Sound King or Blue Jean ???

[Dumar]

I can't believe you guys are actually talking about using 10 gauge wire to hook up your speakers ... talk about over kill.

Have you ever opened up a speaker cabinet and looked at the wire that connects the binding posts to the cross-over? What size do you think is in there?

IMO, don't waste your time bi-wiring either. Electrically the difference is infinitesimally small and way beyond the sensitivity of the human ear.

Save your money.

 

[warpdrive]

I can't believe you guys are actually talking about using 10 gauge wire to hook up your speakers ... talk about over kill.

Have you ever opened up a speaker cabinet and looked at the wire that connects the binding posts to the cross-over? What size do you think is in there?

Running 30-50 feet of cable from the receiver to the speaker is a different problem than running a few inches of cable from binding posts to the crossover. It's the total conductivity that matters. You have to take into account the actual length you are running. If you are running 50 feet, I'd say go with 12 gauge. I know a guy who's running his speaker wire around and through the ceiling and to the next rooms, and he was running nearly 60 feet lengths, so he went with a good quality 10 gauge just to be safe.

There's saving money, and then there is being cheap. Running 10/12 gauge still still might be overkill, but we're talking about $0.20 to 0.40 per foot. Not exactly going to break the bank. I see people arguing that spending $1.00-$2.00 a foot is too much, but I don't see the problem with "splurging" an extra $20.00 total (an extra $0.10-0.20 ft) on something that's has a bit nicer looking jacket, doesn't turn green/oxidize after a few years. It not make a difference sonically, but we are all into this hobby to have some harmless fun.

I'd go with something from bluejeanscable (Belden). Belden has been around forever, so I'd put my trust in their products, not some no-name stuff from Home Depot that may or may not turn green. Spend the $0.20-0.40 per foot, but some good connectors from partsexpress, or bluejeans, terminate them, and then forget about it while you enjoy your system! No big deal. Problem solved. Next!

 

[Privateer]

this is not exactly true. any decent cable that does not interfere with the signal will sound basically the same. a poorly designed cable, on the other hand, can make your system sound worse..

Did you read my whole post?

 

[JohnA]

Have a look...

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=100-155

it is a 100' roll which works out to $.375 a foot.

 

[warpdrive]

warpdrive...Blue jean cable emailed me back. Here is what they said re: their postage rates:

Be careful if Partsexpress uses UPS for the shipper. You're going to be reamed on brokerage fees. I've bought stuff from Bluejeanscable myself. You'll pay then $5 processing and GST/PST to Canada Post, but no $20-40 brokerage fee that UPS chargers.

 

[Dumar]

he was running nearly 60 feet lengths, so he went with a good quality 10 gauge just to be safe.

The premise behind using larger cable for a given application (to be on the safe side) is to overcome the losses incurred due to cable impedance. In other words, you want to make sure the cable is big enough to supply the load during peal demand and still have enough headroom to allow the losses to occur within the cable. With that in mind, I’d like to point out the difference between 10 and 12 gauge speaker cable so you can see what’s going on in your system.

I quickly picked out two Belden cables from their site for comparison: 5T00UP is a 10 gauge commercial speaker cable with 65x28 construction. 1860A is a 12 gauge audio cable with 19x25 construction. Assume L and C are the same for both cables. Using the stated ohmic values for these two cables it turns out there is a 570 micro-ohm/foot difference between the two. Over a 60 foot run the difference would be about 34 milli-ohms. If you could push an 8 ohm load to 200 watts pk, the difference in terms of current handling ability in these two cables (at that rating) would amount to 171 milli-amps. Now since the 200 watt load requires 5 amps, you could go with 18 gauge and still be on the safe side (according to the US National Electrical Code) ... and I bet you wouldn’t here the difference either.

I’m not saying you should use 18 gauge wire, I’m just trying to point out the level of overkill you’re into by using that really big a$$ wire. All you’re really doing is raising the price of copper on the commodities market.

Maybe I should be buying copper futures.

 

[warpdrive]

The premise behind using larger cable for a given application (to be on the safe side) is to overcome the losses incurred due to cable impedance. In other words, you want to make sure the cable is big enough to supply the load during peal demand and still have enough headroom to allow the losses to occur within the cable. With that in mind, I’d like to point out the difference between 10 and 12 gauge speaker cable so you can see what’s going on in your system.

