Wire material what's better?

[veganaudio]

What cable material is better?

copper?

hybrid?

cobalt?
any other?

Thanks audio fans!!!!

[wayner86]

Copper is probably a safe bet, great conductor, easy to obtain, and relatively cheap.

Hybrid i believe is a combo of silver and copper wire braided together resulting in excellent conductance, it will cost more than copper wire (because of added silver) with (what i assume) a negligible advantage over plain copper wire.

Cobalt is a brand name, not a speaker wire material, (at least i hope), very hard, relatively expensive, and 2 valence electrons - wouldn't make this an ideal conductor for speaker wire.

Merry Christmas :)

Wayne

[veganaudio]

Thanks!!

The buiders in my new hose put 12 gauge Maxus pure copper in the mains and 16 gauge monster XP in the rear.....any trouble mixing cables like this?

Am I losing using 16 gauge in my rears? (only 30 ft distance).

Merry christmas and a happy 2006

Thanks Wayne for your help!!!!

Roy in Utah



Copper is probably a safe bet, great conductor, easy to obtain, and relatively cheap.

Hybrid i believe is a combo of silver and copper wire braided together resulting in excellent conductance, it will cost more than copper wire (because of added silver) with (what i assume) a negligible advantage over plain copper wire.

Cobalt is a brand name, not a speaker wire material, (at least i hope), very hard, relatively expensive, and 2 valence electrons - wouldn't make this an ideal conductor for speaker wire.

Merry Christmas :)

Wayne

[wayner86]

Im curious as to why they installed the thicker gauge on the shortest run, but to answer your question, 16gauge will work absolutly fine on a 30ft run, and from what i understand mixing the 12 & 16 wire gauge won't adversely affect your unit (the way it has been set up).

Happy Holidays Roy

Wayne

[veganaudio]

I have peace of mind.....do you know the Maxus brand?



Im curious as to why they installed the thicker gauge on the shortest run, but to answer your question, 16gauge will work absolutly fine on a 30ft run, and from what i understand mixing the 12 & 16 wire gauge won't adversely affect your unit (the way it has been set up).

Happy Holidays Roy

Wayne

[wayner86]

I haven't heard of Maxus, but im sure it's fine, too many companies out there that sell wire & interconnects to keep them all straight.

[Florian]

My choice is silver :-)

[jneutron]

Am I losing using 16 gauge in my rears? (only 30 ft distance)
Roy in UtahIt depends on the speaker.

If it is a single driver, then no, you are losing very little except perhaps some damping factor control.

If it is a two way system, then, yes.

To prevent branch related offset power modulation, you should have used #2 awg (not a typo, that was two awg) for the rears (I assume they are 8 ohm speakers)..this of course, disregards the connector resistances and the minimum impedance of the woofer.

Running two #14 or #16's to them and bi-wiring them would have also worked..

For simple HT use, what you have is sufficient. After all, no need to go crazy..

Cheers, John

[GMichael]

It depends on the speaker.

If it is a single driver, then no, you are losing very little except perhaps some damping factor control.

If it is a two way system, then, yes.

To prevent branch related offset power modulation, you should have used #2 awg (not a typo, that was two awg) for the rears (I assume they are 8 ohm speakers)..this of course, disregards the connector resistances and the minimum impedance of the woofer.

Running two #14 or #16's to them and bi-wiring them would have also worked..

For simple HT use, what you have is sufficient. After all, no need to go crazy..

Cheers, John

2 awg? Jumper cables huh?

[jneutron]

2 awg? Jumper cables huh?Yup. Hey, that's the price you pay to eliminate offset power modulation.

And the connectors required are a b###h. Not to mention the geometry required to keep the inductance down to 10 nH per foot and the capacitance to below 300 pf per foot while keeping the guage equivalent to #2.

It can be done, but it's not worth it..I use the 24 guage that came with my little phillips 5.1 system..

Cheers, John

[GMichael]

Yup. Hey, that's the price you pay to eliminate offset power modulation.

And the connectors required are a b###h. Not to mention the geometry required to keep the inductance down to 10 nH per foot and the capacitance to below 300 pf per foot while keeping the guage equivalent to #2.

It can be done, but it's not worth it..I use the 24 guage that came with my little phillips 5.1 system..

Cheers, John


I have found 12 gauge to be very affordable from Parts Express (Sound King), so I went that way. Just make sure you have good eyesight. The + & - are not labeled very well.
Anything more than that seems like overkill to me. But If I had $50,000 in my system I'd upgrade wire too.

[jneutron]

I have found 12 gauge to be very affordable from Parts Express (Sound King), so I went that way. Just make sure you have good eyesight. The + & - are not labeled very well.
Anything more than that seems like overkill to me. But If I had $50,000 in my system I'd upgrade wire too.I also decided to limit myself to #12. For my mobile setup, I use extension cord stuff with neutriks, for cords up to 100 feet long.

