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Solid copper or stranded copper for speaker cables? What is your choice and why?

I had old copper speaker cable made by Audioquest (don't know the model).  The cable contains only two solid copper wires, one is thicker than the other. As I recalled, Audioquest claimed back then that thicker wire primarily carries lower frequency signal and the thinner wire is responsible for the rest.  I actually have not seen this type of design nowadays, BUT when listening and comparing it with the stranded wire (either 12 or 10 gauge) cable, I found the dynamic range is greater, and the bass is tighter and has more weight.  What do you think?

lanx0003
czarivey
5,946 posts
 

solids do better in general, but there are inconveniences of inflexibility especially if you intend to disconnect and move your components around.

 

carlsbad's avatar
carlsbad
1,551 posts
 

Stranded.  Because sold 10 awg wires are not flexible.  Jerry

mitch2
3,966 posts
 

Of those I have tried, my favorites are made from multiple strands of individually insulated, relatively small gauge (i.e., 20-24 awg), solid core wires.

noromance's avatar
noromance
9,766 posts
 

I've been using 14 gauge UP-OCC solid core copper in Teflon for years. Recently, I've been using loose-sleeved 18 gauge solid core silver and find it faster and cleaner with a more neutral sound. 

mihorn
506 posts
 

Multiple stranded (MS) cables sound more detailed, deep, and focused (smaller sound images) with less sound stage and less bass. So, it is good for string and brass instruments and acoustics/classical music. Generally, MS sound makes feeling bright, excited, and happy.

Solid-core cables sound punch, more energy, and big/thick sound images and stage (the wall of sound) with more bass. SC cables are good for percussion instruments and Rock/fusion music. Generally, SC sound makes felling sad, and down.

We, cable designers, mix wires to make balanced sounding cables (and to sound close to the original music). To make a good cable, we need the best reference audio system to hear cables. A problem is all their audio systems sound veil and un-natural. The veil sound means the signal is broken and distorted and those systems can’t be a reference system. Sadly every audio systems in the world are sounding veiled and un-natural. In the land of blind, the one-eyed man is king. I only know what they are doing wrong. Alex/wavetouch

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