Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions My speaker cable quibble

Alright, $300 3-foot speaker cable here, $1000 2 foot cable there, it's all relative.

I've heard numerous reviews of these high tech cable companies saying "you want your speakers to not take on the 'sound' of the cable." Whatever that means. So, I'm thinking, yea, maybe a tiny bit of improvement, but then, it hit me.

INSIDE the speaker, there are speaker cables. Now, lets say you get this super-dee-duper oxygenated whatever cable, and connect it to the speaker. Now, think about this for a second. The interconnects WITHIN the speaker are most likely plain ol' copper. Even though this run of cable is relatively short, whatever gains you expected to get by getting this super-dee-duper cable are effectively thwarted because of the interconnects within the speaker, that probably arn't oxygen free...whatever that speaker cable jargon they use.

So, hypothetically speaking, the speaker cable wire should be of the same quality but at a higher guage rating than the interconnects in the speaker. Any really high tech cable that claims to be better than copper in extending highs and lows, will just get trunicated by the copper interconnects.

I'm just wondering if my assumption is correct. I think one sentence answers such as "yes" or "no" with a tiny bit of reason will keep a war of the worlds happening to this thread as I have seen with other speaker cable threads. Maybe it's hopeless anyways.

I'm guessing that the small amount of wire used inside a speaker has ZERO imapct on your expensive, or inexpensive speaker cable. The distances are far too short.

From Alan at Axiom's audio tips.
"The voice coil of the woofer (the bass driver) contains more than 100 feet of fairly thin wire, much thinner than your speaker cables. It’s that thin wire in the woofer voice coil plus the wire in the tweeter’s voice coil (probably 20 feet or so) and the wires in the crossover that comprise the speaker’s impedance."

Cool thought!

"Discussions" on things that are "hypothetical" and not necessarily "fact"

"What Ifs" rather than "What are"

"How bout this" and "How bout that"

OK....shouldn't start any arguments!

......what's that about "Famous Last Words"??....

Here's a thought, simply a mind experiment not based in fact.

The speaker, as produced, is "the Speaker"

The wires "in" the speaker help give it "its'" sound; good, bad or otherwise. And maybe, just maybe a poor grade wire is used to taylor the sound.....naw; not likely. Hmmmm....

Yeah,...your suggestion makes sense!


I was of the impression that OFC was used to thwart corrosion, so what benifits are obtained by using it inside the box I don't know.(although the super-dee-duper brand is probably bettercause "Barnie" would recommend it!!)

(Yeah, we got "Lots" of kids!!)

Dang,....I don't recall what speaker manufacturer it is, but one of the Majors advertizes "Monster" wire used inside their speakers

Go Figure.
Rich.





oh oh......can-o'-worms No. 2:

(and a question which may not even matter, but it may be an "interesting" question)

What wires do the truly "High-End" speaker manufacturers use inside of "Their" speakers??!!

And if they do use something exotic, is it only a marketing gimmic and not truly benificial? And how do we know?? Yeow!!

Hey!...this could be a whole new ballgame!!

Although for us using Axiom speakers.....hmmmm...
Rich.

I believe it is Klipsch that flaunts having "Monster Inside"...

Pbbbbt.

WhatFurrer

Another peice to chew on:

Most "high end" speaker cables are only available in short distances, 3 - 5 feet where resistance would be very low even with a copper cable...and the runs IN the speaker are at most one foot...

Wharfedale has has Monster inside as well, had a pair of their WH-2 surrounds which proudly proclaimed Monster cable inside.

Ok guys, here's a thought on "Monster Inside"

My understanding is the(unlike Bose, which is not so good at any price)that Monster actually makes some pretty good stuff, just that the price is wildly excessive.

So, if their wires are Ok, and they may or may not add or subtract from the sound quality; who then pays whom?

Does the speaker manufacturer pay Monster for use of the name; or does Monster pay the speaker manufacturer for the advertizing potential? Or does Monster just supply them with the wire at cost and nobody pays(but the customer!) Hmmmmm......

This speaker length question is another fascinating one!

If a manufacturer charged something like $1000(or more)for an eight foot cable....

....how much would they have to charge for all four surrounds in a 7.1 system?

Things that make ya go..hmmmmmm...









.....sorry cable makin' dudes....my surrounds are just as important to me as my mains!

