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DeeAa[_4_] DeeAa[_4_] is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Hey,

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume. It makes
sense, the cable 'dissipates' the power in layman's terms or
something. I'm no pro with this stuff so bear with me please.

So it's always best to have identical lenght and thickness for stereo.
OK. Even I can hear a difference.

BUT I came to thinking...IF you can't have same lengths no matter
what, which kind of cables would make the difference less noticeable -
thicker or thinner? I mean, if the cables are different length and
thin, it would make sense that even less 'power' can reach the
speaker.

But then again, if we use a really thick cable, does it make it easier
for the current to pass to the speaker and translate to less signal
loss, OR would it mean more material for the amp to push and make the
longer cable speaker quieter still?

Which way around does it work?

Cheers,

Dee
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[email protected] jwvm@umich.edu is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Apr 5, 12:05*pm, DeeAa wrote:
Hey,

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume. It makes
sense, the cable 'dissipates' the power in layman's terms or
something. I'm no pro with this stuff so bear with me please.


Yes, a long cable has more losses than a short cable of the same
gauge.

So it's always best to have identical lenght and thickness for stereo.
OK. Even I can hear a difference.


You should use cables that are sufficiently large (small gauge number)
so there is not a perceptible loss.


BUT I came to thinking...IF you can't have same lengths no matter
what, which kind of cables would make the difference less noticeable -
thicker or thinner? I mean, if the cables are different length and
thin, it would make sense that even less 'power' can reach the
speaker.


Why would you want to use a thin cable anyway?


But then again, if we use a really thick cable, does it make it easier
for the current to pass to the speaker and translate to less signal
loss, OR would it mean more material for the amp to push and make the
longer cable speaker quieter still?


Thicker cables basically have less loss than thin cables. There will
be a slightly increased load on the amplifier because of the lower
resistance of thick cables but it is not a big deal.


Which way around does it work?


Use thick cables!

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William Sommerwerck William Sommerwerck is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

All that matters is the resistance. Resistance is directly proportional to
the cable's length, and inversely proportional to the wires' cross-sectional
area (gauge).


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Paul Stamler[_2_] Paul Stamler[_2_] is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

First off, how much difference are we talking about here? 5' vs 10'? 50' vs.
100'? There's a difference.

Peace,
Paul


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DeeAa[_4_] DeeAa[_4_] is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On 5 huhti, 20:39, "Paul Stamler" wrote:
First off, how much difference are we talking about here? 5' vs 10'? 50' vs.
100'? There's a difference.

Peace,
Paul


Twice the length. No biggie...it was like I figured it is. Thanks!


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Anahata Anahata is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness orlenght?

On Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:05:31 -0700, DeeAa wrote:

IF you can't have same lengths no matter what,
which kind of cables would make the difference less noticeable - thicker
or thinner?


Thicker.
More precisely, lower resistance, but that usually means thicker copper
which in turn means thicker wire.

If you can hear the difference between a long and short speaker cable,
the cables are far too thin. To test it you'd have to take great pains to
make sure both speakers were exactly the same distance away from your
ears. Any good speaker cable wouldn't have that effect to a noticeable
degree.

--
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RD Jones RD Jones is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Apr 5, 11:05*am, DeeAa wrote:

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume. It makes
sense, the cable 'dissipates' the power in layman's terms or
something. I'm no pro with this stuff so bear with me please.

So it's always best to have identical lenght and thickness for stereo.
OK. Even I can hear a difference.

BUT I came to thinking...IF you can't have same lengths no matter
what, which kind of cables would make the difference less noticeable -
thicker or thinner? I mean, if the cables are different length and
thin, it would make sense that even less 'power' can reach the
speaker.

But then again, if we use a really thick cable, does it make it easier
for the current to pass to the speaker and translate to less signal
loss, OR would it mean more material for the amp to push and make the
longer cable speaker quieter still?


A common setup might have the power amp rack behind one
speaker system connected with a short cable. The other
speaker(s) on the far side of the stage has a proportionately
much longer cable. In both cases the cable should be as
heavy (numerically small gauge number) as practical, the
longer run being 12g or thicker.

Ohm's law is in charge here but no need to measure cable's
resistance. We know that heavy cables are good for speakers.

rd
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Steve Steve is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Length is by far the most important because if they are to short they
won't reach the speaker.

