Good speaker wire

[mowntnbkr]

I was told enamel coated magnet wire is great to use for speaker wire. What is the consensus. If not what do most of you use?

[TBrennan]

Yeah, there are hornies in southern California that tout magnet wire. Never tried it myself though I've used fairly long runs of solid bell-wire when nothing else was at hand and with no obviously bad effects. Usually I just use whatever lamp-cord I have around or I get some at the hardware store.

It won't cost you much to try magnet wire, give it a shot if curious.

[Speedball]

Sounds like you ought to try that magnet wire, it may work wonders for you. If you do let us know how it works out, it sounds cheap enough.

[Deang]

Order some Supra Classic 2.5 from Madisound. At $1.32 a foot it's not too painful and it's damn good wire.

[efzauner]

Hello

Why use magnet wire? In terms of conductivity, there will be no difference between equivalent gauges of stranded and magnet wire. However after conductivity, or overall resistance, the next factors in speaker wire is the distance between conductors. Zip cord is has almost an ideal separation. Capacitance goes up as the wires get closer together and inductance increases as the wires get further apart. This is also why 10-12 guauge is also the best. 8 gauge is thick and has thicker insulation and therefore the wires tend to be further apart and have higher inductance. So the question is, how are you going to run the 2 individual conductors? The best thing to do would be to twist them. However, the bottom line is that there is no advantage to using magnet wire, and many disadvantages, one of them being that it is stiff, and if you get a kink, it is hard to remove and tends to weaken the wire and it then breaks easily.

There is a very good analysis of speaker wire at www.audioholics.com.

[Malcolm]

I bet PWK is rolling over in his grave...

[jt1stcav]

I dunno about speaker cable, but I'm using a batch of MagWire Naked interconnects made from fine quality magnet wire (brother bought loads of 'em on AudiogoN a year or so ago...can't find them anywhere now). Sure, they're stiff and kinks are a b!tch to straighten out. But to my ears they perform as good (if not better) as any other audiophile ICs out on the market. Bet speaker cables made of this stuff are just as good IMO.

[Speedball]

Oh,

Right now I happen to be using 10ga solid core copper electrical wire and I'm very satisfied.

......let pwk roll.

[Al Klappenberger]

MAGNET WIRE !! Horse hockey!

Magent wire is for magnets and inductors - ONLY! Using it for speaker cables is downright stupid!

Al K.

[colterphoto1]

way to hold back Al

LOL

I too use anything I can steal from a junked appliance.

No seriously, just good quality 16 ga zip cord. I prefer the type with 2x copper conductors because it's prettier. Banana plugs on everything cause I change it around so much.

Michael

[JBryan]

Magnet wire works better as an IC than speaker wire. Still if the run is short enough, I don't see why you shouldn't give it a try - its certainly a very cheap experiment (what - like $1/mile for this stuff?). The folks that like it say that there's less opportunity to pick up noise and they offer less resistance.

I tried it (32 gauge) on a pr of back-loaded horns with Fostex drivers and I liked them OK enough. The only downside I heard was that the bass was quite diminished compared to a pr of AlphaCore MI2 cables.

In a nut-shell, my experience suggested that MW offers fairly good transients and detail but lacks dynamics and is pretty fragile to work with - not something you'd want to use if you changed your gear around often. Try the ICs first and if you like what you hear, make some speaker wire.

Hope this helps -Bryan

[efzauner]

32 gauge? Why on earth? 32 gauge stranded or solid has about 0.165 ohm per foot. For a 10 foot run you will add 20x.165=3.3 ohms of resistance to your setup! That is HUGE. If your speakers are 4 ohms, you are lossing half the power in your speaker wires.

No wonder your bass sounded muddy, your damping factor was reduced considerably. Am I missing something here?

[Daddy Dee]

I know I've lived a sheltered life...

... but what is magnet wire?

[BS Button]

I know I've lived a sheltered life...

... but what is magnet wire?

Alone and sheltered in Kentucky. Again, what is magnet wire?

[efzauner]

Magnet wire is simply solid copper wire with a thin enamel insulator that can withstand higher heat. It is used for winding coils such as electromagnets and inductors. Any electric motor, transformer, speaker, crossover, darn even your door bell has magnet wire inside. Some fancy high power handling speakers will have aluminium wire to reduce weight, or even wire that it rectangular instead of round so that it is very tightly wound and can conduct heat better from the inside to the outside.

When comparing AWG, solid wire has a slightly lower resistance, maybe a percent or two. The difference is negligible I believe.

[JBryan]

"32 gauge stranded or solid has about 0.165 ohm per foot. For a 10 foot run you will add 20x.165=3.3 ohms of resistance to your setup!"

I will defer to you in regard to the math. I just try things that I hear about (if its not too much trouble or expense.. and won't harm me or my system). Magnet wire has its proponents as well as critics - I can't say that I liked what I heard but someone else might.

So if I understand you, a 10' run of 32g copper wire has more resistance than the same length of 12g copper wire. Is that correct and if so at what point would the thickness of wire (10' long) become negligible?

Thanks, Bryan

[Speedball]

Try some good old 10 gauge solid core electrical wire available from your local home store. It's reasonably cheap...easy to find and as long as Al K. says it's OK then it's OK.

I did...I'm happy...and I can tell a difference in the sound.

[JBryan]

"Try some good old 10 gauge solid core electrical wire available from your local home store."

Pat,

Are you referring to Romex? I liked it OK but found it a bit strident and its stiffness made it a bear to work with. I kept thinking that I was going to break a speaker terminal.

Have fun, Bryan

[Petrol]

I use simple 12 ga zip cord...

I recently ordered some bannana plugs because I have been changing stuff around pretty often as of late and wanted to make it easier and neater looking.

[Speedball]

Yeah Bryan,

It's Romex.

I am surprised at the bass and detail I am hearing compared to the Axiom very fine stranded 12 ga wire. To me it made a big difference and for the better and I would bet as with any change it is system dependent.

I found it stiff of course but since it stands out (stiff) then it made for a clean connection to the amp. It was a little tricky threading it through the speaker binding post holes but it was worth it, made for a clean job.