Analysis Plus Speaker cables

The Oval 9's and Oval 12's originally started as coaxial designs. One conductor was inside the other. This would mean that the outer conductor would have to be a heavier gauge wire than the inner conductor. The first ones to go to the stacked design was the silver model. Now the 14 gauge wire uses that also. The 9's and 12's will probably follow suit. This would DRASTICALLY alter ALL of their electrical characteristics. I'm sure that the newer version is far cheaper and faster for them to produce and that's probably the bottom line. So much for the original design being "the best possible". Sean >

Please correct me if this is wrong, Sean, but based on AP's Web site you have the designs mixed up. The Oval 9 and 12 are (and to my knowledge always were) stacked designs and the Silver 12 is "coaxial". The Oval 9 and 12 came first, so the Silver 12 is actually the deviant child. Pondering the questions you posed, is it possible that the Silver 12 is coaxial because a) it is their flagship product b) it *is* a slightly better design, but more difficult/expensive to manufacture and c) these are why it was the later entrant of the three? The Oval 14 looks to be a stacked design (cheaper to make than the coax?) like the rest of the Oval series except that each leg is sheathed separately and both are encased in a common outer sheath. My guess is this is to meet the CL-3 (in-wall) code, so the third design change would be to both to offer a lower cost product (than the Silver series) and for the intended application? Notice that these are posed as questions because they are simply ideas as to why the design varies slightly from product to product, not actual answers. For those we'll have to go to the manufacturer. I have and will share the result if they respond.

Thanks for pointing that out Fpeel. The initial literature that i had seen on these when the Oval 9 and 12's came out had pictured flat oval coaxial cables. This was BEFORE the Silver cables were even introduced. To further reinforce that, EVERY printed catalogue from Audio Advisor that i have seen shows the Oval 9 and Oval 12 as being of the flat coaxial design with the Silver's being stacked. When i first received my Oval 9's, i looked at them and swore that they were stacked. I really didn't pay much attention to this and thought that they might have changed the design to match the Silver models. Since you pointed this out, i did go to the AP website and the pictures there are completely opposite of what i have been stating. This means that Audio Advisor's pictures in the catalogue's and even AP's own literature have been wrong from the beginning. Thank you for making me aware of this and correcting me. This still does not change the situation, even if i was backwards : ) Why have they altered the design at ALL ??? I hope that they do respond to you as i am quite curious as to their explanation. Sean

Here's Analysis Plus' response: Thank you for bringing this discussion to our attention, and also for your very eloquent replies to Sean. You are certainly correct in your response, the copper Oval 9 and Oval 12 were the original designs, and have not been changed. When we added the Oval Theater 14 to our line, we used the same hollow oval geometry as our other copper products, but as you correctly state, requirements for the CL-3 rating required the use of insulation around both conductors. Sean is simply wrong in saying we don't employ hollow oval technology in the home theater cables. The Silver Oval was a later design than the Oval 9 or Oval 12, and uses a different conductor material. We had the opportunity to run further simulations and experiment with other geometries and concluded that due to some of silver's properties, a coaxial configuration would be a better choice for that conductor material. The coaxial geometry increases the cost of the cable itself, and also increases the labor involved in terminating the cable, so this geometry is only used in our flagship model, where the conductor material and cable price justify its use. To address another of Sean's misconceptions, the conductor gauge of both inner and outer conductors of the Silver Oval is in fact the same. Since it is a braided design, the way the cable is wound can be altered, so that the same number of strands are used in both conductors, resulting in equivalent gauge. Thank you again for your responses to Sean, and for trying our products. We wish you many enjoyable years of listening. Mark Markel and Steve Pennock Analysis-Plus, Inc. inquiry@analysis-plus.com

Looks like the info I presented was correct and the intuition that the coax design used in the Silver Oval is more costly was "on". I'm glad to know that the wire gage is also equal in the positive and negative directions.