Speaker Wire Gauge (size)

[Daver88]

Hello All

I am the proud owner of a pair of 1978 vintage Heresy's. They sound as good today if not better than the day I brought them home and hooked them up. My

question is, and forgive me if it has already been covered, is there any appretiable difference by using a heavier gauge wire to connect speakers to

amps. I've read many articles written by some notable audiophiles 3 to be

exact and non of these guys could tell in a blind test which gauge of wire was being used. I understand resistance and all that entails but is there any

proof otherwise that says heavier is better.

Thanks guys

Dave

[Malcolm]

I am going to assume your are not a troll. This is a topic that generates a lot of heat. McIntosh labs did a test many years ago that indicated that for runs up to about 50 feet or so ,once the speaker cable is of adequate size, increasing it did not yield an audible improvement. This may be what you heard about. After 50 feet factors like capacitance and inductance were said to be significant considerations. A lot of new speaker cable geometries have been introduced since then. Anything that reduces capacitance and inductance will certainly improve the fidelity of the signal that reaches the speakers. It may or may not make an audible difference in a given case. But there are lots of "audiophiles" that claim they can hear a difference. Their usual response to someone who says that they cannot hear it is that your system is not good enough for you to hear it or your hearing is not good enough. For more information, misinformation and opinion that you will ever want on the topic, check out the cable forum at www.audioasylum.com.

FWIW I run 12 gauge twisted pair architectural cable in the walls of my house, have runs up to 50', and am quite happy with the performance.

[WMcD]

Yeah, Daver innocently blundered into a hotly contested area of debate.

This just shows that we really need an FAQ section. Moreso, it would have to have Frequent Answer section divided into 1) Those who advocate thick zip cord; 2) Those who advocate specific wire brands in price limits; 3) Everything else.

It could get hopelesssly complicated because PWK would fit into 1); the Klipsch factory seems to like Monster Wire Brand in 2); and many of our friends here are in 3).

Gil

[Mike82]

IME, cabling makes a slight difference, but not always improvement and not always thicker cable=better cable. When I was reviewing, I had a lot of stuff in my place and found that the sonic differences of different wire (whether improved definition, incr/decr treble, etc., etc.) had more to do with the type of amplifier that was being used than the speaker. Likely due to the afore mentioned inductance/ capacitance the amplifier "sees".

If you are using budget or lower mid-fi components, you might not notice much difference.

I like the 8 ga Analysis Plus Solo Monocrystal, but it's not cheap. The 47 Labs OTA cable is also very nice and is small gauge (something like 24 or 26). The Mapleshade and Goertz are pretty good buys. For sure though, zip cord doesn't cut it and I DON'T like silver cable. Even the megabuck stuff is bright and forward sounding. But if your compomnents are dark sounding, then silver might brighten things up.

The whole cabling thing is a real "can of worms".

Good luck,

Mike

[swells]

What are you using for speaker cable now? I just went through a similar upgrade. I had the same setup since the early 80's, 30' pair of 18 gauge zip wire. I upgraded to 12 gauge ofc (Oxygen Free Copper), as well as, rewired my heresy and diy interconnects. The change was incredible, I wish that I had of made these changes years ago. I plan of experimenting with some alternate speaker cables, but I also think that there is a point of return (appreciable change). If you are using 27 year old 18 gauge zip wire, get ride of it.

[jt1stcav]

For my Cornwall/MC250 combo, The best results thus far have been with the Orbeck Stratti 11 AWG cable (see www.audiogon.com under their speaker cable auctions).

Previously I used Kimber Kable 8TC with the Cornwalls; it was a very bright and stringent combination, totally unacceptable (the 8TC was originally bought for my Carver/Magnepan system, and there the Kimber Kable shined magnificantly!). Before that I used MIT Terminator 2 cables, but those really didn't sound much different from the original Monster Cable 18 AWG zipcord they replaced (not that they sounded bad, it didn't, but there just was no major improvement either).

I spoke to the president of Orbeck, Phil Becker while my cables were being made...come to find out, his lab equipment consisted of 4 KSB-1.1 monitors and a KSW-10 subwoofer, of which the Stratti cables were designed around. The fact that the Orbeck Stratti was a startling improvement in performance with my Cornwalls, and that a 10' terminated pair was only $69...I was sold immediately!

