Can I use 24 gauge speaker cable?
My favorite of all the cables I've tried is a 8' doubled pair of PTFE insulated single strand 22AWG UPOCC copper (equivalent to about 18AWG per lead) with a textile jacket. While not the heaviest gauge speaker wire I've tried, I n an 8' run, is the most open, smooth and detailed cable that I've tried - performing very well with bass, mids and highs. I found them to work very well with both dynamic box and planer speakers. For longer runs than 8' or 10' - may need to do three runs per lead....Jim |
So, I am wonderin about using both a 12 gauge wire and a smaller gauge (perhaps 24 gauge) wire each sleeved in its own teflon tube but banded together for each + and - terminal. This way, there would be a smaller wire for the skin affect for the higher frequencies and a heavier gauge for the lower frequencies. Any thoughts on this approach? ozzy |
I have recent personal experience on this subject. I had speaker wire made from Mogami Neglex 2534 microphone wire - star quad 2 x 24awg per lead - so 2 x the 24ga the OP asked about. With that wire the highs were wonderful, the mids almost too strong, anything lower than upper bass almost non existent. As if the woofers were disconnected. I replaced that cable w 12 ga low voltage underground cable I picked up fm Home Depot. Seems like I lost much of the resolution but that may be because the bass returned & so its not as prominent. I just finished making cables from Canare 4S11. I'll listen tomorrow & see if I get the best of both worlds. Summation: Thin wire, lost bass; Heavier cable, bass returns. Cable length about 10'. YMMV. BTW, I'm very happy w the Neglex 2534 w RCAs as interconnects - just not as speaker wire. My experience pretty much jives w what rcronk posted above.
|
Current carrying capacity of copper conductors: https://www.multicable.com/resources/reference-data/current-carrying-capacity-of-copper-conductors/#.... |
This question is often turned into nonsense. The technology is really pretty simple to grasp. If we start with your CD player that has RCA plugs and wire connections we find smaller gauge wires than for speakers. Quality wire is more important than size because there is 'no resistance' from your amplifier. A signal is sent a few short feet and the receptical welcomes and all but sucks the signal into the amp. The speaker wires are leaving the amp and when they cover the distance resistance from the wire itself, it hits the drivers which are all about 'resistance'. This is where we turn up the amps and the watts to push the signal into drivers and power the drivers. This is where I use 10 and 12 gauge speaker wire to transport the full signal and without inhibition that small wires would cause. Turn up the volume and a 22 gauge wire will fill up and back up and not be able to transport the full signal or to provide the power to drive the speakers. Remember to think of speakers as 'motors' that require fuel to run. Hint: I build my own speakers and I also use the large speaker wires internal to the speaker to carry the signal. Open up the common commercial speakers and you will find the tiny wires are most common inside the box. Now a 10 gauge running full out comes to the connection with a tiny internal wire. The little wire crams the force into this inadequate receptical. Big wires on the speaker cables will give you the best and fullest signal. I have used a 22 gauge solid wire of 999.99% pure silver for a tweeter and that can be pretty sweet, but a tweeter rarely calls for more signal because it is only about 10% of total speaker output and a 12" woofer would thrive with a full wire to feed it the 'sounds'. In short, big wires carry more signal (watts,etx.) to your speakers and mids, woofers and subwoofers perform much better with a large feed wire. |
As is normal here you get a range of answers from zero to infinity, especially on this topic. My #1 rule is always “Follow your ears”, even to the extent of having regular hearing tests. I mean if your hearing is way off, it is not worth throwing money at. I hear differences between speaker wires an opt for “the low end of the hi end” and am generally quite satisfied. New old stock can be a tremendous value. The older I get, the less it matters in terms hearing loss with age. |
I have used phone wire as a temporary solution (way better than silence). 30W amp/preamp low to medium volume, so I got by. Also I probably wasn't missing much from the entry level system at the time (1986) I have gone to the bigger wire over ascetics stage, just personal choice, 12AWG, running 200 wpc. I am interested in doing an A/B by doubling the wires to half inductance and see how it sounds. Same would apply to any size wires. Would be an interesting test at 24AWG also. I am running only 6 feet of wire so not sure what gains I would get. Efficient speakers will help. With 96db speakers, 3 watts may be all you need depending on your preferred listening volume and distance from the speakers. +1 for 10 watts estimated for 24AWG wire by Cakyol. This provides some margin I am comfortable with for normal use. If you want to use Erik's 0.577 amp number (good margin) then I=SQRT(P/R)=SQRT(2.5 watt/8 ohm) = 0.56 amps, so 2.5 watts is no problem. If you are going to run the wire under the rug, over the heat register, or you may have to prove safe design in court even if someone repeatedly set furniture on the wires, then use this number (Seriously, more margin for non standard applications). Per AWG chart, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge 2.1 amps max for 60C rated insulation. 