I've been watching the discussion on speaker cables for a while, now. In looking around for more information, I came across a study done by the McIntosh company using different types of cables with their amplifiers and speakers. (Sorry, I don't have the link just now.) They had a sophisticated instant switching mechanism between several types of cables, including romex, zip cable, speaker cable, really thin (24 ga) wires, and high end speaker cables. The cables were all about 20' if I remember right. This was all set up at some of their stores, and also, I believe, at some expos. They would play different types of music on their speakers, switching among the cables, then polling listeners as to which sounded best, or if any difference could be detected. The bottom line was that nearly all the listeners couldn't detect any difference between cables, EXCEPT for the 24 ga wire. Their conclusion was that multi stranded or solid made no difference, nor very low oxygen content copper; the main factor determining an audible difference in the cables appeared to be the total resistance / impedance of the cable, which had to be less than 5% of the speaker's total impedance. At 10% and higher, they noticed that people were actually beginning to percieve a difference. They also concluded that the "difference" people heard with more expensive cables was what they wanted, or needed, to hear because they were looking for, or expecting, an improvement with all the money spent on more expensive cables. Interestingly enough, people at their stores who noticed cheaper cables installed with the demo units insisted on having more expensive cables put in use before they would listen to the equipment. The conclusion here being that they placed a certain amount of trust in the advertising "authority" they were basing their beliefs upon as to the audible differences in cabling.

Have I hit the bee's nest hard enough yet?.......

Speaker wire, a history

What caught my attention the most was two items.

The lack of relevancy of OFC.(surprized!! Musta got the "wrong" impression from some of the more "Interesting" exotic wires reviews!)

And the fact that ya gotta be more carefull with 4 ohm speakers!!(Mine are all eight, so that's ok)

And WHY do WE all use 12G for our mains which are probably less tha eight feet on average?(OK,..I happen to have been given a few peices of 16G Monster that work on my mains)But if you look at the chart,......12G!!?? WHY???




I haven't Really looked at wires much since before I "Discovered" Axiom when I was getting back in audio at the beginning of HT.

Um,....that's like five years agoOOPS!!!


This is fun....gotta do more readin'
Rich.

Hi Martin, If no one said it before: Welcome!!

I missed your post til just nowbut it seems that you are refering to the same blurb that WID linked here just a few moments ago too!!

Good article, good stuff. Lot of(to me)surprizes there! Thanks for your input
Rich.




Doh,....don't mind me....out in left field and the game ended

Because it's easier to say "12 gauge" than "look at this chart and get out your measuring tape."

For the record, I use dual 14 gauge (effective 11 gauge) for my mains and 16 gauge for everything else. The center because I had the cable already, the sides because I needed flat cable.

This is the article! I read it quite a while back. Thanks for the reminder of where it is.

>>And WHY do WE all use 12G for our mains which are probably less tha eight feet on average?(

It's simple, really. If your cable runs are short, you might as well get 12 ga because the extra cost is trivial, heavy wire that length is easy to handle, and you might need it for part of a longar cable later.

If your cable run is medium, you either need 12 or 14 ga anyways so what the heck... might as well get 12 ga to match the shorter cables.

If your cable run is long, you need 12 ga anyways.

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It's simple, really. If your cable runs are short, you might as well get 12 ga because the extra cost is trivial, heavy wire that length is easy to handle, and you might need it for part of a longar cable later.

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And Axiom's cable looks sexy. But doesn't give any performance bonus over 16ga. SJ extension cord.

Bren R.

Well Guys...it appears that the answer to my question is probably the most intuitive one after all.

...as y'all pointed out...thanx.

(and, I did even more googling last night, too!)

16 or 18 ga wire is probably OK to run; but since speaker wire can very well be the cheapest parts of our system, why not go with what we like and works best for our individual situations?

Sure.

If our equipment is exposed to the public and all the wires are visible,(or even if it's not...) then we can use real purrdy, big and colorfull wires if we want to! How cool is that?

Wanna make a design statement? Now's our chance! Can even go with those "Boutique" wires if we want to!

Or the old extension cord with the broken plug; hey,..it appears the electrons just don't care!

...and OFC's not that important!....who knew!

Freedom.....gotta luv it!!
Rich.

Here is an interesting article on how to make your own silver speaker cable
http://www.laventure.net/tourist/cables.htm

LINK

Interesting...wonder if it's worth it.

Whoops... that link starts out with a bald-faced lie.

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FYI, since the conductive properties of silver are about double that of copper, an 8 AWG pure silver conductor will closely approximate the properties of 6 AWG copper. In practical terms, that means you can reduce those nine 12 gauge silver wires to six.

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Pure silver is, at best, 5%-8% lower in impedance than annealed copper. For some backup, read this (thanks Google)

The story suggests you use 16ga. silver. Even giving silver 8% over copper for it's conductive properties, that puts it at about 15.5AWG.