Check 'em out

[Daver88]

Well thanks so much for all of your responses...I've obviously touched a rather large and raw nerve. That being said, I suppose I should do some more research and trust what my ears are telling me. God forbid I should mention what I'm driving my Heresy's with for fear of a total ostracizing......lol Ok one last question Years ago I was batching with a buddy that owned a pair of Cornwall's. I of course had my Heresy's and he decided to wire them up in series on the left and on the right channels respectively. Is this a common practise? He was driving them with a phase linear amp system that to this day still blows me away,we're talking an incredible amount of headroom with this big block amp,althought I don't think we ever got it over 15 or 20 watts......... But Wow!

[Deang]

No, not a common practice - especially with 'Flame Linear' amps.

Uhg. Wire.

I agree with the amp/cable interface statement. It's not the wire -- it's the wire working with the amp on one end, and the speaker on the other. For whatever reason, I can't hear diddly squat of a difference between interconnects. I've tried very hard, but I can't hear it. It might be that all of the interconnects I have tried are not dissimiliar enough. I have never tried a pure silver interconnect.

Speaker cable is completely different, as I can easily hear differences.

Taking things to an extreme, to make sure I was not experiencing a placebo effect -- I broke down about 4 months ago and bought some silver speaker cables off of AudiogoN. I paid $160 for a set of Music Meter Silvers. Six teflon coated .22 gauge solid core strands of five nine silver per conductor/lead. Basically, I wanted to try a different conductor material. I argued with myself that if there was a difference between cables -- going to a different conductor would reveal it.

I hooked these into my system and the difference was VERY noticeable. In spite of smoothness and etched detail, I found them too cutting at higher SPL's. However, this demonstrated to me that I probably was in fact hearing some differences in the cables I was trying.

Rewiring the inside of my Cornwalls with Northcreek's silver coated copper made a difference. I didn't really expect to hear a difference, as the wire is after the crossover. I mainly did it to get some quality wire in the box that wouldn't turn green. I was surprised when greeted with cleaner treble. I subsequently rewired my RF-7's with this wire as well.

I have stayed with extremes in speaker cable. For example: I bought a set of Goertz M-1's. The Goertz 'thang' is very low inductance -- very high capacitance. The low inductance is achieved by getting the positive and negative leads of the foil as close together as possible. Consequently, capacitance is way up on these, and some solid state amplifiers will oscillate when wired to it http://www.alphacore.com/mifaq.html kind of begs the question doesn't it? If wire is wire -- then how can this happen? At any rate, I found the Goertz cable to be absolutely killer between my Cornwalls and Scott, and equally fine between my RF-7's and Quicksilver amps. Six feet of this stuff, with nice silver plated rhodium spades (that fit inside the barrier strips of terminal screws), run $114 a set. Not bad.

Next up is some Voodoo cable. I went for some Cardas Twinlinks. Also fairly inexpensive. Voodoo, because if you've ever been to the Cardas site, one is constantly bombarded with the 'Golden Q ratio'. Yeesh. What is appealing about the cable however, is the litz magnet wire construction and teflon/ cotton dielectric. Inductance is average, and capacitance is lower than most. Very different than the Goertz in both contruction and SOUND. This Cardas cable definitely sounds rolled off on the top compared to the Goertz and not as much mid-range detail. I actually prefer this cable on my RF-7's and Quicksilvers.

I would like to try the Analysis Plus Oval 12 -- but I'm out of money. I've heard good things about this cable.

The cable thing is interesting, and I think it's important to be open minded -- as long as you're not so open minded your brains fall out. With horns, I think it's good to stay with simple geometries, and I actually think the smaller gauges sound better. Comparisons with most of the 12 gauge OFC stranded I have laying around (Monster and Tributaries) -- the 15 AWG Goertz and Cardas sound much better in my tube based systems. By 'better', I mean 'cleaner'.

Copy and paste url below into your browser address bar if you want to see something neat about the Goertz HT cable (just clicking on it takes forever to load). It comes in a 25' roll, unterminated. You clip the ends with wire cutters and 'shape' spades. I ended up drilling holes to faciltate terminal strips. $84.

http://forums.klipsch.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=31061&sessionID={935BEAA4-2862-47B6-9132-509D3E3F010C}