Diffrence between 26x30ga 105x36ga speaker wire?

[Jimmy319]

What do those numbers generally mean? And what is considered better?

 

[gregz]

The thickness of wire is rated by gauge (ga), with 00 being the largest, and 36 being ultra-thin. If the wire is composed of a single solid core, then its rating is its thickness, period.

However, if the wire is stranded, it can be specified by its overall thickness (most common in hardware store), or it can be specified by the thickness of each strand multiplied by the number of strands.

So 105x36ga is a finer stranded wire than 26-30ga.

In the high end audio world, there is some disagreement over the virtues of stranded wire vs solid wire based upon effects according to electrical theory, shouldn't make a difference. I don't think there's a difference in sound between solid, stranded, or ultra-thin stranded.

In general, solid cord wiring is used in permanant installations (such as home wiring), and more expensive stranded wiring is used in vehicles and airplanes where vibrations and sharp bends might eventually cause fatigue failures in solid wires. The finer the strands, the more flexible and soft the wire usually is, though that's also a function of what material they use for insulation.

 

[Dumar]

In terms of overall gauge, these two wire types are virtually the same (which means they can both safely carry the same amount of current). As gregz points out, the 105 strand wire with its ultra fine construction would be super flexible.

It works like this: 30ga wire has an area of 0.049 square mm. Multiply that by 26 and you come up with 1.274 square mm total, which is the same area as a single strand of 16ga. You can do the same formula for the 36ga wire, which has an area of 0.013 square mm. They are both the equivalent of 16ga wire.

I'll just point out that the more complete AWG tables list wire sizes from 46ga (0.04 square mm) to 0000 (11.7 square mm) ... and let me tell you, you don't want to be trying to pull 0000 around too many corners.

As you can probably tell, wire is almost always referred to by its area, which equates to spec's for allowable current density, resistance per distance, etc. Above 0000, "circular mil area" is used to describe (big ***) cable, such as 500MCM (where M means thousands of circular mils). A circular mil is the equivalent area of a circle whose diameter is 0.001".

Ya ... I know ... way too much information.


Hey, how come I'm not allowed to say *** in this forum?