Meaning? 14ga. lamp cord is still more conductive (and less brittle, cheaper, comes right off the roll ready to use, shall I go on?)

Bren R.

Psshhhh. What a typical response from someone who doesn't trust his ears but instead uses his brain.

*ahem* I HAVE run single blind ABX tests as well... only thing I haven't done is judged wire on taste.

"This has a somewhat acrid bouquet... the undertones are unmistakably PTFE, the consistancy was a bit crunchy which belied its 6N oxygen-free nature..."

Bren R.

Speaking of lamp cord, I located this instruction on DIY and have read some pretty good feedbacks:
"The cable I chose and which performs so well comes in a variety of jacket colors - I used red and white. On the outside of the jacket is the following: "E51583 (UL) AWG6 CU TYPE MTW OR THWN-2 OR THHN GASOLINE AND OIL RESISTANT II OR AWM 600 VOLTS VW1". It's a 19 strand cable, with the internal wires having at least two different gauges (maybe more).
"Construction. For each speaker side you'll need two sections of the above cable. I used the red jacketed cable for the positive and the white for the return. With the red (pos), I ran the cable in the direction of the writing on the outside (reads from the amp to the speaker). On the white return (neg), I ran the lettering in the opposite direction (reads from the speaker to the amp). Then I put a very gentle twist on the cables of about 9 twists for the eight foot pair that I built. Repeat for the other speaker. Spades? Because the cable is 6 awg, they are pretty thick. I didn't have spades on hand with eyelets large enough to accommodate the diameter of the cable, so I trimmed it down a bit while spreading the eyelet open a little. When it all came together, I soldered it up and forgot about it. Don't sweat the kind of spades to use - it isn't going to make a huge difference anyway. After all this, you may find out that the cables sound better reversed - no problem, try anything you desire. Break-in takes a while. But, don't get crazy worrying about it. Let everything play out and you'll ultimately be happy. It has been observed that direction of the wire varies depending on location it is purchased - try it both ways just to be sure.
"This is an especially effective solution for systems using high power amplifiers into 4 Ohm loudspeakers. Don't think, however, that this cable will only work with one amp and one speaker - it will work with everything. Try it, the best speaker cables you may ever need may cost you about fifty bucks."

pmbuk, copper is a better conductor than silver unless they are corroded. In any case, feeling trollish are you?

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With the red (pos), I ran the cable in the direction of the writing on the outside (reads from the amp to the speaker). On the white return (neg), I ran the lettering in the opposite direction (reads from the speaker to the amp).

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This is just plain silly... conductors aren't directional - if they were... how would they know which direction to melt the copper ingot in the extruding process? "Jesus, Bill... you melted that all wrong... now the electrons are all facing the wrong way!"

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Then I put a very gentle twist on the cables of about 9 twists for the eight foot pair that I built. Repeat for the other speaker.

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For what? Common mode rejection? Not on a driven speaker cable. What's good for unshielded bit-perfect data isn't for speakers.

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Spades? Because the cable is 6 awg, they are pretty thick.

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That's just overkill unless he's running the speaker wire from a different state.

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After all this, you may find out that the cables sound better reversed - no problem, try anything you desire.

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After all, at this point you're just gooning around... try using French Toast for spades, too.

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Break-in takes a while.

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0 ms to be exact.

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It has been observed that direction of the wire varies depending on location it is purchased - try it both ways just to be sure.

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Everyone wants to think they can get that weeee little bit more out of their investment... everyone wants to be God's unique little snowflake. Better to hope your anus will issue creamy ice-cold dessert treats upon swapping ends of the cable - you've got better odds.

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Don't think, however, that this cable will only work with one amp and one speaker - it will work with everything.

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It will also work for carrying 40 amp mains loads.

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Try it, the best speaker cables you may ever need may cost you about fifty bucks.

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Or $0.35 a foot if you just close this browser window and quit trying to beat the reality of physics.

Bren R.

Well, I'm glad that myth was debunked.

I'm going to respectfully have to disagree on that one. Using the conductivity of copper as the base (5.8e8 S/m), silver is the only metal @ 1.05 x copper that has a higher conductivity.

For reference, gold is less at 0.70 and aluminum is way down there at 0.61

Contentious environment here, dude.

I cannot express fully how weary, utterly, I am of hearing these gentlemen argue about speaker wires.