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RD Jones RD Jones is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Apr 5, 3:10*pm, Steve wrote:

Length is by far the most important because if they are to short they
won't reach the speaker.


To paraphrase ...

'Cables should be made as short as possible, but not any shorter.'

rd
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nebulax nebulax is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Apr 5, 12:05*pm, DeeAa wrote:
Hey,

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume. It makes
sense, the cable 'dissipates' the power in layman's terms or
something. I'm no pro with this stuff so bear with me please.

So it's always best to have identical lenght and thickness for stereo.
OK. Even I can hear a difference.

BUT I came to thinking...IF you can't have same lengths no matter
what, which kind of cables would make the difference less noticeable -
thicker or thinner? I mean, if the cables are different length and
thin, it would make sense that even less 'power' can reach the
speaker.

But then again, if we use a really thick cable, does it make it easier
for the current to pass to the speaker and translate to less signal
loss, OR would it mean more material for the amp to push and make the
longer cable speaker quieter still?

Which way around does it work?

Cheers,

Dee




According to the 'male enhancement' ads I've been seeing lately, both
length and thickness are very important!


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Geoff Geoff is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Tim Perry wrote:
"DeeAa" wrote in message
...
Hey,

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume. It



As my lady-friend says, it's the width that she feels.


geoff


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George's Pro Sound Company George's Pro Sound Company is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

.. In both cases the cable should be as
heavy (numerically small gauge number) as practical, the
longer run being 12g or thicker.

What SPEAKER connectors (as in it must match the connector the speaker
manufacturer is supplying as oem)are you using that can accommodate larger
than 12 gauge stranded copper 12/4 SO does not fit in a nl4 12/4 swooj
barely fits
even 14 gauge(though possible) is a stretch for a NL4 and 12/8 impossible
for a nl8 connector
and even when you can bung the copper into the terminal the insulated cable
will not pass through the strain reliefs
george


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Mike Rivers Mike Rivers is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Apr 5, 12:05 pm, DeeAa wrote:

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume. It makes
sense, the cable 'dissipates' the power in layman's terms or
something.


That's the theory, but in practice it depends on how "clearly"
different the cable lengths are. If you're talking about 10 feet to
one speaker and 1000 feet the other, if they're the same gauge, you
probably will hear a difference in volume. If you're talking 25 and 30
feet, you probably won't hear a difference.

OK. Even I can hear a difference.


In that case, your speaker cables are grossly undersized.

BUT I came to thinking...IF you can't have same lengths no matter
what, which kind of cables would make the difference less noticeable -
thicker or thinner?


Thicker, for sure, assuming you're talking about wire gauge.

But then again, if we use a really thick cable, does it make it easier
for the current to pass to the speaker and translate to less signal
loss


In layman's terms, yes. The resistance of the cable is lower, so less
voltage will be dropped across the cable and most of what comes out of
the amplifier will be available to the speaker.

You can find a copper wire table on the Web that will give you the
resistance in ohms per (usually) thousand feet for a given wire gauge.
You can use Ohm's Law to calculate the power lost inn the cable and
see if it's signinficant.
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Geoff Geoff is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Steve wrote:
Length is by far the most important because if they are to short they
won't reach the speaker.


No, thickness is equally important. It may be long enough, but if it has
zero thickness, then it still won't work well.


geoff


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Paul P[_3_] Paul P[_3_] is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Mike Rivers wrote:

You can find a copper wire table on the Web that will give you the
resistance in ohms per (usually) thousand feet for a given wire gauge.
You can use Ohm's Law to calculate the power lost inn the cable and
see if it's signinficant.


I think the number of strands is important as well since the
current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a wire and
more (smaller) strands makes for more surface area. This is
why good speaker cable has a whole pile of strands.

I don't go for expensive name cable. If its copper, is 14ga or
bigger made up from a really large number of strands, I'm happy.
You need a good soldering gun though.

Paul P


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Geoff Geoff is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Paul P wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:

You can find a copper wire table on the Web that will give you the
resistance in ohms per (usually) thousand feet for a given wire
gauge. You can use Ohm's Law to calculate the power lost inn the
cable and see if it's signinficant.


I think the number of strands is important as well since the
current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a wire and
more (smaller) strands makes for more surface area. This is
why good speaker cable has a whole pile of strands.

I don't go for expensive name cable. If its copper, is 14ga or
bigger made up from a really large number of strands, I'm happy.
You need a good soldering gun though.


