Speaker Wire for Dummies, By A Dummy

[Champagne taste beer budget]

I fully expect to be flamed, ridiculed and written off as a neandrethal for this, but I'm going to write it anyway. I apologize to anyone that may take offense to it.

I am currently working on the insides of an HK 730 that shouldotta work, but doesn't. As I was poking around, measuring, cleaning, what have you, I noticed a few small, generic, roughly 16/14 gauge wires leading to the back of the unit. Tthe same wire you could buy a roll of at Walmart/NAPA for a nominal price. They ended up being the final wires to the external speaker connections on the back of the receiver, the red and black terminals we are all so familiar with. This led me to a question...

What would happen if I were to remove the red and black terminals on the back of the unit, drill holes in their place, and slip the wires from the inside, to the outside? I would now have a direct connection the the guts of the unit, and could solder any speaker wire I wanted onto those wires, making a complete and lossless connection directly from the output section of the receiver to the speakers.

My question, or observation, is that regardless of what I connect to the wire coming out of the back of the unit, be it lamp cord, Monster cable, Snuffies Super Duper Speaker Wire, or solid silver and gold stranded oxygen free, cyrogenically treated wire, it will not, and cannot, offset the effects and characteristics of the wire that it is connected to in the first place. Much like connecting my 3/4" garden hose, connected to the water spout on the side of my house, to a 4" diameter section of fire department hose, will not improve the pressure or flow rate at the end of the hose.

How can there be so much argument about something so seemingly basic? Or am I dummy writing a dumb post? If anyone can explain to me how the wire from the amp to the speaker can improve the wire from the actual internal amp to the speaker conection on the back of the amp, I would love to be enlightened.

[SilverSport]

By George, I think he's got it...I would agree with you, the differences being that some wire looks pretty, is made with a superior jacket...stands up to environmental (outside the box) issues better, makes us feel better (sometimes)...etc...I picked up Mon$ter wire when it was on closeout at Radio Shack for the superior (to me) outside jacket...anything else I MAY get is gravy...but honestly, I have heard nothing different from the Carol Branded lamp cord in 14GA it replaced...but then I never heard any "betterment" when trying 12GA or 10GA...just was a PITA to hook up...

Bill

[Islander]

I think that's called hard-wiring and is considered the best-sounding but least convenient way to hook up your speakers. Were you thinking of running some heavy-gauge speaker wire into the amp housing and connecting it directly to the circuit board? If you're willing to go to the trouble, there might be some improvement in the sound.

[oldtimer]

I agree with Islander about hard wiring. If it is gonna be there for next to forever why not? A long time ago I put in some Vampire wire to what are now the mains replacing some crappy lampcord. I could tell that it was better at the time. If you go from something really bad to something pretty good you may hear a difference. From pretty good to really good? Maybe. Off the topic about Neanderthals, I love the commercial where the cave man is in the airport on the moving sidewalk and sees the geico ad....

[SilverSport]

...oooops...on re-read...it appears I may have missed the boat on this one...

Bill

[mas]

mdeneen is exactly right! Reducing the total resistance, in general, is a "good thing". Another way this is commonly referred to is in terms of insertion loss and flat loss. 'Insertion loss' being the additional loss due to the connection and or component resistance and 'flat loss' referring to the losses due to resistance as the signal travels a given distance through a conductor with a given amount of resistance.

If you would like to run a speaker cable directly from the output stage to the speaker, that is fine, all be it perhaps not as convenient and as practical as using the output connectors. But it should raise a few questions for those who overlook the fact that many units are constructed internally in exactly the same fashion as you have described. And while minimizing the total resistance of the source/load connection is desirable, anything beyond this is rather akin to those who feel that using an exotically fancy AC power interconnect from the wall outlet to the unit (after the outlet being fed by how many yards of Romex) will somehow enhance current flow to a level greater than that supplied by the Romex feed.

Total resistance is the most critical factor here as inductive and capacitive reactance are typically very small. Unfortunately, aesthetics aren't rated in terms of resistance or reactance. []

[PrestonTom]

Of course there may be no difference at all!

Be that as it may, you would not need to remove the terminal from the back you could simply solder the wire on to the metal portion of the terminal. I would certainly not do any soldering on the circuit board. There is too much that can go wrong, especially since there may be no benefit at all in doing this.

I have had a number of experiences with speaker connections, where there was a real benefit in giving the connector a good cleaning and tightening them firmly. If you want to do a bit of soldering also, that will ensure a stable contact. Although this significantly increase the amount of hassle. Unless there is a problem, it is probably not worth it. Just clean the contacts instead.