3.5 amps max for 75C rated insulation. The wire will not melt at this point but any higher temperature, and accelerated heat aging will occur. Reducing life and possibly shorting out eventually. 30+ watts and the risk is higher for early wire insulation failure. I=SQRT(P/R)=SQRT(30 watt/6 ohm)= 2.24 amps, this is over the rating for 60C wire, this is okay for 75C wire by spec. but not enough margin for me and I don't like my wires hot to the touch. Of course even higher wattage/amperage can result in faster failure by softening or melting the wires. 22AWG phone wire is also available. Some of the chains stores now offer copper clad aluminum speaker wire, so know what you are getting if you go that route. You will need thicker wire to equal resistance of pure copper 99%+. Per vassils link, I think the paragraph refers to the 18 AWG wire (0.5M). The 24 AWG is only suggested for digital interconnects. Some interesting articles linked by others. |
Quote: "I even think I’m the last one to laugh, as there are seriously people who believe their system will sound like a Grand Opera House because they spent literally tens of thousands of dollars on a couple of feet of cable, putting them on tiny wooden elevations costing just as much... " Laugh and you laugh alone. While it’s true that you don’t have to spend mega-bucks to get great sound, you do have to spend an appreciable amount of money, usually more money than the majority of non-audiophools are comfortable with paying. So go ahead and get that 24-gauge wire and tell us how it sounds. |
To the OP, wire your home with this gauge wire. Watch lights flicker. Figure out why. I will give an intelligent answer to an intelligent question. Like phase coherence. But questions that are answered, in this case, without even getting past resistance, without even considering capacitance or inductance don't even qualify for high school science. BTW, when I was young and broke, I used telephone wiring to connect some candy-ass speakers in a bedroom. It worked fine. Low powered amp, small speakers - and they made background music nicely. Why are you asking this question here? Do the math. It isn't hard. |
http://www.audio-consulting.ch/?Parts:Silver_Wire Speaker wires. They provide better bass than any higher diameter. For systems above 96 dB/W/m a non twisted pair of up to 3 meters will outperform any other speaker cable. And it costs you CHF 72.00 per side! This is a 24 AWG wire. |
I would use this group to help you. I noticed a big difference when I purchase a decent set of cables. Kind of like buying a 1/4" garden hose verses a 1: diameter garden hose. It is like buying an expensive car and putting cheap oil in it. If you buy cheap cable you might as well buy a $400 amplifier or receiver. If you buy cheap cable you will never hear what you could have heard if you had upgraded your cable. I think you should listen to experience of this group. They are just trying to help you. |
Ok I have 6 tube amps all sound great.I use 10 gauge and 12 gauge speaker wire.Our ears only hear so much in a certain range.if you think that 6,000 cables sound better ,Good for you spend your money.Sometimes I feel like some rich audio piles think the more I spend,.The more I will make my system sound better than anyone else.Thats not always true.But most of these guys ,I feel listen to there systems with wallet ears. |
Some interesting reading on the topic: https://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/mags/The_Audio_Critic_16_r.pdf "The Wire and Cable Scene: Facts, Fictions, and Frauds Part II" starts on page 51. The article is almost thirty years old but the science hasn’t changed.If you want to cut to the chase, "So what’s the best thing to do" is on page 56. Here is another interesting article on the topic: http://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/art_spkr_cable.pdf |
It is a function of length and current. So it should be great to run a tweeter two feet away. Seriously, How far away do you want to put the amp from the speakers? How big is your power amp in watts? What speakers? A simple answer is a smaller gage is better. When I hook up even small built in wall speakers we run 14 gage in the walls. |
Here's a very old table that's been used to gauge speaker wire applications and it's not just for silver speaker wire, which this site happens to sell:http://tempoelectric.com/cables_speaker-cables.htm You'll see this table used by a lot of old audio sites and it's probably still relevant unless something's been reinvented. All the best, Nonoise |
My answer is YES. You can use 24ga. wire on runs of 50+ feet. I have done so through 5 rooms of my parents house. Pushed with a Wollensak reel to reel mono tape player. Strictly soft background music. Small oval 8ohm speakers. Ran for years. I replace the Wollensak with a mono fm radio. Knight? KLH? receiver. Hey! given me a break. This was back in the 70's. Yes with agreement to comments about wire impedance and sonic differences. Let me remind you of this site = HIGHEND+ Thus should you push 300 watts to your MagnaPlanars, much wattage will be dissipated in the resistance of the 22ga. wire. Heating up the wire. Also there are significant Sonic advantages of implementing thicker wire gauges of different materials and technologies. I confirmed this to myself when I rebuilt a friend's 3 way Sansui speaker from the 70's. I just by replacing the solid 22ish ga. wire used with at the time "Monster" cable. 8-10ga.? The longest run of the three was 14" from the crossover to tweeter. Wow. What a difference. Even when driven by my little Nakamichi receiver on my workbench. Crossover was next. After which I had to get them out of my shop! Sonically they were approaching new DCM's and Alon's in the sound room. |
