speaker cables vs speaker wire

[bigarchie]

Im just curious as to how much of a performance boost i could expect from switching from 12gauge OFC with banana clips on both ends to, say mid grade speaker cables. Just something simple shielded, probably with gold plated connections. I have a denon AVR 1803 hooked up to jbl S38II's, i have a jvc dvd audio/video player with optical interconnects as well as phoenix gold Arx.600 analog interconnects for the dvd audio. just curious, ive been thinking of upgrading speaker wire for a long time, but wasnt sure if it was going to be worth the money. I know when i upgraded from a smaller gauge copper wire, to a larger gauge ofc wire, imaging as well as bass was improved along with some clarity. probably a 6-9% increase in overall sound. any suggestions would be helpfull


muzicman

I just purchased some Meadowlark Swifts last week. I hooked them up with 16 gauge cable with no connectors. Hmmm. The sound was good, I thought. Then a couple of days later, I got this nagging feeling to check out some high-end cables on the net. I got really depressed. Wallet Rape! As expected, a lot of the "better" cables were worth more than my speakers.
I also noticed that a lot of people have jumped on the cable making bandwagon and are offering various products to the ever so eager market. Geez, what does a guy do? A few years back, I had the opportunity to compare Kimber 4TC to regular 16 gauge. I switched back and forth a few times...I was disappointed. The 4TC also went off to be compared on a friend's "high end" home theatre system. Same results. Kimber made bold claims regarding their cable...depressing. Maybe my equipment at the time, did not cut it resolution wise. Since then, I've upgraded my preamp, which was an Arcam Alpha 9C. I replaced it with a Bryston BP-25. Now there was a huge difference... no imagination needed. I've also tried Nordost Flatline for a few months as well as some Audioquest stuff.
The differences, if any, were always quite subtle. Not worth the extra cost, in my opinion.
Anyways, today I went out and bought some 12 gauge and some banana plugs. The cable was a reasonable 80 cents per ft. The sound...well, I think it sounds better...more body and treble detail...but who knows. Maybe the connectors are half the battle and not the actual wire? That's up for debate too...
Conclusion: It's your money, but as for me, high priced speaker cables make me and my wallet depressed.

[Chas Underhay]

I just purchased some Meadowlark Swifts last week. I hooked them up with 16 gauge cable with no connectors. Hmmm. The sound was good, I thought. Then a couple of days later, I got this nagging feeling to check out some high-end cables on the net. I got really depressed. Wallet Rape! As expected, a lot of the "better" cables were worth more than my speakers.
I also noticed that a lot of people have jumped on the cable making bandwagon and are offering various products to the ever so eager market. Geez, what does a guy do? A few years back, I had the opportunity to compare Kimber 4TC to regular 16 gauge. I switched back and forth a few times...I was disappointed. The 4TC also went off to be compared on a friend's "high end" home theatre system. Same results. Kimber made bold claims regarding their cable...depressing. Maybe my equipment at the time, did not cut it resolution wise. Since then, I've upgraded my preamp, which was an Arcam Alpha 9C. I replaced it with a Bryston BP-25. Now there was a huge difference... no imagination needed. I've also tried Nordost Flatline for a few months as well as some Audioquest stuff.
The differences, if any, were always quite subtle. Not worth the extra cost, in my opinion.
Anyways, today I went out and bought some 12 gauge and some banana plugs. The cable was a reasonable 80 cents per ft. The sound...well, I think it sounds better...more body and treble detail...but who knows. Maybe the connectors are half the battle and not the actual wire? That's up for debate too...
Conclusion: It's your money, but as for me, high priced speaker cables make me and my wallet depressed.

On this side of the pond we measure cable by conductor cross sectional area in square millimeters, I assume you use standard wire gauge but without refering to tables I can't do a direct comparison.

A 1.5 mm cable will have a resistance of around 13 ohms per kilometer and a 6 mm cable will have a resistance of around 3 ohms per kilometer. This sounds like quite a lot but in a normal legnth of speaker cable, say 6 metres it isn't that much.

