Speaker wire questions...

[Boomzilla]

I think I'm about to make myself (Boom's custom) bi-wire cables - Options I'm considering:

WIRE:

3 parallel conductors of 14 ga. to each pair of woofer terminals + 2 parallel conductors (same ga.) to each pair of mid/tweeter terminals. Why 14 ga? Because I've got a ton of the stuff in my "spare wire" bin. This means that for a 10' long pair of wires, I'll need 100 feet of (two-conductor) wire. I think I've got that much (unless I gave it to garbulky the last time he was over).

But if I don't, I can substitute two runs of 12 ga. wire for the three runs of 14 on the bass.

Yet another option - use 8 ga. for the woofers & 12 for the midrange/tweeters) - single runs of each.

NOW THE QUESTION: Are there any theoretical advantages or disadvantages of any of these options?

TERMINATIONS:

For maximum contact, I'm thinking of going with spade terminals on the amplifier end, spade terminals for the speaker woofers, and bananas for the speaker mid/tweeter terminals.

NOW THE QUESTIONS:

Any good reasons to do otherwise? And before anyone asks, no, I don't think that three strands of 14 ga. wire would fit into the posts as bare wires. I have the spare hardware in the junk box to terminate everything (including cable pants and nylon sheathing for the exterior of the bundled runs).

Is it worth buying silver solder to do this, or should I just crimp everything for a solid connection before tinning with lead electronics solder?

Thanks - Boomzilla

[DYohn]

1. As long as the conductor is of sufficient gauge for the power and the length being run, construction does not matter.
2. As long as the wire is of sufficiently low resistance, material does not matter.
3. Any connector is not as good as bare wire as it introduces the need to transition from bare wire to the connector, and thus adding the opportunity to introduce resistance. Use bare wire.

[vneal]

I bi wire my front. Go for it. Personally I would use the same guage

Crimp & standard solder
I have become a fan of quality BANANA PLUG connectors for the convenience factor

[yves]

I tend to agree with the bare wire suggestion because PIM (Passive Intermodulation) distortion can occur in connectors, or when conductors made of two galvanically unmatched metals come in contact with each other. IMO the fact that three strands of 14 AWG wire cannot fit into the posts as bare wires is a valid reason to go for only two 14 AWG strands instead of three. I don't know if the strands you have are solid or multi-stranded, but in my bi-wire cables each 14 AWG strand consists of 37 concentrical strands. They are fairly thin so the ends can easily break off if you are not careful enough. But now comes one of the (IMO) useful advantages. For each one of the 4 posts on my XPA-2, I gently un-twisted the ends of 2 x 37 strands and twisted these [74 ends] together tidily, so that I got the required total of 4 ends that were able to fit just nicely into the 4 posts. I didn't use any solder at all, only took that extra bit of patience to make sure the ends were really perfectly smooth and long enough (almost an inch maybe) so they don't start to unravel.

I completely disagree that the design, construction, material, and topology does not matter. Twisting the positive (+) and the negative (-) strands around eachother, uniformly at say one turn every 5 inches, can make a subtle, yet audible difference compared to simply running the 2 strands in parallel, and, in the case of bi-wiring, twisting all 4 strands around eachother (as is the case in the CC-297 design of the cables that I currently am using) can yield a fairly noticeable difference TBH. The insulation thickness and construction/type of dielectric material(s) also does matter. As another example, silver speaker wires tend to sound a little brighter than copper ones, but personally, on general I prefer to stick to multi-stranded OFC copper designs. I don't spend several hundreds on speaker cables. But I don't use coat hangers to build my own speaker cables.

[DavidR]

My speaker cables are 12AWG OFC Phoenix Gold (259/36 strand) + 14AWG OFC RadShak (19/27 strand) combined into Nakamichi BFA banana plugs - no soldering; just twisted together. Short run - just long enough to reach from the amp to the speaker with comfortable slack. I can't say if they make a difference over just a single wire.

[bluemeanies]

IMO I don't think you will physically hear any difference in sound whether it be 2paralell or 3!
DYohn has it right

[novisnick]

This is what use.


                                           

[Gary Cook]

I've used speaker cables from 0.25 metres to over 100 metres and musicians who can pick a single out of tune string from 30 violinists can't hear a difference, let alone me. A long as the cable is of sufficient capacity, undamaged and properly terminated no one I have encountered can pick the difference.


Cheers
Gary

[trevordj]

All options listed are unnecessarily overkill. Three runs of 14 gauge wire to the woofer and two to the mid/tweet? That is CRAZY. Even running one run of 14 gauge to the woofer/tweeter is overkill. At 10' and full tilt 500 watts, even with one only one run of 14 gauge to the whole speaker you will have 0.11 decibels of power loss from the speaker wire.

[MusicHead]

Jan 17, 2016 11:56:11 GMT -5 DYohn said:

1. As long as the conductor is of sufficient gauge for the power and the length being run, construction does not matter.
2. As long as the wire is of sufficiently low resistance, material does not matter.
3. Any connector is not as good as bare wire as it introduces the need to transition from bare wire to the connector, and thus adding the opportunity to introduce resistance. Use bare wire.

Doesn't #1 imply that if ONE wire is of sufficient gauge for the power and lenght being run there is no need for bi-wiring?

I can understand active bi-amping, but bi-wiring is something I have a hard time justifying. Only exception being when, for whatever reason, small gauge wire can only be used. Therefore, bi-wiring would reduce the total series resistance, since it parallels the two wires.

Assuming the wire is not so crappy that adds unwanted capacitance and inductance even at the low audio frequencies it has to handle, it is all about resistance.

