If I were you, I will try small and bigger Cables, audience has thin speaker cables, and Cerious tech has bigger speaker cables..That's how you will find out how your speakers react to either one..
Speaker wire size VS speaker size. Should bigger speakers use bigger wires?
After 16 years using Monster 2.4s speaker wire (fairly large gauge as it looks like #10 or maybe even #8) I thought I'd try Dueland 16 gauge copper, tin plated, oiled & cotton wrapped. They have been in my system for a few months now. While the music is very detailed and great sound stage, I feel the bass may be a bit weaker.
I know the "Monster" word is not favored on A/Gon, but it always sounded very very good. Before I kick out the $ for the new Dueland 12 gauge, I was curious as to the wire size and effect on sound. I see some folks run up to 22 gauge which to me is silly puny. My wire length is 8"
Amp Krell FPB300cx, speakers Infinity Renaissance 90. The speakers are 4-way semi-planer with a nice 10" woofer that goes down to 27hz which aint bad.
Thanks for your input, John
I know the "Monster" word is not favored on A/Gon, but it always sounded very very good. Before I kick out the $ for the new Dueland 12 gauge, I was curious as to the wire size and effect on sound. I see some folks run up to 22 gauge which to me is silly puny. My wire length is 8"
Amp Krell FPB300cx, speakers Infinity Renaissance 90. The speakers are 4-way semi-planer with a nice 10" woofer that goes down to 27hz which aint bad.
Thanks for your input, John
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- 12 posts total
wire size relates to current delivery (resistance of the wire goes up as dia. goes down, on a per unit length basis) the size of the speaker per se is not an issue; it will depend on the efficiency of the speaker and the SPL you want (another factor is the type of speaker design - cone/electrostatic/planar magnetic) solve all your problems by using monoblocks set near each speaker... |
Gauge 22 resistance is about 0.016 ohm/ft. Your cable is 8 ft making it 8ft + 8ft =16ft. 16 x 0.016 ohm = 0.26ohm. Assuming 4ohm speaker it will make 4/(4+0.26) = 0.94. It means about 6% voltage drop resulting in about 12% power loss. This power loss is equivalent to about 3.5% in perceived loudness change. For gauge 16 cable perceived loudness drop will be 0.9% On the other hand while 16ft of gauge 16 is 0.064ohm inductor in series with the woofer is at least 0.1 ohm. Gauge 18 copper wire at 20kHz has still 100% skin depth, but thicker wire has slightly lower inductance. I don't see reason going below gauge 12, but Acoustic Zen does. My AZ Satori Shotgun has overall gauge 6. It is divided into multiple isolated strands. I suspect they wan't to avoid skin effect, but why gauge 6 (0.004 ohm/ft)? Perhaps they want to lower inductance. Gauge 6 wire has reactance of about 0.9 ohm at 20kHz, 1ohm for 16 gauge - only 10% difference but it plays some role. |
@jsd52756 - I once thought thicker was better - then I tried KLE Innovations gZero6 speaker cables and they changed my thoughts forever.. They were thin comapred to the 10 gauge Van den Hul I was using, but beat the VDH for bass performance - deeper and more precise I now use a 16 gauge cable and have great bass response For commercially available products I highly recommend all KLE Innovations cables I now use my own DIY cables http://image99.net/blog/index.html Regards... |
Interesting stuff above. It just seemed to me bookshelf size speakers could use smaller gauge whereas if I had Wilson Alexandra hunkin-momma size speakers they would need a lot of juice. I may try the low side of the Monster cables on the woofers and see if I notice a difference. Or even a difference I like. The whole thing came about as just a test/trial of the Dueland wire. Every once in a while messing with things is kind of fun. -John |
- 12 posts total