Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Alan, Can you give any insight on speaker wire?

Again with the speaker wire.....

This is what I tried in the last 3 weeks since I have been on vacation all of December because of overtime.
tested the budget end speaker wire
12 gage Oxygen free standard wire .75/foot
12 gage Monster MC clear wire $3/foot
Monster MCX-1 gray insulated time correct bi-wire $6/foot
Monster Z2 Reference bi wire $11/foot
Kimber 4TC $10/foot
Kimber 8TC $20/foot

The first 3 speaker types wire sounded very close. Can't tell the difference. The MCX giving just a tad bit more sound stage...like very very very tiny bit.
The Z2 Reference had a better soundstage, more defined controlled bass and range. Mids were okey but a little muddy compared to Kimbers. The high were lacking kinda rolled off or cut short.
Kimber brought out the great soundstage I was missing with my speakers when I was demoing in the store. The highs were great, stage was much bigger. The bass was better with the 8TC. But the 4TC had better handle on highs on my speaker. So if you have bright speakers go for 4TC. If you have revealing neutral reference speakers go for 8TC. What some people have done is run 4TC on highs and 8TC on lows for bi-wiring. I can not tell you how much detail was revealed from going from my old Monster MCX to the Kimber 4TC.
One note on new Kimber wires...with the M22 the high in the beggining is kinda shrill. Give it at least 2 days to a week to mellow out after run in. This is a $200 or less invesment that made bigger differences that a separate CD player (rather than have the DVD do both) or high end interconnects. In the end let your ears decide and tell me what you think on Kimbers.

Saturn

ps:Happy New Year..another year of great music and sounds!!!
Oh all prices above is in Canadian funds .. loonie funds

For the record, i'll just cut and paste Alan's reply from wayyy back. An opinion that i agree with because i've heard 3 brands used myself and you just can't argue against the science of the double blind tests.

"Hello duff,
I'd recommend conventional generic--Radio Shack, etc; even Monster has some reasonably priced bulk wire--12-gauge to 14-gauge cable to connect your M22's. At that gauge, you could have cable runs of 20 to 50 feet with no significant alteration of resistance, and that's what counts.

As to expensive cable, I call it audio jewelry; if it looks pretty (and some of it does) and costs plenty, then of course you'll think it "sounds" better. But, in fact, electrons don't know whether they're traveling in expensive Monster, Kimber, or in low-cost generic copper. They move at the speed of light, and copper is copper, you know what I mean?

The branded Kimber and the like is okay if you'd rather spend large sums on cable than on good CDs or upgrading other components in your system. Will it make any difference to the sound of your system? No.

When individuals who believe differences in cable are asked to distinguish different cables in blind listening tests, the results have been utterly random. In extended listening tests conducted at the National Research Council in Ottawa, I have never heard any difference in branded or generic cables. Nor has a world-regarded Canadian scientist and past president of the Audio Engineering Society, Dr. Floyd Toole.

Regards,

Alan Lofft
Axiom Resident Expert"

Hello, I’m new to home audio, but have been lurking around for a bit reading up a lot about speaker wire because I think I may have gone “too cheap” on my wires. After spending around $3k on a whole set of Axiom speakers I can’t help but feel bad and would like some feed back. My issue is that I have 40ft runs to my surrounds and backs. I have to run it underneath the carpet but above the padding. After doing some looking around I found basically very few flat cables. Monster has it’s 12gauge for $1.49/ft and a 14 gauge for $.99/ft. I ended up getting some 16 gauge Acoustic research flat cable for $.19/ft. From what I’ve read so far, 16 gauge is hitting the limits on “recommended” lengths for 6 ohm speakers (http://home.earthlink.net/~rogerr7/wire.htm#wiretable) . So what I did was wire up 2 pairs of flat cable because it was still a lot cheaper. Are there any possible negative effects of what I’m doing? If there are, I would have to go back and cut a slot into my padding, and run 12 gauge wires. Here’s what I’ve Figured out:

I got resistance estimates from: http://www.pcavtech.com/techtalk/wire_size/

40 ft Monsters, 12 gauge, .0017ohms/ft, $1.49/ft, 4 speakers
Total Cost: $238 ($1.49*40ft*4runs)
Total Resistance per run: .136 ohms (.0017ohms/ft*40ft*2 for positive and negative)

40 ft Monsters, 14 gauge, .0026ohms/ft, $.99/ft, 4 speakers
Total Cost: $158 ($.99*40ft*4runs)
Total Resistance per run: .208 ohms (.0026ohms/ft*40ft*2 for positive and negative)

2 40ft Acoustic Research, 16 gauge, .0042ohms/ft, $.19/ft, 4 speakers
Total Cost: $61 ($.19*80ft*4runs)
Total Resistance per run: .168 ohms (.0021ohms/ft*40ft*2 for positive and negative)
1/Rt = 1/R1 + 1/R2 ( .0021 ohms/ft)

If I only considered resistance, running 2 pairs of 16 gauge is better then 14 gauge, but not as good as 12 gauge, and a save a heck of a lot of money.

Am I missing anything here?

I think that the double 16 gauge thing is a good idea only if you have the two cables immediately next to one another. (See this article. Yeah, yeah, same one.) However, 12 gauge should be enough. I wouldn't waste money on Monster; just get some from http://www.partsexpress.com or something. I belive there are some other threads on flat cabling 'round here.

I do have 2 cables right next to each other. They both run under the carpet, you can feel them, but just slightly. I read the article, don't quite understand the resistance effect on frequency response though... Does it mean that with greater the resistance I will potentially get a “boomy” effect?

I found this 13awg that I used to run to my rear channels.

13awg

just my input-for a 50 foot roll you can get 12 gauge wire over at parts express for 22 bucks. good quality wire.

RC, my view is that you're trying to cut this a bit too fine. As Mr. Russell pointed out, his suggestions were "conservative". I wouldn't have been concerned about a single 16 gauge run in your situation, and the double run(equivalent to 13 gauge) is certainly plenty. Yes,if the resistance of the wire is too high the output of the amp will tend to "follow" the swings in speaker impedance, slightly over-emphasizing the response at impedance high points, such as often exist in the bass area.

Thanks! I think that would work great for me. For some reason I didn't find it. I bought a spool of 16 gauge from the same place.

For the record, I've heard differences with different commbinations of cable as well. I'm not so sure the VERY expensive cables are worth it but I have heard differences...