Loose speaker wire and high power amps

Loose wire will not harm or affect the sound of any SS amp! They can be driven safely even with NO speakers connected! Unlike tube amps with output trannies! Those WILL be damaged with NO speakers connected and a music signal fed in. 

Is this what happens or did I just imagine the bass lower?

Hard to say for sure. Are you able to imagine the bass higher?

Seriously though yes, the fewer the strands the smaller the effective gauge so the higher the resistance and the lower the power to the speaker. 

Ok thanks. I had moved my speaker around and it must have worked loose.

@blueranger - your problem with you amp running hot may actually be due to the speaker cables (i.e. being of higher capacitance than most) causing the amp to oscillate.

12TC is 494 pF / meter - you get 3 meters of that and it’s a whopping 1482 pF !!!

NOTE: This issues only happens with solid state high current designs and NOT tube amps.
My old NAIM also suffered the same issue and it was well publicized on their web site

This can lead to internal damage to the point of destruction.

It happened to an acquaintance - he destroyed two solid state amps in this way and had no idea why = even the tech that fixed the amps did ot know about this issue.

WARNING: Some Cardas TOTL cables have an even higher capacitance.

To really be on the safe side, with high current design you should look at cables lower than 100pF/meter - preferably as low as 32 pF/meter. But it really does depend on the total length of the cable.

Your amp will actually run cooler as the capacitance is lowered.

Sounds a bit flaky I know, but high capacitance cables WILL KILL high current solid state amps.

Cable companies do not warn of this issue, Amp companies should also make it known, just as NAIM does.

A lot of tech’s are also ignorant of this issue.

I have a Bryston M135 and I am using cables with a total capacitance of 181 pF and it runs pretty cool - i.e. for a Bryston :-)

Hope that helps - Steve