significant in balancing sound programs during the BBC's accumulated experience of sixty years. It must however be said that during this time, no correlation has as yet been discovered between perceived sound quality and paranormal phenomena,cosmic radiation, or the oxygen content of any part of the considerable length of copper wire present in a typical broadcast chain. "
 
#145
Watch out for my cable-tip folks, it`s point on.
And btw; years ago when I was a busy speakerdesigner I realized that needed to pick me out a reference interconnect. With a little help from a friend we managed to collect our five top-end ic`s and some pure single malt and both our systems toghether for a final blind-test😎

After a long session, without giving any signs about our conclusions (pokerfaces) we had both decided our favs. But before shutting down I suggested a quick compare with my newly made DIY-ic`s made of twin TV-coax I did just to be able to run my tweaked CD balanced until I got me a real cable. Just to check the difference.
Well, I connected my pale DIY`s and turned on the music; and it was like opening up the windows or pulling down the cab. The system totally opened up, the roof was gone. I had to take a few secs there down by the amp to gain control over my face before turning around, this was simply shocking. When I looked at my friend he sat in the chair holding his real expensive ic`s while takling out in the air: "..guess I`ll get half the price..."

Later I did a lot of testing against top-end ic`s, allways with the same winner. And I bought samples of every coax I could get my hand on without ever finding any that came close to the one I`ve stumbeled over. I`ve seen grown audiophiles with huge systems cry after replacing theyr xxxx with these:violin:

Some time later I tryed this coax as a digital (coax) up against AT&T optical, and again it showed to be the nearest thing to perfect. While No other pricy coax came near to the optical, but this cheap coax definetly gave cleaner top and bottom ends.

If anyone should be a little curious i`m talkin about Vivanco KX-710. Only inner leader for signal, use the complete coax.
 
#148
Thanks lineup,

That prices are maybe so high because they are" with connectors" ?
I want meters "without connectors" 😉

Thanks for the list. I have write last week to italian distributor : no response 😡

This cable is really expansive , if someone know anything other cable made with that exact/similar geometry ( attention it is solid-core , it is my
obsession 😀 ) I would be very happy to save money :angel:

Cheers,
Paolo
 
#149
oceancity said:
...edit...It must however be said that during this time, no correlation has as yet been discovered between perceived sound quality and paranormal phenomena,cosmic radiation, or the oxygen content of any part of the considerable length of copper wire present in a typical broadcast chain. "
Click to expand...
Kind of depends on who is doing the perceiving. IMHO I agree that the changes are subtle, so much so that in many systems the wires will not be the weakest link.

Also, as far as I know "broadcast chain" is never used as a reference sound quality gauge.
 
#153
Here's my favorite speaker cable. It only cost me 20-something bucks for a 250' roll. I then split the (+) and (-) strands, twisted 4 (+) and 4 (-) together to make twin 9awg runs. I believe it measured out to 0.01 ohm for a 29' length via my HP 3435A DMM. What it did for the sound is make it more effortless and clean sounding. It's also extremely flexible.

Anyway, here's a few pics... Naturally. 😀

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p978398060-4.jpg
 
#155
Scottmoose said:
A minor point to be sure, and more significant for microphone etc. leads, but keep in mind that silver in contact with teflon is about the worst possible combination in terms of triboelectric charging / distortion.
Click to expand...

Wow - a light switched on! Nordost! Need some neoprene tape... damn - they were pretty cables 🙁
 
#156
Well, in fairness to Nordost's beautifully made products, as I mentioned above, triboelectric issues are more applicable for microphone etc. cables, where they're likely to encounter some mechanical vibration, which usually isn't the case in hifi systems. And IIRC, Nordost's mono / duel filament designs are intended to minimise dilectric contact with the conductors.

FWIW, my own experience is that while different wires certainly do influence the components they connect together in different ways, there's far too much nonsense & pseudo-science surrounding them, which has made me a confirmed cynic about the entire subject. Nordost appear to be better than a lot in this respect & I have more time for them than many other wire companies.
 
#157
All I use nowadays is a single strand of silver wire around 24-26 gauge to each speaker terminal. For insulation I use cotton sleeving. As it's only a single strand it is liable to break off after a while if you move things around. However, as the cost is only a few $$ a foot it's negligible to replace. I wonder how much I'd have to pay in the real world for something as transparent, good sounding and simple as this. Some funky heatshrink each side to make it hardy combined with some suitable marketing would probably elevate the cost to stratastrophic levels.
 
#158
The wonderful thing about the audio industry is that it attracts so many intelligent people. Many would appear to be working at a tangent to conventional thinking but disregard their work at your peril. Audio Acoustics have been wrapping their incredibly expensive hand made cables in a virbation absorbing neoprene type tape - I didn't understand why until now....

Thinking aloud... does anyone out there have one of those sticky on vibration sensors wired up to thier laptop? Would be interesting to know exactly how much vibration the systems cables are subjected to during a listening session. I dread to think of the poor guys inside the speaker cabinet itself....

Time for more caffeine....
 
#159
Sit close to the speaker and shake the wires yourself while playing music to see if you can actually hear a difference. I doubt you will unless the terminations themselves loose contact at any point. Bottom line, it's another marketing strategy. kinda reminds me of cable lifters..
 
#160
Wince. This is what happens when you're half-asleep & don't proof-read a post. I write them in Word, then cut & paste, and it looks like about half of it vanished for some reason. Just to clarify, triboelectric charging / distortion is primarily applicable to situations where a wire is connecting a high gain, low impedance drive to a high impedance circuit termination -not something that is often found in hifi, unlike pro-audio, where such (usually microphone) cables may also be subject to significant mechanical vibrations.

Adding a kind of mechanical damper is very unlikely to damage the performance of a hifi speaker cable, but it's equally unlikely to do anything positive either. At least, IMO (same goes for those suicidally expensive & completely pointless cable-lifters). YMMV as always of course.
 
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