Thic gauge speaker wire: Cons (1 Viewer)

[Adil M]

Besides being less "manageable" are there any cons to low gauge wiring. Does it affect the sound any compared to lesser gauge wiring?

 

[Joe Casey]

Well, IMO, thick equates to not being able to grasp all the electrical info passing through its strands of copper. They tend to slow down the electrons, and their response can be slurred under extreme conditions.

All a joke, of course.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Well on the Con side:

- Thicker wire is usually a few cents more per foot.

- Thicker wire is harder to hide/run under a carpet or up a wall.

- If you insert bare wire into your binding posts, the holes are often barely large enough for 12 ga.

A long run of speaker wire WILL roll off some of the highest audio frequencies. A thicker wire reduces the roll off, but it's still there.

The one guy who claimed to hear the roll off caused by a 15 foot speaker wire was using very accurate Magnapan speakers, 300 wpc amps, and classical music CD that he was very familar with.

All of the above is very different than the sound that comes out the rear of a HT setup.

Hope this helps.

 

[Adil M]

Exactly, but that's my point. I can understand buying thick gauge designer wire for the short runs, but the surrounds... I don't know. I guess we'd have to wait till the maturation of Multi-channel audio.

This question was based on a post I read where a guy was using short 30 gauge runs to "improve/tighten" the sound. Sounded like garbage, but was wondering if anyone else had any such experiences.

 

[Allan Jayne]

There are no cons to excessively thick speaker cables other than cost, manageability or physical appearance.
It is quite common to buy just one spool of 12 gauge wire instead of having leftover wire in different gauges.
Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[Saurav]

This question was based on a post I read where a guy was using short 30 gauge runs to "improve/tighten" the sound.

The best system I've heard in my life used 30 or 32 gauge wire. I have no idea how it would sound with 12 gauge wire. Of course, it was a setup using 1/2W tube amps and 108dB horn speakers. Incredible dynamics, volume, control, everything. However, the crucial point there is, 1/2W and 108dB. Even with very loud music, the owner said he reckoned there was a tenth of a watt going through the wires. This is very different from your usual setup, where speakers are much less efficient and the power (i.e., current and voltage) is much higher.

It's concievable that multiple strands of copper are noisier than a single strange of copper. Also possibly less accurate in maintaining signal phase and so on. However, this noise has a relatively fixed (and low) electrical level. As long as the signal level is much higher (the "typical" setup), this noise would be practically inaudible. Once you bring the level of the electrical signal down, the noise becomes a larger percentage of the total signal content. When you use very high efficiency speakers to play this tiny signal, the noise gets amplified more than it would in a "normal" setup.

So.... I can see how it could make a difference, in theory, if you were running very low powered amps and very high efficiency speakers. However, it's speculation, and I haven't heard the same system with different speaker cables to see if I can tell a difference. Some day, I might try 22 gauge magnet wire on my 8W tube amps.

 

[Chu Gai]

now you'd think there might be some slight roll off on the high end...tubes are an interesting breed though when it comes to wires...just a wee bit different than solid state. what were the speakers...avantegardes?

 

[Saurav]

Oris. It's sold fully assembled or DIY, I believe he bought the DIY parts, built the sub cabinet himself, and so on. AFAIK, he used to have Avantegarde Duos in his system before them.

I wonder if "time-smearing" could actually apply here - if the signal level is low enough, maybe multi-stranded cable no longer behaves like a single conductor, and the effect of all those paths from source to sink start to show? Who knows, and like I said, I didn't do a comparision, and it was a totally unfamiliar system and I was so impressed with it that I doubt I'd be in a position to make a critical analysis. Interestingly enough, he also just tinned the ends of the cable (to remove the varnish insulation, most likely) and wrapped them around the binding posts. No bananas/spades/etc.

now you'd think there might be some slight roll off on the high end

How much would there be with 15' of wire? Maybe that's what "sounds better", that's a possibility too. An amp driving speakers should have an output impedance that matches the speakers, right, for maximum power transfer. I don't know the impedance of the Oris horns.

 

[Chu Gai]

certainly its too difficult to attribute your enjoyment to any one thing in particular. Methinks thou hypothesises a bit too much about time smear and all that. tubes though are a strange beast reminding me of carbureted cars. capacitance of cables though in the case of tubes can play a role. Perhaps a thought for a different topic.

 

[RichardMA]

Besides being less "manageable" are there any cons to low gauge wiring. Does it affect the sound any compared to lesser gauge wiring?

There was a theory posted a couple years back that when

listening to high volume sound (home theatre at THX levels,

voices at 85db, some sounds hitting 120db)there were very

fast, very high wattage transients happening during very

loud passages where the amplifier was being asked to

reproduce (for a very short time) wattages approaching

2000-3000 or more. I never saw any data to back this

up, but the reports some people have generated about problems with distortion have suggested that a heavy guage

cable (4-10) will help keep the distortion to a minimum.

What some people are now doing is bi-wiring using a heavy

gauge copper wire (multistranded of course) for the woofer

and a thinner guage, higher quality (silver plated copper

with teflon cladding) wire for the tweeter/midrange.

Also, people have also reported improved sound (possibly

due to reduced RFI?) when the wire going to the tweeter is twisted to produce a shielding effect. With the amount

of crap in the air from the television and digital gear,

this is not surprising.

The whole idea is to experiment to see how various

cables effect the sound, if at all. Since basic copper

speaker wire is relatively cheap, it's something you

can work at to obtain the best result.

Of course, when you get into the name branded high end

speaker cables, it ceases to be cheap to experiment!

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

I have a question about different types of 12 gauge wire. I bought some at home depot that has very thick insulation with a group of strands that look like 8 gauge wire (Or thicker). [wouldn't fit in my Rotel amp so I had to solder audioquest silver spades]

Then when I went to home depot again and asked for 12 gauge I got some different flexible wire that has very thin strands with thin insulation. The wire LOOKs 12 gauge size.

They were both off 12 gauge spools, just that one was a thick patch of thick strands that made a stiff wire 1/2" wide, and the other was a thin group of thin strands in a thin wet noodle wire.

Is that what this thread is about? Thick or thin strands of the same gauge?

Does anyone know what wires I got? They were both about 35-40 cents a foot at home depot.

 

[Saurav]

Methinks thou hypothesises a bit too much about time smear and all that.

Quite possibly
Chris, the second wire you describe sounds like what I picked up from HD. No idea what the other one is. I vaguely remember seeing some spools of wire that looked like power supply wire - 3 solid wires of different gauges, maybe even in 12 gauge. Maybe you got something like that?

 

[Graeme Shiomi]

Depending on the wire design, higher gauges can throw Solid State Amps into fits. Ultra low gauge ultra high capacitance cables, such as Goertz 7 Gauge MI-3, can cause some amps to oscillate, which can actually damage your amp. But the number of modern amps with this problem, according to Goertz, is pretty small. Naim is one brand that definitely has a problem with those kinds of cable. However, Goertz has a little gadget that is supposed to alleviate the problem.

In terms of performance though, I've heard that increases in gauge can increase Bass level, but reduce bass control. I use the Chris Venhaus Cat-5 recipe, which ends up being around 9 gauge wire, and I haven't noticed any loose bass, or rolled off highs.

Graeme