You should consider the resistance of the actual legnth of speaker cable used as a percentage of the loud speaker impedance and try to keep it as low as practible. I believe some equipment manufacturers used to specify below 10% but these days I suspect that most peoples cables will be below 1%

Obviously the longer the legnth of cable the more difference the conductor diameter will make. (at least in terms of percentage difference between speaker impedance vs cable resistance)

I don't disbelieve that people have replaced a 16 gauge with a 12 gauge and heard an improvement but how much and how long were the cables?

I don't really think that changing cables that are already only say 1% of the speaker impedance, to cables that were 1/2% would make much, if any audible difference.

However when buying new cables, I look at it like this:- Off the reel speaker cable is relatively cheap, the cost of the termination plugs or spades are a constant, say 20 bucks for a set of 8, Say your speaker cables were 20 ft long, at 50 cents per foot it would cost you 40 bucks with terminations, with your cable at 80 cents per foot the total cost would be 52 bucks even if you bought the thickest cable you could find at say 2 bucks a foot, the cost would still only be 100 bucks. So if you need speaker cables bacause you you havn't got any, the ones you have are not long enough or the ones you already have really are crap (bell wire), it could be argued that you might as well buy the heaviest cable you can lay your hands on, providing it gives you peace of mind, stops you wondering about other cables and lets you forget all about it, for good.

As for exotic cables, I believe they are like the Emperor's new clothes.

Never actually heard the Bryston equipment but I gather its very good.

[bigarchie]

The cable lengths for the "econo" 16 gauge and the "new" 12 gauge are both 20 ft. The various "audiophile" comparison tests were performed with 10 ft. lengths...

On this side of the pond we measure cable by conductor cross sectional area in square millimeters, I assume you use standard wire gauge but without refering to tables I can't do a direct comparison.

A 1.5 mm cable will have a resistance of around 13 ohms per kilometer and a 6 mm cable will have a resistance of around 3 ohms per kilometer. This sounds like quite a lot but in a normal legnth of speaker cable, say 6 metres it isn't that much.

You should consider the resistance of the actual legnth of speaker cable used as a percentage of the loud speaker impedance and try to keep it as low as practible. I believe some equipment manufacturers used to specify below 10% but these days I suspect that most peoples cables will be below 1%

Obviously the longer the legnth of cable the more difference the conductor diameter will make. (at least in terms of percentage difference between speaker impedance vs cable resistance)

I don't disbelieve that people have replaced a 16 gauge with a 12 gauge and heard an improvement but how much and how long were the cables?

I don't really think that changing cables that are already only say 1% of the speaker impedance, to cables that were 1/2% would make much, if any audible difference.

However when buying new cables, I look at it like this:- Off the reel speaker cable is relatively cheap, the cost of the termination plugs or spades are a constant, say 20 bucks for a set of 8, Say your speaker cables were 20 ft long, at 50 cents per foot it would cost you 40 bucks with terminations, with your cable at 80 cents per foot the total cost would be 52 bucks even if you bought the thickest cable you could find at say 2 bucks a foot, the cost would still only be 100 bucks. So if you need speaker cables bacause you you havn't got any, the ones you have are not long enough or the ones you already have really are crap (bell wire), it could be argued that you might as well buy the heaviest cable you can lay your hands on, providing it gives you peace of mind, stops you wondering about other cables and lets you forget all about it, for good.

As for exotic cables, I believe they are like the Emperor's new clothes.

Never actually heard the Bryston equipment but I gather its very good.

[Chas Underhay]

The cable lengths for the "econo" 16 gauge and the "new" 12 gauge are both 20 ft. The various "audiophile" comparison tests were performed with 10 ft. lengths...

Not suprised you couldn't hear any diference on a 10 ft legnth, 20ft I wouldn't say is impossible but I wouldn't mind betting that decent connections made more of a contribution than the heavier guage cable. No magic or voodoo here, if the cable end or an old connector has oxidised, the connection will be less than perfect and extra resistance will be added to the circuit.