Joe Sensor wrote:
Agent 86 wrote:

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.

Pretty high percentage of air to copper? What does this
mean?

It probably means we've got someone who seems to be confused
with how wire is specified. Wire is specified in terms of
actual area of conductor. Any air between the individual
conductors in a stranded bundle doesn't count.

This means that a standed wire bundle might be a little
larger in diameter than the corresponding solid wire.

And there would be nothing wrong with 1 strand!

Agreed.

It's common mistake to believe that stranding wire does
something about skin effect. It doesn't. Skin effect is a
magnetic effect. As long as there is magnetic coupling
between the strands, the skin effect is about the same. That
means that stranding the wire does nothing to affect skin
effect, and neither does insulating the strands from each
other.

A true low skin effect wire deals with the magnetic effects
by either making the conductor in the shape of a tube, or
winding the strands of stranded wire around an non-magnetic
core. Plastic has been used for the core material of
low-skin-effect wire. However, increasing the diameter of
the conductor usually increases the inductance of the wire
unless the wire is coax. Inductance of speaker cables can be
a larger source of losses than skin effect.

The good news is that skin effect just isn't a problem at
regular audio frequencies. It's not going to diminish the
sheen of cymbals, etc. Unless the speakers have very low
impedance, inductance isn't much of a problem, either.