Yes, this is very important for mega-super-duer-tweeter wiring, where
skin-effect starts to have an effect at several hundred KHz.

However each of those strands needs to be insulated from the adjacent ones.


geoff


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William Sommerwerck William Sommerwerck is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume.


Not true.


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William Sommerwerck William Sommerwerck is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

You can find a copper wire table on the Web that will give you the
resistance in ohms per (usually) thousand feet for a given wire gauge.
You can use Ohm's Law to calculate the power lost inn the cable and
see if it's signinficant.


I think the number of strands is important as well since the
current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a wire and
more (smaller) strands makes for more surface area. This is
why good speaker cable has a whole pile of strands.


Again, not true. And as the strands are rarely insulated, the cable acts
more or less like a single wire of the same diameter.


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Laurence Payne[_2_] Laurence Payne[_2_] is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 23:04:01 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume.


Not true.


You'd better explain why you don't think additional cable resistance
lowers volume?

A little time ago I attended a "testing" session at a hi-fi magazine,
intended to prove the effect of various types of magic cable. The
whole thing was completely shambolic - they made no attempt to set up
A/B switching, let alone double-blind testing. But they did prove one
thing - 40 feet of bell wire passed less volume than 6 feet of
adequate-size cable.

http://www.auym23.dsl.pipex.com/cables.html
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Laurence Payne[_2_] Laurence Payne[_2_] is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:54:09 -0400, Paul P wrote:

I think the number of strands is important as well since the
current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a wire and
more (smaller) strands makes for more surface area. This is
why good speaker cable has a whole pile of strands.


I suddest you check the science on that point before repeating
audiophile mythology :-)


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Bigguy[_4_] Bigguy[_4_] is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

DeeAa wrote:
Hey,

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume. It makes
sense, the cable 'dissipates' the power in layman's terms or
something. I'm no pro with this stuff so bear with me please.

No, not generally so; yes a longer cable (of same guage) will have a
higher resistance and higher attenuation - this will NOT mean it is
lower in volume (unless we are talking REALLY long cables or VERY high
powers).

To hear any difference would require at least -0.5dB to -1dB drop in
level (depending on frequency).

Moving your listening position a few feet will produce much bigger
changes in level.

So it's always best to have identical lenght and thickness for stereo.
OK. Even I can hear a difference.

No, you can't ;-) Not with any 'reasonable' cable anyway...
At least not in any room smaller than the Carnegie Hall.

Tiny differences in attenuation are completely swamped by the relativly
large differences between a 'pair' of speakers.
Unless you have very expensive monitors your speakers will not match
(freq' response, sensitivity) anywhere near +-2dB.


BUT I came to thinking...IF you can't have same lengths no matter
what, which kind of cables would make the difference less noticeable -
thicker or thinner? I mean, if the cables are different length and
thin, it would make sense that even less 'power' can reach the
speaker.


Thicker, Yes...

But then again, if we use a really thick cable, does it make it easier
for the current to pass to the speaker and translate to less signal
loss, OR would it mean more material for the amp to push and make the
longer cable speaker quieter still?

Which way around does it work?


Thicker cable = lower resistance = less signal loss.

Damping factor is changed by high resistance cables - this can be audible.

Cheers,

Dee


All IMHO

Guy
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Paul P wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:

You can find a copper wire table on the Web that will give you the
resistance in ohms per (usually) thousand feet for a given wire gauge.
You can use Ohm's Law to calculate the power lost inn the cable and
see if it's signinficant.


I think the number of strands is important as well since the
current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a wire and
more (smaller) strands makes for more surface area. This is
why good speaker cable has a whole pile of strands.

No, skin effect is not significant at audio frequencies (unless you work
at 96KHz, with measurement mics and do bat research).

With CD sources 22KHz is the upper limit.

Cables are stranded; to make them flexible and because audio
'enthusiasts' demand it.

Solid core - either CAT5 or mains twin + earth make perfectly good
speaker cables. Solid copper rods would be excellent - but impractical!

Low resistance is important (less power loss, better damping factor).

Low inductance and low capacitance is best (this is found in most common
speaker cable - not so for some 'exotic' audiophool stuff).

Guy
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William Sommerwerck William Sommerwerck is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 23:04:01 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:


When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume.


Not true.


You'd better explain why you don't think additional cable resistance
lowers volume?