You can do a lot of things with a bunch of thin wire. https://reverb.com/item/14408424-pine-tree-audio-6-foot-rainbow-ribbons-14awg-speaker-cables |
Hello, Just like a few have mentioned in this forum or post. You just need several strands. 24AWG Cat 5/6/7 is really good because it is already twisted in the sheathing. You should do about 8 strands per termination. You can terminate them with some banana plugs or even better spades if your speakers can take spades. If not bare wire is the best but the ends will corrode over time. So give yourself about an extra 6” for cutting for redoing the ends every year. You might be supposed how good it sounds. You will get lots of detail. If you want more mid-bass double up on the gauge. Final thought: if you are using non twisted pair then watch videos on how to braid wire to help prevent noise and cross talk. I used very lite gauge wire in the past and it ruined one of my channels on my AVR. Just work your way up to 16 AWG and you will be good. |
@orgillian - WRT Better yet, if you can borrow several different manufacturer’s speaker cables instead of raw wire, compare those as well. That way, instead of relying on someone’s opinion of what you can or cannot hear, you’ll know...Perhaps the best advice on this thread to date ! It is EXACTLY how I started my cable journey - I trusted MY EARS ! Then my inquisitive nature got the best of me and the rest is history :-) Regards - Steve |
@dadork - @williewonka Excellent response and explanation. I’ve bought cheap wire before and have upgraded to something much better but have never really understood most of the aspects you describe.Many thanks for the kind words :-) I actually make my own cables from the ground up because I am frugal and like you, do not have the thousands of dollars to spend on, as some would put it, "high price jewelery" My speaker cables currently cost around $400 for a 10 ft pair to build and are preferred to top of the line cables from companies like Nordost and InAkustik i.e. by others that have owned those cables. If you are interested to read more on them - take a look of this thread https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/2030666 It goes into a lot more detail on these cables and how to build them. BTW - with DIY - you can elect to use whatever grade wire you like - my early prototypes used household Romex and telephone wire to prove the concept - the latest use more advanced/quality wires to achieve superb sound reproduction I have spent the last 6 years delving into the science of cables and developing the Helix geometry for Speaker, interconnect and power cables. The improvements due to wire type and insulation used is the latest development and was assisted by others from several countries that have tried the Helix geometry with many different wires. Regards - Steve |
When I saw this discussion come up on my email, I thought great, let's see how thoroughly confusing some of these responses are going to be. Well, I haven't been disappointed. Assuming your question is a serious, although many of these guys are correct in most ways, you best most useful is probably from caykol, above. Just follow his advice and any others of a similar nature and you will do just fine. As an example, a number of years ago, I moved into a new place and found that my old bedroom set up would not work in the new bedroom, so I went to my local HD store and bought 100 ft of 14 ga stranded cable, cut one the required 10 feet and the other had to be run out to about 20 ft. At first I was worried that the difference in cable length would create an unbalance in the sound of my two speakers, but guess what, I had a balance control, so after a couple of adjustments it worked just fine. My main system, on the other hand, that only has one chair, is another matter. Hope this helps |
@jsd52756 This is exactly my thinking. I'm a contractor and I know if you are going to run any kind of power equipment over any distance from the power source you want to have a heavier gauge extension cord. If you don't you'll not only not have enough power you will burn out your saw or whatever it is in a short period of time. A lighter cord will get much warmer as well. I can only imagine the possible damage to both speaker and amp over several years. |
@williewonka Excellent response and explanation. I've bought cheap wire before and have upgraded to something much better but have never really understood most of the aspects you describe. This clarifies some of the things I've suspected. I did spend quite a bit more moolah but some of the cables are way outside my budget. Some of them are way outside most peoples budget. Finding audiophile class wiring at prices the average consumer can afford is difficult. I would imagine too that the amount of money you spend would be commensurate with the system it's being applied to. No sense in spending a fortune on boutique speaker cables for a Walmart stereo in other words. |
Totally agreed @tbakin63. Of course it looks kind of awesome to have these cables worth 1000’s of dollars but it’s nothing more than jewelry. If Mr Klipsch (and other highly regarded people in the industry too by the way!) says it’s not worth it to spend a lot the I believe them. My current cables are quite nice looking Dynavox cables, 4 x 10AWG wires inside. But they’re also quite huge. That’s why I’d love to see some smaller cables in my house. So why not go with the smallest cables I could find at the Home Depot, i.e. 24 AWG? :-) Next week I’ll have the chance to play around with a 3Watts/channel tube amp. I’ll be testing the telephone cables for sure! I just wanted to make sure I won’t melt anything or set stuff on fire :’) |