Dan, to answer your question, it definitely can be worth it in the right situation. Since silver speaker wire will obviously make for a "bright" sound, as compared to the "warmth" of copper(don't even need to listen, you can tell just by looking)it can make a huge night and day improvement with warm receivers such as Marantz, but would be a disaster with, for example, a Yamaha receiver, which the author should have pointed out.

Okay, back to reality; the article is of course pure drivel and the author apparently doesn't have a clue about audio technology. Silver has a slightly lower resistance than copper, as has been pointed out, but the difference is negligible; for example a 21' silver wire would have about the same resistance as a 20' copper wire of the same gauge. The main difference is that silver is about 80 times as expensive as copper and it makes no sense to use it instead of copper to simply act as a guiderail for the electromagnetic wave that carries the audio power/information to the speaker.

Another point where the author demonstrates his lack of knowledge is when he suggests that there's no problem in having the two conductors widely separated. Inductance in speaker wire is directly proportional to the distance between the centers of the two conductors and is no problem with the usual closely spaced lampcord. Leaving them inches apart would greatly increase the inductance, causing a loss of high frequencies. That sort of speaker wire might indeed sound "different".

Alright, everyone please answer me these questions

I have plain ol' blue jeans cable copper speaker cable instead of hi-fi speaker cable:

1) Am I going to hell because of my ignorance of obviously higher-quality speaker cable?
2) Is my "cheap" speaker cable going to cause me to contract AIDS?
3) I don't like spending exhorbant amounts of money on speaker cables. Am I going to get a spanking?


My cables...err...my AXIOMS sound fine to me.

blue jeans cables are very good. They make a fine product with no BS and don't charge an arm and a leg for it. Ya done good.

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I cannot express fully how weary, utterly, I am of hearing these gentlemen argue about speaker wires.

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Yes, let's get back on pseudo-political topics and your sex life instead.

Bren R.

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I don't like spending exhorbant amounts of money on speaker cables. Am I going to get a spanking?

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If you're not willing to spend an exorbinant amount of money on cables, you're probably not going to want to spend it on the spanking, either.

Bren R.

>>If you're not willing to spend an exorbinant amount of money on cables, you're probably not going to want to spend it on the spanking, either.

You beat me to it...

... again.

HAHAHA, that was funny.
I think I'm done here with this Axiom hoax.

Attention everybody:

You are an idiot if you spend thousands of dollars on speakers you have never heard.

[censored] China and America-haters everywhere.

This message will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3,...

I believe twists are usually put into cable pairs to prevent crosstalk. If you look at the 4 twisted pairs in a Cat5/5e cable you will notice that each pair has a slightly different tpi (twists-per-inch) ratio. This further cuts down on crosstalk between the pairs. Not sure if this is relevant on speaker cables where there is one signal per cable pair, especially since they are not (I hope) bundled.

Al-right-ty then.

Bren R.

If ever there was an 'alcohol-assisted' post, that's the one. Bren, you're spot on.

While you are right that twisting pairs or cable is done to limit crosstalk that doesn't really translate with cable speakers. It does make a difference when you're dealing with a digital signal where you don't want any interference that might drop down the transmission speed. In the case of pure analog signals it would take a lot more to disturb the signal before you start to notice it (and at that point your problem would definitely not be the cables!).

You are right Brent, unlike ferroelectrics, conductor itself isn't directional and plus with this size of cable transmiting audio signal, the direction shouldn't matter since electromigration is not an issue (and even if it does, this directional connection won't help but would make it worse in the long term). For those of you who are interested in cable comparison based on the 3 common quantifiable parameters (LCR), take a look at this: link

Then stop reading all about it...... Personally, I get a lot of amusement from it all!


(Please note: these comments are not to be taken any more seriously (hopefully) than any of the other comments / posts in this thread.

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You are right Brent

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Just Bren... Brent (Tombari) WORKS for Axiom. I'm Bren R.

And thanks for backing me up. *laughs*

Ferroelectrics - I'm a bit old-school, they're still electrets to me. And on a need-to-know basis, that's pretty much all I need-to-know.

Same goes for electromigration. It can cause failure in ICs, and possibly in overvoltage line applications, but the general public doesn't really need an indepth understanding.

Bren R.

HEY!.....everyone, have I got an idea.

Why not set up a permanent "speaker wire" thread?

It would be the most apropos in "hearing things" for some, here...(get it?)

Or maybe, a new catagory, below the water cooler heading....... perhaps?

Better yet, a new cateegory called the Ring, everyone can settle their arguments there.

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It would be the most apropos in "hearing things" for some, here...(get it?)

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I limit my lost productivity by only reading the water cooler and technical boards.

Bren R.