You need to explain why a tiny difference in resistance produces an audible
difference in volume level.

Your original statement is not properly qualified with respect to the kind
of cable used, how "clearly different" the lengths are, etc..


A little time ago I attended a "testing" session at a hi-fi magazine,
intended to prove the effect of various types of magic cable. The
whole thing was completely shambolic - they made no attempt to
set up A/B switching, let alone double-blind testing. But they did
of prove one thing - 40 feet of bell wire passed less volume than 6 feet
adequate-size cable.


And this proves -- what? -- about speaker wiring in general?


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Arny Krueger Arny Krueger is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

"DeeAa" wrote in message


When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of
clearly different length, the speaker with longer cord
will be lower in volume.


But maybe not that much. A well-designed speaker cable will only have a few
tenths of a DB attenuation.

BTW we don't design speaker cables to control over-all attenuation, we
design speaker cables to provide good "damping", or IOW to minimize having
the speaker cable upset the frequency response of the speaker.

It makes sense, the cable
'dissipates' the power in layman's terms or something.


Kinda-sorta. It's the damping part that matters most.

So it's always best to have identical lenght and
thickness for stereo. OK. Even I can hear a difference.


I'm not so sure about that. The audio world and particularly the audiophile
world seems to be obsessed with hearing differences. This obseesion has
become institutionalized to the point were a lot of weird stuff is accepted
by fact by a lot of people. It sells equipment, but it isn't healthy in the
long run.

BUT I came to thinking...IF you can't have same lengths
no matter what, which kind of cables would make the
difference less noticeable - thicker or thinner?


Thicker, right up to the point of diminishing returns.

Most of my home audio and studio speaker cables are 12 gauge, and for live
sound most are 14 gauge. I don't have any really long speaker cables for
live sound - I put the amps near the speakers, as a rule.


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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in
message
When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of
clearly different length, the speaker with longer cord
will be lower in volume.


Not true.


If you measure with a good meter, the difference will be (a) very obvious
and (b) probably in the range that makes no audible difference.




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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

"DeeAa" wrote in message

On 5 huhti, 20:39, "Paul Stamler"
wrote:
First off, how much difference are we talking about
here? 5' vs 10'? 50' vs. 100'? There's a difference.

Peace,
Paul


Twice the length. No biggie...it was like I figured it
is. Thanks!


Which twice? twice 5' or twice 100'. Twice 100' will probably be audible.


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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

"geoff" wrote in message

Paul P wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:

You can find a copper wire table on the Web that will
give you the resistance in ohms per (usually) thousand
feet for a given wire gauge. You can use Ohm's Law to
calculate the power lost inn the cable and see if it's
signinficant.


I think the number of strands is important as well since
the current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a
wire and more (smaller) strands makes for more surface
area. This is why good speaker cable has a whole pile
of strands. I don't go for expensive name cable. If its copper, is
14ga or bigger made up from a really large number of
strands, I'm happy. You need a good soldering gun though.


Yes, this is very important for mega-super-duer-tweeter
wiring, where skin-effect starts to have an effect at
several hundred KHz.


If you have really thick speaker cables there are actually some measurable
losses at 20 KHz.

However, inductance usually causes more losses in speaker cable than skin
effect.

Speaker cables that function as 8 ohm transmission lines address the
inductance problem, but building such a cable is non-trivial.

However each of those strands needs to be insulated from
the adjacent ones.


It takes even more stringent efforts than just insulation to address skin
effect. The wire strands need to be magnetically separated from their
adjacent strands for skin effect to be controlled.

Monster made a speaker cable with individually-insulated strands. In my
measurements, it performed substantially the same as a comparable wire with
ordinary bare strands.

AFAIK Monster has shifted to a speaker cable based on a foamed plastic
filler with the conductive strands wrapped around it. This could actually be
somewhat effective as far as skin effect goes. However the very same
construction technique is disadvantageous when it comes to inductance.

That's why a common format for low-loss coaxial cable for very high
frequencies is a silver-plated light metal tubing.

The most practical way to quickly and economically have a cable that has the
lowest practical loss across the full audio band is to use a heavy coax with
a very large solid copper center conductor. Not that cable loss is a
significant audible problem for most audiophiles.


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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Apr 5, 10:54 pm, Paul P wrote:

I think the number of strands is important as well since the
current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a wire and
more (smaller) strands makes for more surface area. This is
why good speaker cable has a whole pile of strands.