Good Luck,

-Tom

[Parrot]

Mas,

Since a thicker speaker wire has less resistance than a thinner speaker wire, should one choose an infinitely thick speaker wire, or would something, say, with a one-inch cross-section be good enough? Also, what should a one-inch diameter speaker wire be terminated with? Thanks in advance.

[pauln]

Without being too offensive, keep in mind that any time one makes a change they will have to overcome an inate irresistable almost intinctual feeling that there will be a heard improvement. This is why so many physically insignificant tweaks are so successful. You could try to confirm the benefit by only doing one side and having someone help you audition the difference (without knowing which is which).

Speaker wires just need to be as short as possible - especially small ones. I have the leads that run from my crossovers to where they would normally connect to the speaker's internal terminals routed straight out to my monoblocks (about 18 inches) so I am in effect not really using speaker wires. Do I hear a difference? Of course I do - I did the work myself !

Be careful using the iron close to those circuits - not all components might survive the heat.

[Islander]

Bigger speaker wire means less resistance, but more capacitance. I think the sweet spot would be somewhat smaller than an inch in diameter, uless maybe you're wiring a very very large speaker for stadium use.

Six gauge is probably as big as anyone would ever want.

[Islander]

As for minor tweaks, my logic is that a tweak that provides, say, a 2 percent improvement is inaudible, but if I do five tweaks of similar effectiveness, that adds up to 10 percent, which will be audible.

[pauln]

Think positive - maybe tweaks in the signal path don't add, they multiply:

1.02 x 1.02 x 1.02 x 1.02 x 1.02 = 1.1040808032 = 10.4%

[mas]

Mas,

Since a thicker speaker wire has less resistance than a thinner speaker wire, should one choose an infinitely thick speaker wire, or would something, say, with a one-inch cross-section be good enough? Also, what should a one-inch diameter speaker wire be terminated with? Thanks in advance.

Good point, Paul! I personally choose to use only rare earth doped cryogenically treated and Litz configuration braided re-bar with the green and purple striped 3/8 inch thick insulation - as everyone knows those colors are proven conclusively to scare away EMI and dust bunnies. Besides, it holds 90 degree corners very well (after forming it with the torch!)

But if one is not as obsessive as me, observing the standard wire gauge tables and perhaps erroring on the side of a gauge larger than that recommended for the given length run is a simple and reasonable option. And this should allow all but the really affected to sleep well at night..

On a more serious note, Tom and pauln do raise good points. Soldering a heavy gauge cable directly to a circuit board is not only an easy way to toast the circuit board (and lift a few etchings), but it also transfers much more stress directly to the circuit board unless you employ a substantial method of strain relief, be in in the form of an additional anchor point that eliminates movement or a stout strain relief bushing.... considerations that bring one back to some of the various additional practical reasons that connectors have been employed.

And while I can understand how many focus on this aspect (cable) partly due to its being something with which the average person can deal, IMHO there are more significant sources of improvement with which to obsess...

But few provide as much material to laugh about! []

[oldenough]

So Champagne did you find that this was the cause of your problems, and the reciever now works fine?

[ByteWrangler]

Good question, but don't bother.

Your comparison to the garden hose/fire hose is apt, but you have it backward. If you need a fire-hose flow, then you can't use a garden hose. If, however, a garden hose is adequate, using a fire hose doesn't gain you much, if anything, and is a lot more trouble and expense. If you want to drink from a glass, use a straw; if you want to fill a pail, use a garden hose; if you want to fill a swimming pool or put out a house fire, use a fire hose. Trying to fill a pail from a fire hose is an exercise in futility.

Power a 100-watt lamp? 18-ga lamp cord is fine. Jump-start a car? Lamp cord won't work - use low-gauge jumper cables. 100 Watts into an 8-Ohm load is less than 4 Amps - half again that for peaks if you want. 16 ga. copper wire can handle 4 Amps continuous easily (a 16-ga. extension cord I just looked at is rated to 13 A). At the lengths you're dealing with inside that cabinet there will be no noticable effects because the resistance (a few hundredths of an Ohm) of a few inches of 16-ga copper wire and connectors (if they're clean) is negligible compared to the 8-Ohm (or 4 Ohms for that matter) total for the circuit. You could reduce that by a few hundredths of an Ohm (maybe) using heavier wires and no connectors, but it would make zip practical difference to the circuit for a large increase in effort (and risk of breaking something).

Going further upstream, how thick are the conductors those wires are connected to?

[jt1stcav]

It does make one stop and think...