Honestly though, since I derived the equations for offset modulation, I've changed how I'm gonna make my next set of cords. Since the neutrik connector exceeds the loop resistance requirement for an 8 ohm two way system, larger wires don't help. Instead, I'll just make a #12 quad cable on the machine I'm building, and drop the crossover to the amp rack..using the same 4 terminal neutriks, and making sure I keep the pairs orthogonal in the wire run, while wiring the connectors for standard bi-amp.

As I think about it, it'd just be easier to rewire the crossover inside the speaker to make the tweet feed from 2+/2-, woof 1+/1-....and add neutrik chassis mounts external to the amp itself that parallel the two feeds back at the amp. That way, the cables do not become non-standard or directionally challenged. If I connected that weird cable backwards, the cable would short amplifier out 1 to amp out 2 on my qsc...I hate it when that happens.

Cheers, John

[hermanv]

I first saw the light (first heard the sound?) about cables when I tried Kimber 4TC speaker cable instead of the zip cord I was using. Damn, I did not expect that obvious an improvement, the sound cleared up considerably, multiple instuments that were sort of congealed into one sound seperated and became distinct. Harsness was much reduced the overall sound became much more relaxed, less digital like if you will.

Anyway, I've since tried a number of cables and although all are a little different, nothing sounds as awful as that zip cord I was using. This particular zip cord was the kind in a clear plastic insulator with one copper colored conductor and one silver colored. I mention this because it is quite common, mine was 14 AWG.

People have told me that pure copper wire is soft enough that it will stretch from its own weight if strung across a gap. That the big wire and cable companies add steel to make a copper alloy and make it less likely to flow or stretch. That it is this steel content that makes it sound so awful, I can't say if this is the reason but I beg any of you, use any kind of cable you like but be very careful of the zip cord.

[pelly3s]

now im no physics major but as far as i know for a 30 foot run the only reason to use 2 AWG is if the amplifier is outputting somewhere in the range of 8,000 to 10,000 watts at a 4 ohm load.

silver is more conductive than copper but the difference is very minimal

[jneutron]

now im no physics major but as far as i know for a 30 foot run the only reason to use 2 AWG is if the amplifier is outputting somewhere in the range of 8,000 to 10,000 watts at a 4 ohm load. You are indeed correct if all that is of concern is the total power dissipated within the wires.

If one worries about the total loop resistance including the connectors, then you have to worry about using larger guages.

I use #12 for 100 footers, don't need bigger.

Cheers, John

[Resident Loser]

...saw your earlier comment re: damping factor and wondered if you had caught the thread over @ AH re: the subject...

jimHJJ(...should you be interested to visit, chk your PM...)

[jneutron]

...saw your earlier comment re: damping factor and wondered if you had caught the thread over @ AH re: the subject...

jimHJJ(...should you be interested to visit, chk your PM...)
Hey there. No I hadn't. Gettin over jet lag, just got back from Beijing. Major pain, a 13 hour flight and time zone stuff.

I'll check it out.

Cheers, John

[E-Stat]

...saw your earlier comment re: damping factor and wondered if you had caught the thread over @ AH re: the subject...
I read the thread although I don't post over there. There is a simple answer that can be shown visually: low DF causes frequency variations with speakers having an impedance curve that varies. Stereophile applies a test load representative of many box speakers and provides a graph of the result. SETs are particularly sensitive to this.

SET amp results (http://stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/687/index6.html)

While I use a tube amp in my main system, the electrostats have a fairly tame impedance curve and are less sensitive to such frequency variations. Similarly, vintage speakers such as the AR-3a were voiced using tube amps understanding that effect.

rw

[hermanv]

While it is dangerous to overgeneralize, on the whole I like silver wires best. .


edit...While I use a tube amp in my main system, the electrostats have a fairly tame impedance curve and are less sensitive to such frequency variations. ...edit
rwForgive the deviation from the main thread. Electrostatic speakers have a reputation for being a tough load on any amp, as they are usually highly capacitive in nature, does Sound Labs equalize for this problem?

[E-Stat]

Electrostatic speakers have a reputation for being a tough load on any amp, as they are usually highly capacitive in nature, does Sound Labs equalize for this problem?
Indeed that is the case. My understanding, however, is that it is the impedance curve that reacts badly with low source impedance amps. Here is the SL's gradual curve:
http://home.comcast.net/~ralphwallace/audio/sl.jpg

versus this typical roller coaster:

Wild variation (http://stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1105ap/index5.html)

rw

[jtgofish]

Have to agree.The Kimber is similar to Axon 4-basic solid core coherent,balanced sound with proper timing.I have never heard a decent sounding multi strand.The 2 core solid core lighting cable is also good and very cheap.Silver is quite vibrant sounding but in the wrong system can sound a bit too much.Very good interconnects can be made from coated inductor/electrical winding wire left naked.The lacquer coating acts as insulation.Unshielded cables tend to sound best.
JT