[DYohn]

Jan 17, 2016 16:11:10 GMT -5 MusicHead said:

Doesn't #1 imply that if ONE wire is of sufficient gauge for the power and lenght being run there is no need for bi-wiring?.

Yes, exactly. All the justifications you read in the audiophile webz for bi-wiring relies on pseudoscience mumbo-jumbo. There is no legitimate electrical reason why bi-wiring does anything other than increase the effective wire gauge of the interconnect.

[novisnick]

Jan 17, 2016 16:00:06 GMT -5 trevordj said:

All options listed are unnecessarily overkill. Three runs of 14 gauge wire to the woofer and two to the mid/tweet? That is CRAZY. Even running one run of 14 gauge to the woofer/tweeter is overkill. At 10' and full tilt 500 watts, even with one only one run of 14 gauge to the whole speaker you will have 0.11 decibels of power loss from the speaker wire.

Great Big MONOBLOCKS Baby!!!

Get a Set!!!youll never run out of power!!,,,,,he,,,,he,,,,,he,,,,,,,  

[Boomzilla]

Jan 17, 2016 16:20:52 GMT -5 DYohn said:

Jan 17, 2016 16:11:10 GMT -5 MusicHead said:

Doesn't #1 imply that if ONE wire is of sufficient gauge for the power and lenght being run there is no need for bi-wiring?.

Yes, exactly. All the justifications you read in the audiophile webz for bi-wiring relies on pseudoscience mumbo-jumbo. There is no legitimate electrical reason why bi-wiring does anything other than increase the effective wire gauge of the interconnect.

But... Although the wires may be heavy ga. with sufficient cross-section, are the JUMPERS equally conductive? The average jumper supplied with quad-terminals is the thickness of tin foil. Would I not get better effective wire gauge by having the bare wires connected directly to the four terminals without the rinky-dink jumper in between? Even "audiophile" jumper replacements seem to be 16 to 14 ga. equivalents at the best.

And yet another question, if I may, Mr. Yohn - What is the largest gauge (bare) wire that will fit into the holes of "standard" amplifier & speaker terminals? I know that 12 gauge will fit, I'm pretty sure that 10 gauge will fit, and I'm almost certain that 8 gauge will NOT fit. Do you happen to know?

Thanks - Boom

[DYohn]

Jan 17, 2016 16:29:05 GMT -5 Boomzilla said:

Jan 17, 2016 16:20:52 GMT -5 DYohn said:

Yes, exactly. All the justifications you read in the audiophile webz for bi-wiring relies on pseudoscience mumbo-jumbo. There is no legitimate electrical reason why bi-wiring does anything other than increase the effective wire gauge of the interconnect.

But... Although the wires may be heavy ga. with sufficient cross-section, are the JUMPERS equally conductive? The average jumper supplied with quad-terminals is the thickness of tin foil. Would I not get better effective wire gauge by having the bare wires connected directly to the four terminals without the rinky-dink jumper in between? Even "audiophile" jumper replacements seem to be 16 to 14 ga. equivalents at the best.

And yet another question, if I may, Mr. Yohn - What is the largest gauge (bare) wire that will fit into the holes of "standard" amplifier & speaker terminals? I know that 12 gauge will fit, I'm pretty sure that 10 gauge will fit, and I'm almost certain that 8 gauge will NOT fit. Do you happen to know?

Thanks - Boom

re: Jumpers on speaker input terminals. Yes, they are fine. They are what the designer of thesystem decided was appropriate. Can you improve on them? I suppose if it makes you feel better, but it will have no impact on performance.

re: wire gauge in binding posts. It depends on the binding post, doesn't it? And by the way, unless you are running over 100ft into 4-ohm loudspeakers, or unless you are operating 1Kw amps at max volume, there is absolutely no purpose in 8-AWG speaker wire. Well, it does cost a butt-ton and if you like the way it looks, then fine. But for normal home installations there is generally no need for anything larger than 14AWG, and in most homes no need for larger than 16 AWG.

[DavidR]

I think 'skin effect' is very typical in all circumstances. The electrical current travels on the surface of the conductor and not thru the internals of the conductors.

[DYohn]

Jan 17, 2016 16:45:23 GMT -5 DavidR said:

I think 'skin effect' is very typical in all circumstances. The electrical current travels on the surface of the conductor and not thru the internals of the conductors.

Except that at audio frequencies, skin effect really does not exist. Skin effect is an RF phenomenon.

[DYohn]

Also, Boom, if you find yourself in a situation where you must use connectors, or where you wish to use them for some reason, be sure to properly crimp crimp-on connectors and properly solder solder-on connectors.

[novisnick]

Boom, you have a good point with the foil jumpers.

My MONOBLOCKS have only two posts per speaker, so I made a set of cables with high quality copper and spliced two sets of wires together formming four connections per speaker.

Plenty of wrapping of copper together just past the amp connection.

I feel this is the best connection for my setup. Better control of the drivers IMHO

Addendum, by better control, im saying the the tweeters are more true to their design and the woofer is much more refined, not muddy at all, more of a specific low note (s) not a blurr of notes. 

[DYohn]

re: jumpers. I'll make one additional observation. In a loudspeaker system that uses them, be sure to connect your speaker wires to the low frequency input side. This is because on the order of 70% of system power is used by the LF side: the current demanded by the HF side is much lower.

[bluemeanies]

Boom,
I have MIT speaker cable bi-wire and they are packed up in a box. I am currently using Nakamichi cables with jumper cables on my 803diamonds. In comparing there was absolutely no difference in sonics, and bass response.
These cables are so cheap its not worth making your own. Very reasonable pricing


www.nakamichiplug.com/product-cable.html