I'm still thinking...if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm a dummy, I admit it...I'm all about enjoying the music and not worrying about how thick the wires coming from the PCB to the binding posts are, or if I should solder speaker cables directly to said board! I'm not knocking the approach by DIYers; it's just not my bag, man. I can't argue if straight wire with gain for the shortest signal path is the right approach or not (being a simpleton, my brain's not wired that way to figure these complex theories out), nor do I know if expensive megabuck cables really sound any better than the lamp cord PWK used on his Klipschorns. Maybe soldering cables to the PCB is a good idea (once "a substantial method of strain relief, be in in the form of an additional anchor point that eliminates movement or a stout strain relief bushing" is employed...thanks, mas), but I assume audio manufacturer's R&D departments have had that stuff all figured out already, which is why binding posts are installed to the backs of every amplifier and receiver out there. But, unless you know you're not gonna be rearranging your audio system and will eventually need either longer or shorter speaker cable lengths, then IMO by all means, try it out and see (and hear) what happens next.

But for me, I'd rather have the option to use any size speaker cables I desire and to replace each pair by unscrewing my amp's binding posts to replace 'em. Not being a DIYer, I don't really want to unsolder the old cables/wire for new ones...too much trouble, and I'm too lazy to learn by doing (being fumblefingers, I'd certainly mess something up, and burn myself in the process). Naw, I'll stick to using my inexpensive Canare Star Quad cables and my amp's binding posts, and enjoy the music (which sounds fantastic to me as is).

[Champagne taste beer budget]

It would seem I did a poor job of explaining my question or observation...

Looking into the rear of this receiver, I can see basic, no-frills, regular old wire leading from the boards to the speaker terminals on the back of the unit. Looking at another thread running now re some Cornwalls for sale, there is an image of its' internal wiring, with no special wiring inside the speaker. Let's do a simpler "what if" you were to set your receiver on top of the speaker, pull the wires from the inside of the speaker out the back and connect these directly to the speaker wires coming off the board inside the receiver, eliminating speaker wires completly. It would be inconveinent, granted, but would also result in the most uncompromised signal from the receiver to the crossover newtwork.

Suppose all the wires in question were of 14 or 16 gauge, standard wire, good quality but nothing esoteric. How could breaking this wire to wire connection, then inserting an additional length of some other speaker wire, regardless of hows it's made or what it is construced of, possibly alter the sound or current flow characterists between the original unseen wire inside the receiver and/or the speaker? Wouldn't the internal wiring in the receiver, from the amp board to the speaker terminals, then the wiring inside the speaker cabinet, from the terminal strip to the drivers themselves, be the limiting factors in the flow through the circuit? Wouldn't it be the same as plugging an a .99$ 20 gauge extension cord to the wall, plugging a $65 10 gauge entension cord into it, the another .99$ extension cord on the end, then claiming somehow all the cords will function better due to the huge one in the center?

I still feel the dummy in that I can't get my head wrapped around this concept of improving little wires by inserting big wires in the middle of them.

(Yes, this is all given that your connections are tight, no green stuff oozing out the wires, all the normal caveats.)

[Islander]

Well, that's clear and it makes sense. If you have monoblock amps, you could put one on each speaker cabinet (or even inside, if there's room) and run them with very little cabling between amp and crossover, but someone is likely to comment that amps should be on the floor resting on spikes to isolate them from any vibration.

In hi-fi, as in everything, there is no ultimate...

[voxr3m]

I still feel the dummy in that I can't get my head wrapped around this concept of improving little wires by inserting big wires in the middle of them.

(Yes, this is all given that your connections are tight, no green stuff oozing out the wires, all the normal caveats.)

The aim isn't to improve the sound absolutely, but rather to improve it relative to what it would've been had you used an inferior wire to connect your speakers. Your goal is to minimize the inevitable loss you get when you have to place your speakers further away from your amp, as most of them usually are. If you have to place a speaker some distance from the amp, you'll want to make sure whatever wire you put in between doesn't make things any worse then they have to be. Naturally the best way to do this is to use as thick a wire as you can to minimze loss without becoming overkill. The so called maximum performance of a setup is still limited by the internal wiring of the speaker or amp, but at least in using the thicker wiring in between source and speaker, you've done your best to eliminate another "bottleneck."

It's a matter of convenience really. Ideally you'd connect speaker and amp directly with the lowest resistance wire you can find. But that's not practical, so using sufficiently thick speaker wire in between is as good as we can get.

[IndyKlipschFan]

Good point, Paul! I personally choose to use only rare earth doped cryogenically treated and Litz configuration braided re-bar with the green and purple striped 3/8 inch thick insulation - as everyone knows those colors are proven conclusively to scare away EMI and dust bunnies.

No no no no no.... the purple and green one is the new line for 2007, it just is sooooo much better than last years model.. Get with the plan dude!!!!

I am sure Paul knows all about this subject. He spends HOURS on this topic with long posts proving it all out!!! hahahaahahaha