I've just got my first horn project enclosures finished and am looking for budget wiring suggestions.
I'm driving 5 inch full range from 10w/ch home made tube amp.
They're currently in test guise using 18swg enamelled copper wire to connect them and so far thet sound great! I was thinking of winding up a few different size enamelled wires for bass and treble, Maybe 5x30 swg wrapped over the 18swg.
I read somewhere that higher frequency signals tend to travel nearer to the surface of the wire?
Anyone?
I'm driving 5 inch full range from 10w/ch home made tube amp.
They're currently in test guise using 18swg enamelled copper wire to connect them and so far thet sound great! I was thinking of winding up a few different size enamelled wires for bass and treble, Maybe 5x30 swg wrapped over the 18swg.
I read somewhere that higher frequency signals tend to travel nearer to the surface of the wire?
Anyone?
Here's something that has worked very, very well for me. It's even become a bit of an underground craze. Get a length of outdoor extension cable- here in the US it's normally bright orange. You want something in the 12 gauge range. Cut the plug and socket off, strip back the wires at the ends and let 'er rip.
And you can spend the money you saved by not getting sucked into more expensive stuff on CDs or concert tickets.
And you can spend the money you saved by not getting sucked into more expensive stuff on CDs or concert tickets.
If you want the 3 x 12ga wire used in extension cords, go to Lowe's, they sell it for $.68/foot in black or yellow(which might be more). Or you can buy it from www.PartsExpress.com for $9.80 for 25', and better deals on more, as well as a variety of gauges, 2, 3 or 4 conductor.
After reading a lot about DIY cables, I decided to make my own.
14 gauge Romex. Sure, its not that flexible...but its cheap. It also sounded a lot better than the other wires I had (two different long lengths of lamp cord, both wrapped in nice neat coils to make the wife happy.....sometimes, I just don't think).
Anyhow.... I think the wire thing is hype. I do think equal length is important, and I do think the Romex works well.
14 gauge Romex. Sure, its not that flexible...but its cheap. It also sounded a lot better than the other wires I had (two different long lengths of lamp cord, both wrapped in nice neat coils to make the wife happy.....sometimes, I just don't think).
Anyhow.... I think the wire thing is hype. I do think equal length is important, and I do think the Romex works well.
Speaker wire
I used to be skeptical of differences in speaker wire. I still am skeptical of differences people claim to hear between extremely expensive and somewhat expensive wire. My theory is that changing out the wire cleans the terminals, so everybody likes the wire they last tried. However.....
I recently bought some 10ga horizan megaflex ,which is cheap - like 50 cents a foot. I replaced the garden variety 12 ga plenum wire with the megaflex and the whole thing bloomed. Big difference.
I moved it back to the other cable to check if I had simply cleaned the terminals and this test confirmed that the megaflex was better.
Anyway - Horizan megaflex 10 ga. You can get it cheap. I have ribbon tweeters so I can hear differences clearly, but anyone could have heard this difference on any decent speaker.
I used to be skeptical of differences in speaker wire. I still am skeptical of differences people claim to hear between extremely expensive and somewhat expensive wire. My theory is that changing out the wire cleans the terminals, so everybody likes the wire they last tried. However.....
I recently bought some 10ga horizan megaflex ,which is cheap - like 50 cents a foot. I replaced the garden variety 12 ga plenum wire with the megaflex and the whole thing bloomed. Big difference.
I moved it back to the other cable to check if I had simply cleaned the terminals and this test confirmed that the megaflex was better.
Anyway - Horizan megaflex 10 ga. You can get it cheap. I have ribbon tweeters so I can hear differences clearly, but anyone could have heard this difference on any decent speaker.
SY said:
At the other extreme, try a single pair -- untwisted -- out of a piece of solid core CAT 5 ethernet cable (2 kinds -- one with PVC the other with teflon). If you can find scaps it ends up costing zero $. If you like that you can get a spool of 30-33 guage magnet wire & try a pr of those (just leave the two wires in a "cloud").
dave
multiple individually insulated wires are the best way to go. I used 22 gauge OFPC teflon coated wire. 20 wires twisted into 10 pairs one for nuetral and one for hot so mark them otherwise you will lose track. these 10 pairs are then twisted together. seperate and gather the ends and terminate. This style greatly reduces wire inductance by better tan a factor of ten and greatly increases surface area important for tweeters and reduces frequency dependent phase shift in the wire by limiting current depth. finish up as you wish
I have a couple of lengths of old computer data cable, each about 10 ft long, and each with about 20 x 24awg pvc-insulated wires inside.
