On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:32:23 -0400, mc wrote:


I'd look for bad splices first. Beyond that, telephone wire really isn't
suitable for speaker connections. Each of your 4 wires is
(approximately) 22-24 AWG. When you bundle them together, they may be
close to 14 AWG in overall size, but they won't have the current
carrying capacity of a real 14 AWG wire made if many very tiny strands.

My understanding is exactly the opposite -- that separate strands (of the
correct total cross sectional area) are better than a single wire. That's
because of "skin effect" (tendency of high frequencies to be carried at
the periphery of the wire, although that is probably negligible at audio
frequencies) and also because of better heat dissipation.

Skin effect isn't an issue.

But I wouldn't consider 4 strands to be a *real* stranded cable. When
you've only got 4 strands bundled together, you've got a pretty high
percentage of air to copper. And air's not a particularly good conductor.