Ever tried #14 Solid copper speaker wire in a cab?

[rooster]

Evidence Audio has a speaker cable that is 6 insulated strands of #20 solid copper, 3 strands/3 strands: positive/negative. OK, maybe not your cup of tea and not cheap, BTW. I have been using this for about 4 months and really like it, and, yes, I think it actually does improve things. (Oh, and it is flexable, although somewhat stiffer than more typical cable.)

Then I read an article by the cable designer in Tone Quest Mag. He suggested going even further by wiring the speaker cab itself with the EA speaker cable. Well, it seemed like a messy soldering job what with splitting the 6 strands up to do the job. Doable but a bit of work. However, then the designer said that even #14 gauge Romex AC house wire would be better than typical speaker wire. ???

So today I tried this in a cab that I know very well. I am going to run with this cab for a few days before I comment on its tone, but I am wondering if anybody else has tried anything like this?

[billyz]

I have no doubt that 14ga romex sounds better than the typical (18ga)speaker wire. the limited frequency response of a guitar speaker probably benefits less from high end cable, but power delivery and damping factor should be improved by larger gauge wire. I typically use either 16 ga or 14 ga. stranded wire from the Auto parts store ( because I have it), twisted with a drill. Also, Check your connectors, I like soldered but a heavy crimp can be good too.
I do use good speaker wire for my stereo though. Kimber 4tc. Years ago at the urging of a audiophile friend, I auditioned a number of high end cables and found there are differences that are very audible. Some of the most expensive cables I did not like at all, Solid Aluminum for one. 999 silver was very sweet and expensive. I still have the Kimber because it sounds right to me. I have considered using it for Guitar speaker wire, but I think the short lengths that I use would not improve that much verses the cost.
My son, the Experimental Nuclear Physicist, explained that Stranded should perform better than solid core for the transmisson of electrons, so that is what I use.
YMMV.

[Scumback Speakers]

I've been using 16 gauge stranded copper zip/house lamp cord wire for years with great results. I've had the 12 gauge Monster and other cables from high end manufacturers for speaker cabs. The difference is so slight that I've just settled on the 50 cent per foot wire....well, it's probably about 75 cents per foot now.

[jjman]

My brother, who is now an electrical engineer, did a paper in college on how using very heavy gauge wire for speakers is pointless. He was inspired by the Monster brand that was becoming popular at the time. Of course it's all relative.

I was astonished at how thin the gauge was on the stock wiring inside my 4x10 Marshall cab so I changed it to a more normal speaker wire.

I believe in the “happy medium” approach to speaker wire and would never pay designer-brand prices for it.

[jaysg]

I'm not sure you want anything too stiff or heavy hanging off the speaker terminals. I've got some 14ga. stuff a guy at Tweeter just gave me. I think it's monster. 5 feet wasn't worth the paper work for him.

[Aurora]

For the 20-30 inch of wire req'd in a guitar cab, the change from 18 to 16 ga, probably shifts the Qt of the speaker a few tenth of percents at most ( guesstimating, not calculating) . I seriously doubt this is audible.
Being an EE myself, and spending some decades in the HiFi Asylum, - loudspeakers being my primary objects. After turning my interest towards guitar amps, I find that psychoacoustics and and snake oil sometimes plays an even more important role over here.
I am certainly not out to offend or intimidate anyone, but all electrical processes have a basis in physical explanations and theory.
OTOH - I leave to anyone to hear what they hear..... If it's your profound belief that you do hear a change - so be it! It's really your choice - simple as that.
It is a simple fact though, that most ( not all ) guitar amp cabs defy all modern loudspeaker theory. Looking at the specs available for most classical guitar speakers reveals that they are almost invariably very high Q elements, which are best suited for open baffle - or open back.

[Aurora]

What I really forgot to say - solid wires are likely to cause trouble caused by vibration and shocks... nothing to fence away wire movement - with solder breaks as a very possible failure.

[Structo]

Yes, 14 or 16 ga zip cord is probably all you will ever need for cab wiring.

If you look at pre made speaker cables that go from the amp to the cab, you have to look pretty hard to find anything bigger than 16 ga.

Sure there is the skin effect but I'm pretty sure that doesn't come into play at guitar frequencies.
Then there is resistance per foot, which is probably the most important thing to look at which relates to current handling.

A three foot 16 ga speaker cable is not going to exhibit much resistance due to it's short length.

Unless you are running 5,000 watt power amps, you needn't worry about running anything bigger than 16 or 14 ga cable.

[rooster]

Thanks all for weighing in. And all your comments are valid, of course. .....But have you tried this?

It is, as most of you infer, really hard to be objective about anything. I totally agree. One time I had an (older) EE get so mad discussing the worth of solid copper wire vs. whatever that I thought he was going to bitch slap me. His closing remark before he walked away very agitated was this: Bullshit, blind test it! And I think he is right here because most wire changes like this might be hard to blind test.