I quickly picked out two Belden cables from their site for comparison: 5T00UP is a 10 gauge commercial speaker cable with 65x28 construction. 1860A is a 12 gauge audio cable with 19x25 construction. Using the stated ohmic values for these two cables it turns out there is a 570 micro-ohm/foot difference between the two (we don’t need to get into L and C characteristics since they are virtually the same for both cables also). Over a 60 foot run the difference would be about 34 milli-ohms. If you could push an 8 ohm load to 200 watts pk, the difference in terms of current handling ability in these two cables (at that rating) would amount to 171 milli-amps. Now since the 200 watt load requires 5 amps, you could go with 18 gauge and still be on the safe side (according to the US National Electrical Code) ... and I bet you wouldn’t here the difference either.

I’m not saying you should use 18 gauge wire, I’m just trying to point out the level of overkill you’re into by using that really big a$$ wire. All you’re really doing is raising the price of copper on the commodities market.

Maybe I should be buying copper futures.

Point taken.

There is probably no "provable" reason to buy 10 gauge over 12 for most applications, but what I was saying is that it's pretty harmless to buy "too much cable" for the extra price of a couple of Happy Meals. I've done much worse....bought 18V Drill whereas I could have done with 14.4V etc.

I bought 12 gauge even though my system theoretically could do very fine with 16 or even 18 gauge according to the rules of thumb.

If anything, it's just piece of mind until somebody definitely proves that cable does or does not make a difference. From my own research it still seems that there are still experts in the field that are on both sides of the fence, so this is still a somewhat unresolved issue. I believe that we still don't understand all the factors that affect sound quality. After all, CD players were claimed to have perfect sound based on measurements, but we all know how bad they sounded. Later, we started to understand why they sounded bad.

Meanwhile, I won't miss those Happy Meals that I spent on speaker cable instead.

 

[Dumar]

IMO, 12 or 14 gauge is a nice size to work with (I use 14 gauge), and I understand your point. However, I have to strongly disagree with you on the drill ... you need that 18V beauty! Is it a Milwaukee?

Dumar

 

[Dumar]

Closing thoughts ... I promise.

OK, I have one ... maybe three more things to add, and then I’ll shut up ... I promise.

Quantum physics notwithstanding, there are no more mysteries lying deep within the copper. We didn’t make the “rules of thumb” that apply to the motion of electrons down the pipe. God made them, and they are called Laws of Nature. These laws have been well understood for a very long time now. So when you say there are “experts in the field that are on both sides of the fence”, I say show me the expert that says you need huge and/or expensive cable to make your speakers sound better, and I’ll show you a salesman with a bottle of snake oil in his hand.

Think about how design engineers move our beautiful music around inside our gear. There isn’t any mystery there either, it’s just copper wire and very small traces on circuit boards. What makes some devises sound better than others boils down to good design principles and quality components. They all still use the same medium to move the signals around inside the equipment.

With CD’s, as with countless other innovations over the years, one must be extremely watchful of anything being touted as “the best”. The introduction of the CD was a paradigm shift in the way music was recorded, played, and stored ... we were just entering the digital domain in a main stream way. Look how far we’ve come already, and there will doubtless be many more exciting advances in the coming years. I’d be willing to bet however, that the advances won’t be made in speaker wire technology.

Someone, please stop me.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Thanks for all the input guys...I think I will scrap the biwire idea and just get the 10 guage. Is 10 guage THAT much thicker? will I have a problem putting it into my NAD amp? it won't take a banana.

BTW, nobody answered my original question. Blue jean or Soundking? Warpdrive had a good thought as Bluejean just sends by regular mail, no brokerage. Anywhere in Canada for Sound king?

 

[warpdrive]

Dumar,

You are right in that there are no more real mysteries in electrical conduction. But there is still a grey area of what can be heard and can't be, and how the various variables can influence perception. After all, the human brain is a complex and still mysterious organ, and some people's perception of sound is still being researched. On one hand it is likely that a few milliohms of impedance difference may not be heard, the human brain is not so easily fooled with other factors. It's a fascinating topic to be sure.

I myself have done the listening tests and could not hear any differences in cabling, so my vote is easy, just get something that you are comfortable with, made with good quality control, and doesn't break the bank.

I'm very much more careful with video cabling and especially digital video cabling because I've personally seen degradation in video transfer of hi-def sources due to inferior cable.

 

[jaxvon]

Eh Mr. Cannuck, here's the link at Westlake you requested:

Clicky!

Not sure about Westlake with shipping, but they have the best prices on bulk Belden and Canare that I've seen on the net.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Jaxvon...thanks, eh (btw, Canadians NEVER say eh...don't know where you Americans get that from!!!)

sent them an email to get shipping info...is this stuff the same as Bluejean? Looks like it.

 

[jaxvon]

Oh no. Don't try to pull that on me. I have Canadian relatives, and yes, they DO say "eh". Hope I helped though