Question: Is this the same as Cat5 cable? Since it is data cable (which would mean low impedence, I guess) it might be pretty good for speaker cable. I could of course strip out the inner wires and braid them.
Thoughts on the suitability of this for speaker cable, anyone?
Question: Is this the same as Cat5 cable? Since it is data cable (which would mean low impedence, I guess) it might be pretty good for speaker cable. I could of course strip out the inner wires and braid them.
Thoughts on the suitability of this for speaker cable, anyone?
No. If you would like to try CAT5 and can't find any scrap, go to Best Buy or whatever and buy a couple of CAT5e cables the right length. Cut off the connectors, separate the stripes and solids, twist the stripes together and the solids together. Teminate any way you like. I just leave them twised and bare. Don't get the CAT6 cables. The Belkins bubble pack CAT6 cables have stranded conductors that are a real pain. These will have to be soldered. I doubt any difference between CAT5e and CAT6 at audio frequencies.
Bob
lopan said:
Thin solid wire is good but the wire really wants to have room to breath... ideally the signal travels in the field just outside the surface of the wire and with these there are other wires there instead of air.
The Cobra Cable (c 1978) was much like this -- also notorious for leading the smaoke out of amps.
You'd do better to lay tese starnds out on a piece of tape (ie psudeo-flat cable).
dave
rcavictim said:
Why... for best performance, the entire audio signal is in the magnetic field outside of the wire... when it starts flowing inside the conductor you start getting signal degragation (at least mathematically)
Those that have been surprised with skinny single strand wire would say it is clearly audible too (best on high efficiency speakers)
dave
planet10 said:
The signal may be present surrounding the conductor as in the field you refer to but it is the transfer of free electrons from atom to atom within the atomic matrix of the copper conductor which actually carries the electrical signal to the loudspeaker voice coil.
The skin effect which makes the center of any solid conductor increasingly ineffectual at increasing frequencies notwithstanding.
At very short radio frequency wavelengths it is possible to launch a wave though a dielectric cladding surrounding a circular cross section conductor which due to the difference in the index of refraction between air surrounding the dielectric and the conductor on the inside, the electromagnetic wave can be trapped and guided like optical light inside a glass fiber but this effect is not seen at audio frequencies which have very, very long electrical wavengths in comparison to the thickness of typical dielectric conductor cladding materials.
planet10 said:
I have a theory on this phenomenon and believe it is the increased series resistance of the cable which causes a direct effect on the damping characteristic of the back EMF from the driver voice coil and the amplifier. The same effect should be obtainable by placing a resistor in series with a more commonly gauged speaker wire like zip cord.
I'm in that group using a pair of solid core wires extracted from some Cat5 cable. I'm wondering if this works because I'm using a tube amp and single driver speakers. Would someone using an amp with high output impedance and multi-way speakers have the same results?
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/firstwatt/firstwatt_2.html
rcavictim said:
IIRC -- it has been a while -- Malcolm Hawksford shows that the effect of the signal moving down into the wire is a factor at audio frequencies, causing a time smear. Hence the quest for extremely thin solid conductors (and foil when you need more current carrying capability).
Typically the resistance of even skinny wire is insignificant compared to the 1st choke in the XO or the actual ware in the VC.
dave
planet10 said:
This dispersion or Group Delay Distortion you refer to is an issue in telephone and wideband circuits carrying signals 100's of MHz wide but it is not a practical conern in an audio baseband signal only 20 KHz wide. I would suggest that time dilation based on altitude (radial distance from the rotaional center of the earth) is as equally valid a concern as your signal smearing. Wires carying current on the surface of the earth are travelling about 17,000 MPH. This is a measureable fraction of the speed of light. That is only the motion due to planetary rotaion, the velocity of the earth as it circles the sun is another significant speed to be factored in. It escapes me at the moment.
The resistance of a set of speaker cables made from thin wire could easily be as high as 20% of the voice coil R. This is not insignificant. High efficiency speakers often utilized with such thin wire are oftentimes single wideband drivers with no crossover choke.
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