OK. This being said, let me try to explain what I am hearing as a change over here. First off, do any of you have one of those really high gain amps that have this weird fizz in the frequency spectrum that pretty much gives you a headache after ten minutes of medium/loud play? Like say a Marshall 401 (EL84 amp), or a Divided by 13 (any of them)? I have played these amps, yes, and left with a headache sorry to say. In defense of my ears, and I actually was lucky enough to find/buy a magic box (that is made by Bruce Zinky) that removes this fizz and instead leaves behind a very pleasant and quite recordable gtr tone. Further, what I do own of this type amp is the current production Fender Supersonic amp, the head version. Yes, I've been all over it, changed a few things including most of the gain stages and actually, even most of the stranded wire off the tube sockets for solid wire. (Oh yeah, too much time on my hands.)

It still gives me a headache unless I use this 'box', although, this being said, my Weber 2/12 alnico bluedog equipped cab doesn't do this. Which of course speaks to the magic of speakers maybe, regardless of wire. But I can't afford to load all my speaker boxes with these speakers - and - more importantly, perhaps, I wouldn't want to. I like the variety of different cabs.

Anyway, on this one cab with 2 vintage Jensen C10Qs and 1 Weber ceramic bluedog - 3 speakers total - I changed to the #14 copper wire. (The cab is 8 ohms, BTW, with parallell and series wiring of two 8 ohm speakers and one 16 ohm speaker, you will figure it out. They call the speaker layout 'Mickey Mouse' because it looks like a mouse face, with the two 10s on top of the sinple 12. Oh well trivia..) It is open back as well, and it is pretty cutting overall, with a bit of thump. .........But I digress.

Changing the wire on this cab and running the Supersonic head high gain channel, I realized after 30 minutes or so that I wasn't getting a headache. ?? Yeah, and I have played it over these last couple of days and found this to be still true. This 'fizz' or edge, whatever you want to call it, is gone - I don't need to use the 'box' with this amp and cab anymore. And that's my report.

[billyz]

I am not that surprised by the improvement you hear. I would have expected the tonal balance to be better with the heavier ga wire. Cheaper( smaller ga and inferior grade copper) would sound thinner or more high to low frequency response. which could sound harsher or " Fizzy".

Try the same experiment with 14 ga zip and it should sound better as well.
I personally like to twist the pairs to reduce the inductance effect, it can raise the capacitance though. But at guitar frequencies it shoud not be a problem.

[Noel Grassy]

I found this on my hardrive yesterday, a paper by engineering consultant, Fred E Davis where he tests some MIT & Levinson speaker wires with Beldon's 19123[18 ga zip cord] alongside some Krell bidniz and straight-up auto battery jumper cables.

About half way through the instruments indicate,"The effect of inductive reactance in this sample of
cables is far more significant than the skin effect. For Obviously, a loudspeaker can only perform to the
example, 3.1 m of the largest diameter cable sampled, quality of the electrical input to its terminals, so the
Levinson HF10C (sample 1), will show a 3.42 times best cable will show the flattest frequency response
increase in resistance at 20 kHz due to the skin effect,
but the inductive reactance will be 9.8 times greater
Impedance (ohms) Phase (degrees) thanresistanceat that frequency.Whendriving8 Flat 30 : : : : :::: : : : : :::: : : : : :::: 60
........ :: i ::::::::::i i :: ii::::::::
20kHz through3.1 m, the skineffectalonewould 28 _ _; _ il iiii!_ i :! i._ i ill i i i i i iii 40
produce a drop of -0.044 dBV relative to 20 Hz, while i ;,..iiiiii _ _ :_..-'_'r-.i_ :: :: ::::::!::::
rhedarcoopmobfine-d0.43reacdtaBnVce. and skin effects would produce 2018 ii:i: i_ 'i'.'m'!:i':-'_'_ii:'i"i'!"i"..::i::.'"":_:i :i: i::!:':"::'!:_i::.:.:_'.. :i:i:: :::: ::i:: ::i:::i::::i::i::i::::::':__'02°
coHmibgihneerd creabacletivceapcaocmitapnocneenwt oilfl thteendcabtole,retdhuucselotwhe- lo i_ i_ i_!_i!_!_:?_--- -- :_ .....i........_. i_ --20
ering cable impedance at high frequencies and im- s i} !ii i11[}1iiiii I iii i: ::::_i:fi :i i _i y: ::::i":: "i:"!"i'i'_v-1_-.ll_-40
proving the high-frequency response. This effect is 0 i i i _iiii i i i i iii' i i i i iiii -60 10 100 1000 10000
contrary to the popular belief that high frequencies Frequency (hertz)
will be attenuated more with higher cable capacitance
[5], [8]. Such conclusions are drawn from a cable model ..*-. h,p_o.... --8 Phase
cnnqi_tinotvnfv.series resistance and shunt capacitance, ,.,_._:6- . ,,,ecu,n.,...c.."-'-Aa,A,u'__,,,.a.._..c..-.,-.ck.. [,,,,,*c of ,,,uu,.r..c.ax1,._,.lA".'_
but no series inductance. Spectra-Strip 138-064 (sample Note that frequencies are sampled and lines connecting data
6) showed the highest capacitance (6.847 nF for 3.1 points do not reflect valid data.
m), lowest inductance, and flattest cable impedance.
lIil_ll A_o;_naA n_l;_qavo ara n_f offa_taA hxr fla;e omn*_nf
....... Impedance (ohms) Phase (degrees)
of capacitance, but some amplifiers may become un- 30 :: :: ::::::iii :: i ::::::::ii : : :::: :: 6o
stable.

