Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions What size speaker cable to run?

I use 12 guage wire for my fronts and center channel. I use a flat wire that I tacked down to the baseboard (white) that is 16 guage for my QS8s. I then use some really cheap 18 guage wire for the rear surrounds. I have never noticed crackling, break-up, weak signal etc. from the lower guage wires. My runs are all pretty short - less than 20 feet to the rear of the room - so this might play a factor. Also, I've never done a side-by-side comparison to see what I might be missing. But my sincere suspicion is that I am missing nothing, and saved a little bit of money (with which I likely bought some beer, which actually has quanitfiably improved my enjoyment of listening to my speakers) .

Anyway, I see the issue as one of insurance. For longer runs, you will need heavier guage wire. For shorter, maybe not so much. But, many prefer (and are willing to pay for that preference) to have peace of mind, knowing that their guage is adequate.

I'm sorta new at this, but in my research, (asking questions at BIG stores, and small, private businesses, reading lots of reviews) I've come up with a couple of points of interest. 1. If it sounds good to your ears, it's probably OK to use. (I wasn't too impressed with that answer.) 2. Bigger is better. (From a BIG store with lots of wire stock.) 3. It's the overall resistance from one end of the wire to the other that will make the difference. (That began to make more sense to me.) 4. The signal, or current, travels mostly around the outside of the wire, so the more strands the cable has (more outside surfaces to travel on) could make a bigger difference than the size of the wire (AWG: 18, 14, 12, etc) For shorter runs, up to about 25 ft, 14 guage, multistrand cable will most likely be adequate, unless you have 100's of watts going through the wire. Most moderate listening situations only require a few watts, even if your amp is capable of producing much more, so 14 ga. cable will likely be plenty. (I got this from the small shop, a high quality car stereo installer, and also a Marantz dealer) Also, the quality of the copper is important, but the degree of improvement from high quality (read EXPENSIVE) cable over cheaper, multi-strand cable (e.g. speaker wire from Home Depot...) won't be picked up by most people, only sensitive instruments. If you have a very powerful amplifier (150W plus per channel) and listen to VERY loud levels, than 12 ga. or maybe 10 ga. would be called for.
Personally, I use an inexpensive 14 guage, multistrand speaker cable for my system. I can easily rattle the windows without approaching max volume. I have a Marantz 4500 receiver (80W X 7 channels), and plan to soon upgrade to some Axiom speakers.

The number of strands in the cable make no difference... called "the skin effect"... and 14ga. romex (in wall mains cable) and 14ga stranded would be the exact same.

Also, the listening levels don't make a difference either... but the length of your runs do.

Copper quality and # of N's... wow... 13N OFC? That's 99.99999999999% free of oxygen! "Most people" won't hear a difference between that and 2N OFC? Most people in this case is 100% of all listeners.

Bren R.

Right ... well, surprise us with your results.

Surprise us with your cynicism.

Well, finally got time this afternoon to do the ABX testing.

Wire compared was Axiom's 12ga speaker wire versus Leviton SJ 2/16 LL26332 (as imprinted on jacket) extension cord - 16ga. 2 conductor... lengths were 7' 6" (+/-1" by the time they were stripped and prepared). Music selection (since I found out - disturbingly - that he's a Sarah McLachlin fan) was David Foster - Man in Motion.

First off, we did a "bias test"... this is A - Axiom wire, this is B - the Leviton... he wholeheartedly agreed that A was, in fact, better.

Secondly we did a single-blind ABX test. Ten samples, in each case, he determined the audio levels, the portion of the track to listen to, and the listening length and cable to listen to (A, B or X). He correctly determined the unknown cable 4 out of 10 times.

All throughout the test (all ten samples) he made the subjective analysis that B sounded clearer and brighter, so he was especially shocked to hear that B was the Leviton during the first 5 tests and the Axiom during the second half, proving that his perception was skewed.

Though we did further torture testing whereby I spliced together "Frankencable" by twisting together 5 different pieces of assorted cable I had around, about 18" apiece of the Leviton, some pink 12ga. "speaker wire", 14ga. Romex, Cat3 (separate hunks - 8 conductors for +, 8 for -) and some 18ga. "primary wire" that I had. Each splice was lovingly twisted together in a matter of a few seconds with a pair of Craftsman linesmans pliers and taped with red 3M electrical tape. We did observe that at reasonable listening levels, Frankencable and the Axiom were interchangable, however the Frankencable did exhibit more audible distortion at a lower level (at -32dB reading on the volume control, rather than -30dB)

After all the testing by ear, the equipment came out in the form of an SPL meter (thanks, Dennis!) - one interesting tidbit was the resistance of the Leviton cable was increased with the amount of oxidation on the cable - I mean this was NASTY, it was stored in a damp basement for about 9 years, I'd refer to the conductor colour as brown, and it wasn't cleaned off before the tests. Afterwards the SPL meter did indicate a difference of ~0.5 dB SPL between this heavily oxidized cable and the Axiom cable (full spectrum pink noise @ 75dB SPL reference), but this difference disappeared once the cable was cut back to expose moderately clean copper (which technically also shortened the cable by ~ 3in)

So, again... the copper at these run lengths were impossible to distinguish, even giving up 4AWG sizes and a LOT of oxidation... and only oxidation was a factor (to instruments only, not to the naked ear) in affecting sound quality.

Now, boutique cable guys, start up those skeptical machines... anything short of a time machine which allows for identical variables will still leave a little seed of doubt in your mind (already my brother suggested that the subjects hearing must be flawed and that he'd be able to hear the difference given THAT big a discrepancy between cable - after all, he had to deal with nearly identical wire during HIS ABX... so another of these might be in the works)

Didn't have time for me to sit in the listener's chair today, since the subject took as long as he needed to make comparisons, but last time I took a single blind, I scored the same (4 - 6/10).

Bren R.

It seems this test was more of a condemnation of Axiom's speaker wire than anything else. Although, some "audiophiles" swear by Home Depot's orange and black extension cord for speaker cable (for real).

Depends how you look at it... the subject in this case said that absolutely, yes, he would give that the Axiom wire was a good example of "audiophile-grade" speaker wire. I've run the same test with a different subject (the above mentioned brother, who considers himself a golden ear being a musician and all) with 12ga. standard speaker wire and 12ga. Monster speaker cable... again, within any parameters; correct minimum gauge for run length, near identical length runs, no external issues that would colour a sound and make a cable easy to detect (ie: a coil, cap or other passive crossover) the results have been the same.

The Axiom wire is nice, really nice... tons of really small strands... nice, flexible dielectric... it's definately good-looking and well-built, to the point where I'd give it the nod over Noel Lee's stuff - but if you're expecting something more sonically, ain't gonna happen.

Bren R.

Aha! There you go Bren, you should have used a nice $500 speaker cable in the test instead of that crappy Axiom!

Amazing how some people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into audio reality, and others have their heels dug in so firmly(or heads buried so deeply in the sand)that they can't even be dragged.

Good Show!!!!!