Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Speaker cables

I have standard 14 gage bulk cables running to my LFR 880’s. They are connected to a 125W Outlaw 5000 amp. I also have an EP 500 that is wireless. I am so very pleased with this 2.1 system, although the sub seems to lag a bit, but I can live with it. Also there are times where I would like to have more power to the speakers. I don’t hear any distortion when I’m pushing up the volume, but it concerns me that the volume control is almost to its limit. I am not interested in buying a new amp and am looking for ways to increase power to the speakers. I’ve recently been investigating speaker wire. My thought is to upgrade the wire from 14 gage to 10 or 12. My thinking is less resistance may allow for slightly more power going to the speaker not to mention higher quality sound. What do y’all think? Another question I have is the type of wire materials that compose the wires. So, what would be the best bang for the buck kind of wire? I’m not interested in ultra expensive cables, but would like to try high quality types at around $10-$25 per foot. I’m grateful that I can draw upon the expertise of the members of this forum. Thanks so much.

It all depends on how many feet your running and the impedance of your speaker.
Your speaker is 4ohms. So your max run for each gauge in copper with a 1% loss is
10awg: 20ft
12awg: 12.6 ft
14awg: 7.9 ft

You can double that if a 2% loss is ok.


If you’d like to know where those numbers came from …

One more thing … ok two
CCA wire (copper clad aluminum) is not as conductive as copper if you use it multiple the max run by 0.6
Last I looked quality 12awg Copper speaker wire could be had for less than 40 cents a foot (in under 100ft quantities)

Oh hell ... I realized that I didn't tell you how all of that related to your question ...

I'm not a big believer in "special" speaker wire. If the resistance of OFC wire is 100 times less than the speaker's impedance, IMO, you're good to go. (Unless the manufacture has introduced some crazy impedance characteristics which I'm pretty sure would be a negative thing) The big differences are in how many strands, kind of casing, flexibility, and form (round, flat, ...).

So for an excellent, high strand count, in-wall, 10 awg OFC I went all out at a $1/ft ... I'm pretty convinced it will sound as good as anything in the $10-$25 per foot (or higher) range.

So, If your run with 14 AWG OFC wire is less the 8ft ... there, IMO, is no improvement to be had. Even at 20ft I'd doubt you'd hear a difference.

That said, I'll also tell you to go for it (a higher gauge not the higher-end marketing) ... there is no reason not to use a larger gauge and there's something that feels great to have nice hefty wire running to those speakers.

I run 12 AWG for a 6ft run to my M2's (8 ohms). Numbers say I don't even need 14.

P.S. I can guarantee others will disagree ... this is one of those audio religious issues

Are you sure its not a source issue?

#14 is capable of plenty of volume. Its not your speaker wire.

Its an input signal to amp problem. Something else is wrong.

The lads have provided some feedback on this, but there's a few other questions to ask.
Just how loud are you trying to play the speakers? And how close do you sit?
For example, sitting 10 feet away and getting 90dB of sound is pretty good. At 10 feet and getting 100dB is damn loud. Going beyond that, you could start short term hearing impairment. That aside, if you wanted to get 100dB while in the kitchen 18 feet away, you would need not only significant, exponentially more power but probably also a new, much larger speaker (think big concert speaker).

Your amp has its limit.
The speakers have a limit.
Cables cause far less a limit than the previous two. Here's a good and often quoted table for cable runs from Roger Russell.
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#wiretable
Theoretically your 14ga wire is fine up to 40 foot runs with 4 ohm loads. I personally use 12 gauge cable and i have a few runs in the HT room which hit about 20-25 feet but for surround speakers that are lighter 8 ohm loads.

If you wanted more dB of sound, higher sound pressure levels, changing your 14ga cable won't do much unless you are running dozens of feet from the amp to the speaker (i'm assuming this is unlikely).
You will need to assess how loud you want to play sound, how loud you want to hear it at the farthest distance, and then figure out how much power you need (yes, this does mean a new and much beefier amp, and no, there is no way around this). Again noting, that there IS a limit. You would not be able to hit 120dB at 20 feet with the 880s even with a 1000W per channel amp without having distortion, clipping or drivers hitting their excursion limits.

the above information is correct. To look at this from a slightly different angle - A change of 3 dB is accepted as the smallest difference in level that is easily heard by most listeners, listening to speech or music. It is a slight increase or decrease in volume.

To produce an increase of +3 dB you simply need to double power (watts).

Changing your speaker wires will not provide any noticeable change in any of the numbers/measurements in this statement.

The fact is if you want it louder you need to change either the power output of the amplifier, or the sensitivity of the speakers. Neither of those options is inexpensive - assuming you want quality sound.

I think Trevor is right, with that Amp he should be able to fill any reasonably sized room. Something's up and it's not the speaker cable ... (that is unless he's has a 100 ft+ run he's not telling us about ).

Keep in mind that we dont' know his preferred SPL and distance for listening. With that amp, running the 880s, i actually wouldn't expect alot of oomph at higher SPL.
The $770 USD amp (https://outlawaudio.com/shop/products/50-model-5000x-5-channel-amplifier.html) only has 120W/ch @ 8ohm and it maxes out at 180W /ch @ 4ohm load (all 5 driven; no where close to a power doubling which gives you some indication of the power supply quality) and has a whopping [sarcasm] 6800uF /ch capacitance (added together 34,000uF which is stupidly low overhead for dynamic peaks.
A comparable used Anthem MCA5 (circa 1999; approx. $1000 Cdn; https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/649777485-anthem-mca-5/) puts out 200W/ch @ 8ohm (350W@ 4 ohm) and has 100,000 uF total capacitance, 20,000 per channel (http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/video/revequip/anthem_mca5.htm; https://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_6_4/anthem-mca-5-amplifier.html) compared to Outlaw. Brand new the Outlaw is cheaper, but you can see why. Buying an older but used amp gets you ALOT more for your money. Note that there are several revisions of this Anthem lineup over the years and you can get newer units for not much more in used costs with similar specs.

Outlaw like Emotiva is another inexpensive brand and for what they do, they can do it 'just fine', but trying to power LFR880s to some high SPL or in a larger room or a 'distant' listening location, it doesn't have sufficient juice.

My advice, don't turn up any volume knob past 80-85% or you chance some kind of clipping, distortion, maxing out of speakers or amps (if you buy well, your equip will have protection shut downs, but speakers clipping do not shut themselves off). If you can't get enough dB of sound at that point, start looking at your system components and listening environment to determine what you really need to get the sound level you want. Don't try pushing the gear closer to 100% or risk damage.
I will say it again though, everything has its limits. If you wanted to get 100dB at 20 feet away (for example), you need to open the pocket book, get really large (or many) speaker units, or else face the fact that such a scenario is not possible with LFR880s and this Outlaw amp.

Actually, I would expect that amp to get to “Rock Concert” levels. ( in a reasonably sized home listening space). It’s the dynamics which might be limited at extreme volume. I think the limiting factor probably has more to do with the audio chain. I.e. what’s the full output of each device v.s. Full expected input to the device after it.