mrogge Posted December 8, 2009 Share Posted December 8, 2009 Should I use 12/2 or BI-WIRE my speakers using 14/4. The 14/4 cable is cheaper!! I came across a rep at STRAIGHT WIRE that suggested I look into 14/4 wire instead of the 12/2. Initially he suggested for me to bundle the 14/4 into two channels but when I pointed out that my speakers were bi-wire capable he liked that idea better. We went as far as to suggest that 14/4 bundled as two channels was equal to approxilately 11/2 worth of awg. I have Klipsch THX Ultra II setup. So if its cheaper to bi-wire my system using 14/4 would there be any benefit one way or another???? Ive already decided to go with the Monoprice cable or whatever I can come up with cheap online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coytee Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 I just installed 300' of Carol Cable outdoor stranded low voltage wire (12g) so I think my opinion is going to be worthless. I think one reasonable question is, how far are you running your lines? I don't know the lengths but if you're running them "X" feet then 14g would be fine. If you are running them "X+Y" feet then the larger wire might be better. I'm personally not sold on biwiring. BiAMPING sure, but not biwiring, even though there are those who are avid supporters of it. My 2 cents is if you're going to go that far, go the rest of the way and get the full benefits of biamping (presuming your speakers allow) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrogge Posted December 9, 2009 Author Share Posted December 9, 2009 My cable runs are Front LCR 25' ea Side LR 45' ea Rear LR 45' ea Speakers are Klipsch THX Ultra II. They are bi-wire ready. There are four posts with a removable metal plate/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 We ARE talking about fine stranded conductors, aren't we? Bi-wiring is an easy way to add cross-sectional area to the conductors carrying the power to your speakers, IF you need it. I have trouble believing it does anything else. I don't have a chart handy, but at your distances, I'd use doubled 14 ga. stranded wire (2 conductors per phase) if the area of two 14s is greater than one 12. Otherwise, I'd run a pair of 12s to each speaker. I would not biwire the 14s, but run each pair in parallel so you get the lowest possible resistance between the amp and the speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrogge Posted December 9, 2009 Author Share Posted December 9, 2009 Still no bi-wire fans!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 Still no bi-wire fans!! on the contrary ..i happily bi-wire. placebo or not ..i like the sound of my 18/22AWG magnet wire mix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coytee Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 Rhetorical question: If you consider biwiring beneficial and consider biwiring with 14g wire... would you be even better off if you biwired with 12g? (disclaimer: my wife will tell you that given my druthers, I'll over-kill anything that I design if I can possibly over-kill it) [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 Rhetorical question: If you consider biwiring beneficial and consider biwiring with 14g wire... would you be even better off if you biwired with 12g? (disclaimer: my wife will tell you that given my druthers, I'll over-kill anything that I design if I can possibly over-kill it) my personal experience would indicate the contrary. i tinkered with several gauges and finally landed on a mix of 18AWG to the woofers and 22awg to the tweeters. spent some time listening and really liked how my rf-5's sound. so i figured, double runs of 12awg surely would sound awesome and deliver more power. after several hours of making pretty cables i hooked them up and was immediately disappointed. the speakers were very shrill and lacking in detail. epic fail. i had my wife listen, without telling her i swapped cables, and she made similar comments. cool, so it wasn't my ears fooling me. i went back to the 18/22 combo and haven't looked back. definitely tinker, but for me the assumption that huge gauge=awesome sound no longer rings true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted December 10, 2009 Share Posted December 10, 2009 my personal experience would indicate the contrary. i tinkered with several gauges and finally landed on a mix of 18AWG to the woofers and 22awg to the tweeters. spent some time listening and really liked how my rf-5's sound. so i figured, double runs of 12awg surely would sound awesome and deliver more power. after several hours of making pretty cables i hooked them up and was immediately disappointed. the speakers were very shrill and lacking in detail. epic fail. You could get a couple of Mills non-inductive 2 ohm resistors and hook them in series with each speaker lead and get about the same effect as you describe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 "You could get a couple of Mills non-inductive 2 ohm resistors and hook them in series with each speaker lead and get about the same effect as you describe." Mere BS on your part. 10' of two-conductor 18ga is 0.1277 ohms, 10' of two-conductor 22ga is 0.328 ohms. Solid wire sounds different than stranded wire. Solid also measures different than stranded wire. http://www.hps4000.com/pages/spksamps/speaker_wire.pdf (a 5dB HF difference measured in a long speaker run) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 "You could get a couple of Mills non-inductive 2 ohm resistors and hook them in series with each speaker lead and get about the same effect as you describe." Mere BS on your part. 10' of two-conductor 18ga is 0.1277 ohms, 10' of two-conductor 22ga is 0.328 ohms. So what? The point I was making is that increasing the wire resistance decreases the effective damping factor of the amplifier, as seen by the load. This has the observed effect of smoothing the freq response of the speaker in thr HF range. Solid wire sounds different than stranded wire. Solid also measures different than stranded wire. http://www.hps4000.com/pages/spksamps/speaker_wire.pdf (a 5dB HF difference measured in a long speaker run) An interesting read. Next time I am running 300 feet of speaker wire I'll try that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrogge Posted December 11, 2009 Author Share Posted December 11, 2009 Good read/ I feel SMARTER now. But my runs arent that long and I would want to use romex for my speakers. But it also says in plain english to buy the cheapest 12/2 you can find, that the cheapest is the same as the most expensive. But still... back to the original question. I can bi-wire using 14-4 for the same price as wireing using 12-2. Which is better? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 back to my point ..it's not just a simple "go with 12awg cuz bigger is always better" answer. using the same material but larger gauge produced horrible sound in my experience. the same cables can sound drastically different depending on the gear and room dynamics. yes, there is a lot of misinformation, placebo effect, and shady business. but there is also definitely the possibility that one can recognize audible differences ...so you might just have to try a few different things and see what you like (or don't) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrogge Posted December 11, 2009 Author Share Posted December 11, 2009 I decided to wire with 12/2. I got a deal on some Monster Cable OMC 12/2 CL3 wire. I bought some partial spools and paid the same as what the generic 12/2 would have cost. I didnt pay anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coytee Posted December 12, 2009 Share Posted December 12, 2009 I got a deal on some Monster Cable OMC 12/2 CL3 wire I don't know exactly what I had other than it was Monster 12/2 clear jacketed speaker wire. That said, if you are running yours behind the drywall as mine was setup, I'd be cautious. I just discovered mine had multiple sections where the wire inside looked like it had rotted out. Fortunately, I could see that because of the clear jacket. The clear jacket was also deteoriating where it felt gummy and would leave a water repelling greasy film on my hands as I was yanking it out. Yank it out I was too! I cut it to pieces to get it out of the joists, stuffed it into a trashbag and it's now gone. Not saying yours will do this. I'm just glad I've been slow to get my drywall up in the basement or I would have not discovered this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 " The point I was making is that increasing the wire resistance decreases the effective damping factor of the amplifier, as seen by the load. " The REAL damping factor is what is seen by the back EMF generated by the voice coil of the driver driven by the inertia of the cone. The current generated by the back EMF must travel through the voice coil DCR, the woofer inductor DCR, various contact DCR, and the speaker wireDCR; then it looks into the amplifier output impedance (assumed to be a short, 0R0). Since a typical 8 ohm woofer has a DCR of about 5R6, and the 0R5 of a stock Klipsch woofer inductor, the effect of adding adding 0R1277 speaker wire is trivial. "This has the observed effect of smoothing the freq response of the speaker in thr HF range." Adding resistance in series with a tweeter attenuates the lower frequency range and boosts the higher frequencies (relative to the lower frequency cut). Again, this can be calculated my modeling the Le of the driver in series with the Re of the driver in series with the Re of the external resistance (the wire). In this case too, the 0R328 of the wire has a trivial effect. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's the point of all this? Wire can, and does, affect the sound. Is is a huge, or even large effect? No, but it is still audible. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Years ago I heard the difference between 30' of stranded 12ga and solid 14ga wire, the solid sounded better. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Years ago I heard the difference between bi-wire and uno-wire with about 50' of stranded wire, the uno-wire sounded distorted by comparison (I was called in to repair the audible distortion. It was expected that I would re-cone the drivers or replace the amplifier. I ended up replacing the wire). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What would I do in this situation? My first choice would be to use solid wire in the walls and short flexible runs from the wall to the speakers and amplifiers (what I did in the experiment years ago). Second choice would be to bi-wire with stranded 14/4. Last choice would be to uno-wire with stranded 12/2. Will any of this matter 100 years from now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Adding resistance in series with a tweeter attenuates the lower frequency range and boosts the higher frequencies (relative to the lower frequency cut). Again, this can be calculated my modeling the Le of the driver in series with the Re of the driver in series with the Re of the external resistance (the wire). In this case too, the 0R328 of the wire has a trivial effect. Adding resistance in series with the tweeter attenuates the entire range that the tweeter reproduces. It also affects the crossover point. So what? We aren't even talking about the wire between the crossover and tweeter, but between the amp and crossover. Adding resistance to speaker cables may have a swamping effect relative to skin effect, which is the increasing rise in impedance with rising frequency. There is a combination of things going on that causes differing HF response due to wires, and a lot of it depends on the amplifier used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.