You've been reading too many audiophile magazines. The reason why good
speaker cable is stranded is because you can make a larger diameter
cable more flexible (and therefore more manageable) by using stranded
wire.

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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

DeeAa wrote:

When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of clearly different
length, the speaker with longer cord will be lower in volume. It makes
sense, the cable 'dissipates' the power in layman's terms or
something. I'm no pro with this stuff so bear with me please.


This shouldn't really be the case unless your losses through the cable are
very substantial. And if your cable losses are very substantial, you need
a larger cable.

But then again, if we use a really thick cable, does it make it easier
for the current to pass to the speaker and translate to less signal
loss, OR would it mean more material for the amp to push and make the
longer cable speaker quieter still?

Which way around does it work?


The cable is a resistor. The speaker is a resistor. They are in series
with one another. You want as much energy in the speaker as possible and
as little wasted in the cable as possible, so you want to either increase
the impedance of the speaker or decrease the resistance of the speaker cable.
Normally the easier thing to do is to decrease the resistance of the cable,
but for extremely long runs it may be more effective to use transformers at
either end to increase the load impedance that the cable sees.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:54:09 -0400, Paul P wrote:


I think the number of strands is important as well since the
current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a wire and
more (smaller) strands makes for more surface area. This is
why good speaker cable has a whole pile of strands.



I suddest you check the science on that point before repeating
audiophile mythology :-)


Thanks, I just did. And then edited my knowledge base.

Paul P


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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

Roy W. Rising wrote:
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Normally the easier thing to do is to decrease the resistance of
the cable, but for extremely long runs it may be more effective to use
transformers at either end to increase the load impedance that the cable
sees. --scott


You Devil, You! ;-)


Hey, I saw lots of Altec A-5s and A-7s set up for 24 ohm use, just because
you get a third of the cable losses on that long run from the projection
booth down to the speaker backstage.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

In article , Paul P wrote:
Laurence Payne wrote:
On Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:54:09 -0400, Paul P wrote:


I think the number of strands is important as well since the
current is supposed to flow only on the surface of a wire and
more (smaller) strands makes for more surface area. This is
why good speaker cable has a whole pile of strands.


I suddest you check the science on that point before repeating
audiophile mythology :-)


Thanks, I just did. And then edited my knowledge base.


To be honest, I do believe that the stranding can cause audible changes,
but they aren't severe ones, and I don't have any explanation for why it
could happen. It sure as hell has nothing to do with skin effect, though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"DeeAa" wrote in message


When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of
clearly different length, the speaker with longer cord
will be lower in volume.


But maybe not that much. A well-designed speaker cable will only have a
few tenths of a DB attenuation.

BTW we don't design speaker cables to control over-all attenuation, we
design speaker cables to provide good "damping", or IOW to minimize having
the speaker cable upset the frequency response of the speaker.


Well, yes and no.

"Damping" is part of the story -- additional resistance between the
amplifier output and the speaker will change the "Q" of the woofer, which
will change the frequency response. Usually more for a vented-box speaker,
less for a closed box.

But there's another issue. If you put additional resistance between the amp
and speaker, you're creating a voltage divider, with the series element
formed by the cable resistance (plus the amplifier's output impedance, but
these days that's usually negligible), and the shunt element formed by the
speaker's impedance. The latter is usually far from flat, and with any
appreciable resistance from the cable, you create a response curve which
follows the impedance curve of the speaker. Do that with two speakers and
different cable lengths, you'll get two different response curves.

It's pretty academic when you're dealing with short runs in a control room,
as long as you use reasonably heavy cable (say 12 gauge). It's a real issue
when you're running, say, 50 or 100 feet of cable in an auditorium. That's
one reason it's nice to keep the amps as close to the speakers as possible,
and why people like active speakers, at least for smaller applications.

Peace,
Paul




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George's Pro Sound Company George's Pro Sound Company is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?


"Paul Stamler" wrote in message
...
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"DeeAa" wrote in message


When you connect a pair of speakers with cables of
clearly different length, the speaker with longer cord
will be lower in volume.


But maybe not that much. A well-designed speaker cable will only have a
few tenths of a DB attenuation.

BTW we don't design speaker cables to control over-all attenuation, we
design speaker cables to provide good "damping", or IOW to minimize
having the speaker cable upset the frequency response of the speaker.


