Doubling a Set of Speaker Cables

I have had positive results doubling speaker cables - but have never compared to a single set of better cables...

I have ran a shotgun configuration for years.  I rather quite like it.  I have found it depends on the amp and speakers, but for the most part, a worthwhile endeavor.

So make yourselves happy, but it's quite possible that doubling speaker cables is also doubling cable capacitance, and I'm not sure about inductance.

Anyone who wants to measure this realatively cheaply may wish to acquire a Dayton DATS V2. Fairly accurate, especially for the price.

Not saying changing capacitance, inductance, etc. just wanted to add to the discussion about how this may be working.

Best,

Erik

... it’s quite possible that doubling speaker cables is also doubling cable capacitance, and I’m not sure about inductance.

Hi Erik,

My initial post above addressed that. Paralleling ("doubling") identical speaker cables will double capacitance, which under most but not all circumstances will not matter. It will also cut inductance (as well as resistance) in half. The reduction in inductance is most likely to make a difference if speaker impedance at high frequencies is low (the impedance presented by an inductor increases as frequency increases), and/or if cable length is long (cable inductance is proportional to length).  Electrostatic speakers, in particular, tend to have very low impedances at high frequencies. 

That difference, if it occurs, would be in the direction of greater accuracy of signal transfer, but of course whether or not the improvement in accuracy would be subjectively preferable in a given system to a given listener is another matter.

Regards,
-- Al

I appreciate the feedback from all of you. At least there are some goners here that have tried this doubling technique and report positive results. That too gives me something to consider.

I'm currently using Belden 5T00UP wire. That's not entirely by choice and is somewhat dictated by cost as I simply wouldn't feel comfortable spending hundreds if not thousands on cables, like the Graphene cables mentioned in another thread or many of the other exotic cables out there. In addition, I'm connecting the bare wire to the binding posts and they wouldn't accept a larger wire / small gauge, so to even try doubling I would need spade connectors or similar.

This is an excerpt from the Blue Jeans Cables website. While this has essentially been stated in this thread, they sum it up rather eloquently.

"Because speakers are driven at low impedance (typically 4 or 8 ohms) and high current, speaker cables are, for all practical purposes, immune from interference from EMI or RFI, so shielding isn't required. The low impedance of the circuit, meanwhile, makes capacitance, which can be an issue in high-impedance line or microphone-level connections practically irrelevant. The biggest issue in speaker cables, from the point of view of sound quality, is simply conductivity; the lower the resistance of the cable, the lower the contribution of the speaker cable's resistance to the damping factor, and the flatter the frequency response will be. While one can spend thousands of dollars on exotic speaker cable, in the end analysis, it's the sheer conductivity of the cable, and (barring a really odd design, which may introduce various undesirable effects) little else that matters. The answer to keeping conductivity high is simple: the larger the wire, the lower the resistance, and the higher the conductivity. "