Speaker Wire and Sound Quality
Have you ever wondered why some people pay ridiculous prices for speaker cables, while others will use anything that conducts electricity? The science and arcane magic of speaker wire is something that many people have no real idea about, and so terrible decisions are made, making for inferior quality sound, and sometimes money completely wasted.
thick with lots of individual strands - yes, that’s the ticket!
As I’ve spoken before, speaker wire of good quality is essential for a high damping factor, and the speaker control that it provides. What many simply do not understand, as evidenced by the choice of wire, is that since music reproduction is complex, there is no easy solution when it comes to speaker wire. Bass reproduction depends on a large amount of current moving through the wire, so a wire as thick as can be tolerated is what is needed. On the other hand, high frequencies travel on the outer part of the wire strand, due to something known as ‘corona’ or ’skin effect’. This means that a single strand of wire of a low gauge (low numerically, high in diameter) will not get the job done well. What works best is extremely fine strands of wire, bundled together to make a rope of sufficient size for the quality expected.
Kimber cable is one of the better designs, with many pairs per set, leading to lots of outer surface area, and great high frequency transmission
The other thing about speaker wires is length. Whenever a longer length is needed, the increased resistance offered by the run must be offset by a greater diameter. This is why, when making very long runs of wire, no less than 12 gauge should be used, and choice of a lower gauge still would, of course produce superior results. Finding gauges of finely stranded copper wire lower than 12 can be a problem for many, as the wire 10 gauge or lower is specifically meant for musical use, and those selling it know they can get top dollar. In cases where availability, or cost, is a problem, using multiple runs of 12 gauge is certainly acceptable. ( A few years ago, I had a living room set up where I needed to have speaker wires 36′ long to my Infinity Reference Standard 4.5s. This meant 4 runs of 36′, as this was a stereo, and the speakers were bi-amped. I used 12 gauge Monster Cable (the standard stuff) in quad runs to each connection. This meant I needed 576′ of cable, but this was much cheaper than using something much thicker, such as a very large Kimber Cable or AudioQuest Red, and it produced fine results.
if you are wiring a big job, like the whole house, bulk rolls are the best buy.
Later I changed to having the power amplifiers between the speakers, and using much smaller runs of 9′ per side. This shows the next thing in our lesson about quality. Keeping the amplifier to speaker connections as short as possible, and using high quality interconnects between preamp and power amps.
One last thing, In every case, what is needed for speaker wire is the purest copper wire that can be found. That is because copper is the best conductor of electricity among non-precious metals. Gold is better, and silver the best conductor, but obviously they are costly and would be prohibitively expensive. Also, with silver, oxidation would necessitate almost constant cleaning to keep the conductivity high.
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