Well, yes and no.

"Damping" is part of the story -- additional resistance between the
amplifier output and the speaker will change the "Q" of the woofer, which
will change the frequency response. Usually more for a vented-box speaker,
less for a closed box.

But there's another issue. If you put additional resistance between the
amp and speaker, you're creating a voltage divider, with the series
element formed by the cable resistance (plus the amplifier's output
impedance, but these days that's usually negligible), and the shunt
element formed by the speaker's impedance. The latter is usually far from
flat, and with any appreciable resistance from the cable, you create a
response curve which follows the impedance curve of the speaker. Do that
with two speakers and different cable lengths, you'll get two different
response curves.

It's pretty academic when you're dealing with short runs in a control
room, as long as you use reasonably heavy cable (say 12 gauge). It's a
real issue when you're running, say, 50 or 100 feet of cable in an
auditorium. That's one reason it's nice to keep the amps as close to the
speakers as possible, and why people like active speakers, at least for
smaller applications.

Peace,
Paul
OTOH when you run speakers sometimes 600 feet apart like I do compareing
the volume to within even a few dB's is a waste of time as you will NEVER
be in the near feild of any two speakers at the same time

I would say this is true even with speakers just 100 feet apart
one will ALWAYS be dominant in your listening zone so who the hell cares,
make it sound good, head for catering
george


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Chris Hornbeck Chris Hornbeck is offline
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Mon, 6 Apr 2009 07:45:23 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

If you measure with a good meter, the difference will be (a) very obvious
and (b) probably in the range that makes no audible difference.


A good conservative number is wire DC resistance (yeah, I know,
I know) less than 1/10th the measured speaker DC resistance
(same yeah, yeah).

Better numbers don't hurt anything, and somewhat worse isn't
the end of civilization as we know it. Just a ballpark number
to get us started, and conservative enough for professional use.

Much thanks, as always,
Chris Hornbeck
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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?


"Ben Bradley" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 18:33:41 -0400, "George's Pro Sound Company"
wrote:

. In both cases the cable should be as
heavy (numerically small gauge number) as practical, the
longer run being 12g or thicker.

What SPEAKER connectors (as in it must match the connector the speaker
manufacturer is supplying as oem)are you using that can accommodate larger
than 12 gauge stranded copper 12/4 SO does not fit in a nl4 12/4 swooj
barely fits
even 14 gauge(though possible) is a stretch for a NL4 and 12/8 impossible
for a nl8 connector
and even when you can bung the copper into the terminal the insulated
cable
will not pass through the strain reliefs


It won't look "professional" or pretty, but you can patch a few
inches of 16 gauge wire between the 12 gauge cable and the connector.
With that short distance, the increase in resistance from adding the
16 gauge is insignificant.

george


generally I will strip theheavy insulation back and replace it with shrink
tube
george




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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 18:33:41 -0400, "George's Pro Sound Company"
wrote:

. In both cases the cable should be as
heavy (numerically small gauge number) as practical, the
longer run being 12g or thicker.

What SPEAKER connectors (as in it must match the connector the speaker
manufacturer is supplying as oem)are you using that can accommodate larger
than 12 gauge stranded copper 12/4 SO does not fit in a nl4 12/4 swooj
barely fits
even 14 gauge(though possible) is a stretch for a NL4 and 12/8 impossible
for a nl8 connector
and even when you can bung the copper into the terminal the insulated cable
will not pass through the strain reliefs


It won't look "professional" or pretty, but you can patch a few
inches of 16 gauge wire between the 12 gauge cable and the connector.
With that short distance, the increase in resistance from adding the
16 gauge is insignificant.

george


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Default Which is more important in speaker cables - thickness or lenght?

On Mon, 6 Apr 2009 07:46:45 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"DeeAa" wrote in message

On 5 huhti, 20:39, "Paul Stamler"
wrote:
First off, how much difference are we talking about
here? 5' vs 10'? 50' vs. 100'? There's a difference.

Peace,
Paul


Twice the length. No biggie...it was like I figured it
is. Thanks!


Which twice? twice 5' or twice 100'. Twice 100' will probably be audible.


And if it's a "guitar cable" used as a speaker cable, twice 5'
could be audible. The difference could become extremely audible at
high volume, where the current through the cable could cause the wire
to melt and open up, causing a drastic (!) drop in sound level.

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