Hi all. It seems to me that many moons ago I read a post or two about using small gauge solid wire for speaker wires. I'm still listening to my Fostex FE206E BRs but I don't think I'm getting all of the high frequency response that they have to offer. I think I have a set of high capacitance speaker cables and I would like to rectify the situation by using some 22 AWG silver plated solid copper wire for the task. Thoughts?
Being that noone has responded, I'll jump in. Go for it. Can't hurt to try it if you have it. Personally, I prefer a high-end copper wire, but I know that a lot of cables exist using what you are speaking of.
Give it a shot and let us know what your findings are. You can find solid copper easily and pretty cheaply, try both. Just be sure to let the wires run in a bit. As strange as it sounds, I've found it makes a difference.
Give it a shot and let us know what your findings are. You can find solid copper easily and pretty cheaply, try both. Just be sure to let the wires run in a bit. As strange as it sounds, I've found it makes a difference.
Very thin wire can be a useful means of adding some series resistance should it be required. In some cases it may also appear to improve the midband / HF clarity, probably because it can't handle the current requirements for major transient swings in the LF, so they get compressed relative to the rest of the audible BW.
Hmm. I might be loosing the plot here, but a high-capacitance cable is unlikely to cause HF losses. Excessive inductance, certainly. As audioholics note, the major issues of capacative wire tend to be seen in two related effects, due to loss of the power amp gain and phase margin.
1/ In the frequency domain, very significant gain peaking can occur. And
2/ In the time domain, the step response may have a much higher overshoot, and exhibit excessive ringing (at about the unity gain frequency) due to loss of power amp phase margin.
Such wire need a zobel over them at least. Better yet, don't muck about with them -it's generally more trouble than it's worth trying to reduce L or C properties to vanishingly low levels.
Hmm. I might be loosing the plot here, but a high-capacitance cable is unlikely to cause HF losses. Excessive inductance, certainly. As audioholics note, the major issues of capacative wire tend to be seen in two related effects, due to loss of the power amp gain and phase margin.
1/ In the frequency domain, very significant gain peaking can occur. And
2/ In the time domain, the step response may have a much higher overshoot, and exhibit excessive ringing (at about the unity gain frequency) due to loss of power amp phase margin.
Such wire need a zobel over them at least. Better yet, don't muck about with them -it's generally more trouble than it's worth trying to reduce L or C properties to vanishingly low levels.
Just as a sanity check/reference, get a single piece of solid core CAT5 cable long enuff to reach the furthest speaker (even if you have to buy it, it costa almost nothing) ... strip out 2 of the pairs of twisted pairs. Try those (be careful not to nicj the wire when you strip it). Next separate the 2 wires in each pair and try that, Report back,
What kind of amp?
dave
What kind of amp?
dave
planet10 said:
Hi Dave. The speaker cable I was talking about is here:
https://www.thecableco.com/product.php?id=3932
As you can see it's not that expensive. I will give the cat 5 a try. Ironically that is what I was using before. I was just using more of it. Right now I'm using some cables made from some stranded silver military coax.
The amp is a SE EL34 that I built about 6 years ago.
= largely an oxymoron as you can generally only lower one at the price of raising the other, so as always, it's all about balance.
Looking at the maker's claims, inductance is reasonably low (although nothing I'd be rushing to write home about), although in fairness, the configuration does permit a lower capacitance than, say, a piece of normal zip cord or mains wire. Given that their capacitance is low enough to be a non-issue anyway, again, I wouldn't get over-excited. That said, if you want a brand-name wire, at least it's solid-core & not over-expensive compared to some of the insanity.
Looking at the maker's claims, inductance is reasonably low (although nothing I'd be rushing to write home about), although in fairness, the configuration does permit a lower capacitance than, say, a piece of normal zip cord or mains wire. Given that their capacitance is low enough to be a non-issue anyway, again, I wouldn't get over-excited. That said, if you want a brand-name wire, at least it's solid-core & not over-expensive compared to some of the insanity.
Scottmoose said:
So inductance is the real bogeyman when it comes to speaker cables? As far as insanity I understand exactly what you mean. I stopped even looking at most offerings a long time ago. Although Nordost does make some interconnects called "Spellbinder" that aren't too expensive if you want to pay for the convenience of not having to build them.
There isn't really a bogeyman WRT speaker wire -in the great scheme of things its influence should be relatively minor. 2 exceptions to that:
1/ Some of the more lunatic fringes of the the high-price wire market, where basic electrical engineering seems to be considered as beside the point. The results tend to share some of the dark inevitability of Greek Tragedy.
2/ If you actively desire the wire to act as a form of eq. This is related to the above, but is not quite the same. In the former case, it's tried almost at random, in the latter, it's a concious decision based on a technical basis.
Assuming for a moment you do not wish the wire to affect the behaviour of the components it's connecting, generally resistance is the critical aspect -it should be sufficiently low to keep voltage-drop to a minimum. Capacitance & inductance are usually best left in a reasonable balance (IMO). You can push one or the other to vanishingly low levels, but the price is that you will push its opposite number sky high. Theoretically, a zero-inductance wire for speaker duties in & of itself would be no bad thing, but in practice, it usually causes more problems than it solves due to the high capacitance. That can be dealt with via various methods (zobel networks etc) but by this stage, you're at the point of asking 'is it really worth it?' Different people will give you different answers to that one, but mine reads, 'no chance: life is too short.'
Of course, you can play with these LCR properties to your hearts content if you want your wire to act as a form of Eq.
1/ Some of the more lunatic fringes of the the high-price wire market, where basic electrical engineering seems to be considered as beside the point. The results tend to share some of the dark inevitability of Greek Tragedy.
2/ If you actively desire the wire to act as a form of eq. This is related to the above, but is not quite the same. In the former case, it's tried almost at random, in the latter, it's a concious decision based on a technical basis.
Assuming for a moment you do not wish the wire to affect the behaviour of the components it's connecting, generally resistance is the critical aspect -it should be sufficiently low to keep voltage-drop to a minimum. Capacitance & inductance are usually best left in a reasonable balance (IMO). You can push one or the other to vanishingly low levels, but the price is that you will push its opposite number sky high. Theoretically, a zero-inductance wire for speaker duties in & of itself would be no bad thing, but in practice, it usually causes more problems than it solves due to the high capacitance. That can be dealt with via various methods (zobel networks etc) but by this stage, you're at the point of asking 'is it really worth it?' Different people will give you different answers to that one, but mine reads, 'no chance: life is too short.'
Of course, you can play with these LCR properties to your hearts content if you want your wire to act as a form of Eq.
a.wayne said:
Something like tuning a piano using telekinesis to turn the pins...very limited adjustment. Also like playing billiards with a rope.
Let the wire be the delivery system - cheap zip cord works wonders. "Tune" the crossover where there are components with significant resistance, inductance and capacitance.
Depends on the speakers & amplifiers I'm running, which in the recent past was constantly changing as I prototyped different boxes. At present, I'm not using anything at all, for the excellent reason that I don't have any kind of audio-system worth mentioning -unpleasent / painful story I won't bore you with. 
With any luck, I'll have something half-decent again in a couple of months or so.
With any luck, I'll have something half-decent again in a couple of months or so.- Status
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