2. speakers
  3. 1192286445

Can speaker cables be too thick?

Hi folks, I've tried several speaker cables in the past, like the MIT MH-750, Wireworld Gold Eclipse, Ridge Street Audio, Pure Note Paragon and Cardas Golden Eclipse. I've been using these expensive cables until I replace them with ordinary 2x6mm2 OFC copper cables consisting of multiple small gauge solid conductors. These cables have the best tonal balance and they match very well with the speakers (Dunlavy SC-V). I use them in biwire fashion (each cable is 5 ft in length). What would happen if I replace them with even larger gauge copper cables, like 2x8mm2 or 2x10mm2? Would the sound improve further with the larger gauge cables? What sonic characteristics can be heard when the speaker wire is "too thick"?

Chris
dazzdax
daniel825
36 posts
 
A frined of mine who is a electrical engineer put togeather a pair of 10" speaker wires made from 6-awg wire. They sounded more detailed but somehow not in a good way? I took them off and went back to my 12AWG wire.. Biggest difference I have heard so far is the change in the power cord.

Happy Tunes
Dan
bearotti
164 posts
 
I have made 10 awg cables in a bi-wire setup for my speakers. I did this as an experiment...It turns out that they sounded more detailed and had a much cleaner soundstage than my Nordost Blue Heavens that I was using before. See the cables in my system home. I found these cables to be great, and they didn't take too much work and cost a fortune.

Ben
dazzdax OP
599 posts
 
Hi Ben, have you ever done any experimentation with thicker cables (less than 10AWG)? If yes, what are your findings? I'm curious if there is some maximum cable (conductor) thickness that could result in sonic improvement. Surpassing this thickness would not give any further improvement but probably deterioration of sound.

Chris
bearotti
164 posts
 
Unfortunately, no. These were the largest cables I could find at the Home Depot that I thought might work...they are typically used for running 220 for stoves and dryers, but seem to make pretty good speaker cables. I could not imagine really needing anything much larger than this. I did think about getting some larger solid core from the HD, but in order to terminate them for audio purposes would have taken a lot of work.
More to discover