speaker wire and sound quality

[jamie2112]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....Funny, Funny, yea just laugh and laugh..you guys are just regular clowns. Thanks for bustin my B@lls

Hey there no problem buddy.....

 

[Alex2507]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....Funny, Funny, yea just laugh and laugh..you guys are just regular clowns. Thanks for bustin my B@lls

I thought I was gonna die laughing when I read that. I tried giving you some rep points for being a good sport but I'm tapped. Soon though.

To me it seemed like the stage was set with MatthewB talking about moon rocks and such. That Jamie just doesn't know how to behave.

 

[jliedeka]

Yellow speaker wire just kills your hi freq and if there is green stripes on the wire it will dull the 1 hz to 4hz bandwidth....I don't know why but yellow cable is really harsh on the higher frequencies...

The color needs to be harmonically in tune with the desired frequencies. Red is the best color for bass (or infrared if you can find it). Indigo is perfect for high frequencies. You don't need violet or ultaviolet because nobody can hear that high anyway.

 

[Midcow2]

I know i'm going to catch hell for saying this but when I built my theater I used 8AWG for all speakers This was only because I already had about 300ft of it and didn't see the need to purchase anything. Each conductor is about as thick as a pencil and I have 30ft runs. It works great and it will carry any amout of power I want to feed it! I do agree its absurd, but it would have been more absurd to buy something because it is labeled "speaker wire" when I already had so much of this. I'll upload a pic in a minute.

LOL thanks for sharing. That is some BIG wire

 

[Midcow2]

Reminds me of my pet grass snake

Here is the 8AWG I ran to everything, Its overkill, but its great stuff.

Reminds of the pet grass snake I had

 

[highfigh]

I know someone who does commercial sound, PA, conventions and has worked as a recording engineer in studios. He has done TEF analysis of speaker cables and found that up to 50', 16 ga was fine up to a certain power limit, which IIRC was 100W. No extra distortion was seen, no response issues, no damping problems. His telling me about this was prompted by me trying to sell some heavy speaker cable to him. He also compared the waveforms at the input and output of the cable, while terminated.

 

[highfigh]

Reminds of the pet grass snake I had

Nice Packer colors.

 

[Alex2507]

My Wire is Bigger Than Your Wire

Understand that I'm a condo dweller and I just happen to have this on hand. Not only that but I really thought I had something when I bought it.

The blue and silver clown wire is what I needed to deal with skin effect.
My helmet is on. You can start hurling the rocks.

Edit: Don't mind the pube. Yuck!

 

[jamie2112]

Blue and silver wire is super tough on the mids. 400hz thru 1k is affected in a nonpourus way. I would only use white or black as those are the only colors that sound good. IMO of course.....

 

[mtrycrafts]

DUDE.

I wonder if they'll fit under the hood of my platinum-plated Ferrari F430?

But they are so nice, just like that ripe pear

 

[mtrycrafts]

I recently saw an ad for Monster speaker cable and couldn't believe the jargon they are willing to use to sell wire:

"Special Time Correct windings control distortion producing magnetic fields for a smoother, more natural re-creation of the music. Patented Magnetic Flux Tube construction provides improved bass response and dynamic range, important for home theatre and top quality music systems."

I have a physics degree and don't know what they are talking about.

That's what they are counting on, the general public being blown away by such words

I wonder if they have hard data to support their claims: controls distortion LOL; improved bass response( that can be measured); as can dynamic range.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I know i'm going to catch hell for saying this but when I built my theater I used 8AWG for all speakers This was only because I already had about 300ft of it and didn't see the need to purchase anything. Each conductor is about as thick as a pencil and I have 30ft runs. It works great and it will carry any amout of power I want to feed it! I do agree its absurd, but it would have been more absurd to buy something because it is labeled "speaker wire" when I already had so much of this. I'll upload a pic in a minute.

Why would anyone give you grief about that 8ga? I didn't have to work with it, you did And, best of all, it was left over, likely free as it would have been just sitting around doing nothing.

 

[mtrycrafts]

How much of a noticeable difference in sound quality between the "good" speaker cables (like the ones that have plugs) ...
Thanks!

What kind of plugs are you referring to? Pictures?

 

[Shock]

I'm fairly certain he's talking about banana plugs.

I'm not a fan of any kind of termination plug. I have always prefered raw wire for the simple fact I don't have to buy anything other than the wire, and there's one less failure point to deal with.

There's zero difference in sound quality when using raw or any type of high quality termination to answer your question. All cable end termination does is allow for easier assembly.

 

[PSWii60]

Why would anyone give you grief about that 8ga? I didn't have to work with it, you did And, best of all, it was left over, likely free as it would have been just sitting around doing nothing.

Because its overkill. And yes it was left over from an MRI install. And Yes it was a pain to work with (especially when its cold), luckily my room has crawl space surrounding it so it was just a matter of laying it all out. It's really not that big. It's the shielding that makes it so large and it's O2 free
(not that it matters much) With wire that big I barely have any resistance, and the runs from my AV closet to my mains is pretty long. It works well but I'm still using integrated amplification from my receiver (140x7) (which probably equates to about 80-90). I'm still undecided on which amp will fit my need, but one thing for certain is with 8AWG I can just about feed any amount of power I want.

 

[highfigh]

Yellow speaker wire just kills your hi freq and if there is green stripes on the wire it will dull the 1 hz to 4hz bandwidth....I don't know why but yellow cable is really harsh on the higher frequencies...

I didn't dump on your team's colors, so please don't dump on my team's colors. Now, if the jacket was purple, gold and white (Viqueens) or navy blue and orange (Bears), fire away.

 

[highfigh]

I recently saw an ad for Monster speaker cable and couldn't believe the jargon they are willing to use to sell wire:

"Special Time Correct windings control distortion producing magnetic fields for a smoother, more natural re-creation of the music. Patented Magnetic Flux Tube construction provides improved bass response and dynamic range, important for home theatre and top quality music systems."

I have a physics degree and don't know what they are talking about.

The first time a Munster Cable rep came in to give us sales and technical training (they served Kool-Aid), he talked about the separate solid and stranded wire, saying that because highs and lows travel at different speeds, I asked him to calculate how much sooner the signal would be delayed if the separate conductor wasn't there and also if he knew the smallest increment of delay that can be discerned in controlled listening tests. He couldn't, and wouldn't try. He was absolutely certain that, although the correction was far below the audible minimum time increment, it would make a big difference in sound quality.

I passed on the Kool-Aid.

 

[Rickster71]

Because its overkill. And yes it was left over from an MRI install. And Yes it was a pain to work with (especially when its cold), luckily my room has crawl space surrounding it so it was just a matter of laying it all out. It's really not that big. It's the shielding that makes it so large and it's O2 free
(not that it matters much) With wire that big I barely have any resistance, and the runs from my AV closet to my mains is pretty long. It works well but I'm still using integrated amplification from my receiver (140x7) (which probably equates to about 80-90). I'm still undecided on which amp will fit my need, but one thing for certain is with 8AWG I can just about feed any amount of power I want.

I always have plenty of wire left over; terminating it was always an issue.
What type of wire did you use?
How were you able to connect it?

 

[PSWii60]

Just 8AWG stranded copper

 

[Alex2507]

Just 8AWG stranded copper

Is there any writing on the jacket or on the spool?