Rebuilding Classic Speakers

[MLStrand56]

I'm Re-building my late '70's Acoustic Research AR-9 speakers.

I'm very surprized by the small diameter of the wires inside the cabinet.

When I Build speakers I ONLY use 12ga. wire. I'll rebuild the AR-9's with 12 ga. wire. I'm hoping that they sound Better than then did originally.

I'd like to hear anybodys thoughts on interior speaker wiring vs. freq. response?

MLStrand56

 

[DrBoar]

The wire can increase the total resistance from the amp to the drivers and then the Q of the bass driver. In most cases the resistance of the crossover coils are in the 0.2-0.8 Ohm range to get a wire a meter long or so above 0.1 Ohm it has to be really thin.

In US measures that is 3 feet of 26ga wire to get above 0.1 Ohms so stay well above that cross section and you will be fine.

 

[MLStrand56]

Re: Post X-over Speaker Wire

The wire can increase the total resistance from the amp to the drivers and then the Q of the bass driver. In most cases the resistance of the crossover coils are in the 0.2-0.8 Ohm range to get a wire a meter long or so above 0.1 Ohm it has to be really thin.

In US measures that is 3 feet of 26ga wire to get above 0.1 Ohms so stay well above that cross section and you will be fine.

Wow, I've Never heard any electrical theory like that. I thought that 12ga. wire had Less resistance than the small OEM AR-9 driver(speaker) wires. The OEM AR-9 internal speaker wires are WAY bigger than 26ga!!!! (which I'm guessing, from memory is 16ga.

22ga. wire is only acceptible for Door Bells & Lo-Fi (4khz MAX) Military installations!!! BTDT, Both!!!

If you think that 26ga. wire is appropriate for a Hi-pwr spkr, I'd like to hear your argument.

I'm afraid that if I use 26ga. wire on these speakers (even the tweeters), That I'll burn my house down, because of High Pwr & HIGH impedence wires.

What makes a Toaster work?

MLStrand56

 

[DrBoar]

I make no claims about appropriate for anything but using
Resistance of Wire (Wire Resistance Calculator)
I get those numbers using the resistance calculator where the wire has far less resistance than the coils. My point is if you replace 1.5mm2 wire with 6mm2 wire the total resistence will still be largely determined by coils and connectors not short wires.

If you instead have a 60 feet run external cable the total resistence of the cable increas 20 fold from what ever value it had at 3 feet. I usually use 15 gauge internally (1.5mm2) and I see no gains to be had by 4 gauge starter cable to the tweeter...

And a toaster use high resistance alloys not copper to get heat from a decent size wire

 

[tinitus]

I'd like to hear anybodys thoughts on interior speaker wiring vs. freq. response?

those speakers are from before the magic wire was invented

btw, thin solid core wire might be better than you expect
at least for smaller mid or tweeter

 

[LafeEric]

What DrBoar was getting at is that if you treat the wiring and speakers in a box as a circuit and go by the empirical data thin wire is not that significant of an impediment. That's why you found thin wire in their in the first place - from an engineering perspective, they looked at eh actual electrical requirements and chose wire that fit the load/cost criteria. He didn't say to use 26 Ga. wire, was only stating what the actual in-circuit resistance of it was as an example.

If it makes you feel better to use 12 Ga. wire, feel free to, it won't hurt any - but you asked about wiring in speakers, and now you know why the original wire was thin.