Further tests indicated, "despite loudspeaker impedance or phase angle. The loudspeaker and cable resistive and reactive components
cable electrical response was measured using two corn- together. The cable is modeled at each frequency as a
mercial loudspeakers as a load. resistance in series with an inductive reactance using
A constant amplifier output of 1 V (0.00 dBV) was the measured values of resistance and inductance. The
used at each frequency to remove any variations due skin effect was calculated and applied to the resistance
to amplifier or signal source. The amplitude of the where appropriate. The capacitive component of the
voltage at the loudspeaker terminals was measured in cable is too small to have much influence at audible
dBV and recorded, frequencies, and is thus omitted from the model. The
The low-inductance multiconductor cables show the loudspeaker is modeled at each frequency as a resistance
most linear response (Fig. 9, Litz, 16LPC, and 138- in series with a reactance that can be either inductive
064; Fig. 10, aLPC, 4PR, and 191-036). Also note the or capacitive. The expression for the cable response at
relatively flat response of the 12 AWG cable with both the loudspeaker terminals for a given frequency is
loudspeakers (Figs. 10 and 1 1, 9718) when compared
to other two-wire cables (Figs. 9 and 11, HFIOC and V'R2 + X_
Krell). Another common effect is the high-frequency Vs(f) = Va(f) N/(Rw + Rs)2 + (Xw + Xs)2
loss with the higher inductance two-conductor cables.
Fig. 9 also shows the interaction of a cable's inductive where
reactance with loudspeaker A's capacitive reactance
where the level rises above 0 dBV in the 1-kHz to 10- Vs(f) = voltage at loudspeaker terminals at frekHz
region. At this point the loudspeaker terminal quencyf
voltage has exceeded the amplifier's output. The cause Va(f) -- voltage at amplifier output at frequencyf
of this will become apparent with the loudspeaker cable Rw = cable resistance, including skin effect, at
modelintroducedin Sec. 6. frequencyf
Four cables representing a variety of types were tested Xw -- cable inductive reactance at frequencyf
with loudspeaker B (Fig, 1 1). Loudspeaker B shows Rs = loudspeaker resistance
inductive reactance and low impedance between 300 -+Xs = loudspeaker reactance at frequency f, in-
Hz and 3 kHz and the response dips. When the reactance ductive (+) or capacitive (-).
of loudspeaker B becomes capacitive around 8 kHz, it The response in dBV was found by taking the logshows
the same rise with the more inductive cables
(HF10C and Krell).

If loudspeakers were only simple resistance, then
large, low-resistance cables would not be a bad idea.
However, loudspeaker systems exhibit a frequency and
reactance of the amplifier's output: dependent complex impedance that can interact with
the reactive
reactive components of amplifier and cable. The
Vs(f) best response was obtained with low-inductance cables
and an amplifier with low-inductance output and a high,
= frequency-independentdampingfactor.
Va(f)' X,/(Ra + Rw + Rs) 2 + (Xa + Xw --- Xs) 2 These tests have shown that the best way to achieve
adequately low resistance and inductance in a cable is
by using many independently insulated wires per conductor
rather than one large wire. Efforts to reduce the
skin effect (such as Litz construction) will help, but
due more to the reduction of inductance than the re duction of the skin effect. Inductive reactance is significant in large cables than the skin effect. If an
amplifier does not disagree, larger capacitance in a
cable is not significant since this component is com paratively small and reduces amplifier and cable inductive reactance effects.The best performance was measured with the multiconductor cables Spectra-Strip 138-064, Kimber 16LPC and AudioQuest Litz.

If anyone would like read this PM me your E-mail addy and I'll shoot it out to yez.

Please don't take anything originating from my jaundiced & sullied viewpoint as audio gospel pontifications.

[Tubetwang]

Kimber 8TC on my hi-fi rig.

On my open box guitar speakers i use 18 gauge ac wire.

Major Twang

[Fretts]

That quote was pretty close to ureadable. I guess it must have been a bad OCR conversion?

[Structo]

Is that in some kind of code?

The famous blind test I read about was with a bunch of audiofools listening to high end speaker cables that cost hundreds of dollars.
They listened to all the samples then made their choices known.
The tester snuck in some coat hanger wire and it was chosen to have the best clarity and transparency of all the cables.

I do agree that most connecting wire inside cabs is junk and frequently 18 gauge or smaller.

It's hard to believe that 100 watts with large peaks doesn't melt that stuff.

[LeeMo]

The wire in the voice coil is as thin as a hair and hundreds of feet long. I find it hard to believe that the lower impedance of a wire bigger than 18 gauge would effect the sound. However, there might be something to the capacitance and inductance theory.

LeeMo