Once again, the forum shows that some people can hear differences with thicker wire, better interconnects, etc while other people either can’t or won’t. This is not meant as a diss, but rather than query the Hatfields and McCoys on this, why not buy (if you don’t already have some) a couple of different gauges of wire at the Home Depot and listen for yourself? Better yet, if you can borrow several different manufacturer’s speaker cables instead of raw wire, compare those as well. That way, instead of relying on someone’s opinion of what you can or cannot hear, you’ll know... |
Cakyol has his head on completely straight and seems to be grounded in the laws of physics. I use 24 gauge wire for one of my systems with a 3.5 watt tube amp and high sensitivity vintage (Frazier) speakers - it sounds incredible, top to bottom. Generally for higher output, I would personally go with a larger gauge - BUT nothing fancy or expensive. I have been very happy with the high quality, flexible Installgear wire from Amazon (Cakyol’s second link) on my main system (a more beefy McIntosh tube system). A friend of mine with 40+ years experience and some of the best sounding gear you're ever heard, goes with 14 gauge wire from Home Depot. Hell, if it was good enough for the iconic Paul Klipsch, that's good enough for me. williewonka, and several other of these bloviators for that matter, on the other hand are marinating in snake oil. PLEASE don’t get sucked into the "cable science" nonsense (non-science)! All auditory hallucination paid for with obscene amounts of money and bolstered by clever marketing designed to steal your cash. And don’t bother to argue with them - predictably, they’ll now attack my system, hearing, sophistication, credibility, etc, with zero science to back up anything they try to put forth. Just put them on mute, move on, and enjoy the MUSIC. |
It is a little too thin. Probably not suitable for an amp with more than 10 watts/channel output. When the wire is too thin, its resistance will be relatively higher and its stray capacitance tends also to be higher. This would limit the current flow and affect the high frequencies negatively by attenuating them. If you have an amp with any power output greater than about 10 watts/channel, you should probably use approximately a 16 gauge wire. Having said that, you do not have to buy any esoteric expensive "audiofool" wires. Any ordinary pure copper wire (NOT copper clad or aluminum) will do. Just make sure its capacitance is as little as it can be. All in all, you should not need to spend more than 30-40 bucks on it, AT MOST. This would do PERFECTLY for example: https://www.amazon.com/KnuKonceptz-Kable-Gauge-Copper-Speaker/dp/B006VP97DE/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&... or this.... https://www.amazon.com/InstallGear-Gauge-Speaker-Wire-Oxygen-Free/dp/B01MQVETL7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3A20... |
@sjeesjie the answer you're really looking for is the following: There is an audible difference in wire. Gauge/Quality/Connectors all play a factor. You can VASTLY improve audio quality by spending a $100 or so on HIGH quality cables of the required length/connector. I did this a year ago. Upgrading from some 12ga "monster cable" stranded wire, to some 8ga stranded with bonded banana plugs, and was absolutely floored with the before/after. All of the above get's magnified as you increase other components in your system. Do yourself a favor, spend a few bucks now. It's worth it. |
Wow: I've been using the same 26 gauge solid core copper speaker wire (with various SS/tube based setups) for the past 18 years and have not experienced any of the "downsides" posted by others in this thread. The speaker wire lengths have been in the range of 10-12 feet in length. Not a fan of the "stranded" wire I've tried in the past, but have zero experience with the new wave of them. DeKay |
Lots of electrical "expertise" here. The OP simply asks the question if using 24 gauge speaker cable is acceptable? Maybe he has 24 gauge already on hand? Maybe not. Without going down the road of opening a flood of responses about who has the best speaker cables out there, a simpler approach is to compare the price of 24 gauge wire to a heavier one. Speaking in terms of cost...not much difference. I believe the comparison between brands or models is not needed here. |
kijanki3,951 posts10-17-2020 5:17pm"Please answer my question - do tube amps sound bad? They have additional fraction of an ohm output impedance in comparison to SS. Why can't you understand that amplifiers with few ohms of output impedance can sound fine. At this point I'm out." The answer to your question is NO. In fact, tube amps have a mid-range magic that few SS amps can duplicate. The relatively high output impedance, however, does affect low-frequency performance. In that department SS, with its very low output impedance, is superior. |
@oldhvymec, I believe the series component in Transparent network cables is an air-core inductor, NOT a resistor. Thus, minimal effect at low frequencies where the woofer comes into play. |
You could've used megaohms or gigaohms as well. We’re talking about small fraction of an ohm difference, that speaker manufacturers don’t even consider worth mentioning. Atmasphere MA-1 power amp has 2.3 ohm output impedance and great reviews. Do you really think that 0.4ohm would make a difference? Most of tube amps have fraction of an ohm output impedance (in comparison to almost zero for SS). Do they sound bad? |
