Twisted or parallel power cables?

In designing a custom power cable is it better to use a twisted pair or not?

[dangerzone]

I had a twisted pair once. It was very painful.

[odizcvw]

Thanks Paul. Always great to get your opinion based on years of experience.
In my own limited experience, bigger gauge does make a positive difference. Also, decent connectors. Makes no sense considering much smaller gauge is in the wall. But it does, so why not? Wire is not expensive.
VH Audio publishes a cookbook for cables that worked well for me.

[gotham]

Seems kind of nuts to be thinking of audiophile power cabling in a PA system context. The main goals here are reliability, ruggedness, and ease of cable dressing. You don't want stiff audiophile cables that might stick out and become unplugged if someone trips over them.

[tn]

I always use ordinary single core eletric cable as power cable for many years. then one day I decided to strip the outer insulation and then braid the 3 conductors, the result is amazing difference.

[sidesup]

Who started this twisting one conductor around the whole length of the other? I'm sure it was a real long time ago. Lower guage thicker cable (all things being equal) always seems to help the bass and maybe a few other things too. I think seperation of strands is way more effective than twisting. The theoretical ideal, since there is so much electromagnetic interaction between all the individual strands, would be for the signal to run only through the center of the strands where it couldn't interact with the other strands as much. One of the best cables I ever heard, coats the outside periphery of each strand with a low conducttivity material to lessen electromagnetic interaction between strands. We're talking interconnect and speaker cables here. With thicker power cables it's easy to hear an increase in the fullness of the bass. Quantity is nearly always what the ear picks up on first. Bass, size of soundstage etc. before you notice other things that are also improved. When modifying, if you do something that makes a positive difference, it's usually an improvement all across the board. Some things might improve a little more than others though with a particular mod.

[presentalinkwalterbak]

Twisted vs straight between the mixer and the mains?
The twisted-pair concept was developed to reduce the crosstalk during the early telephony days.
Crosstalk is the bleeding of the signal from one pair to another. In telephony (and now data, mostly ethernet) it makes sense, although..
Twisting introduces inductance to the pair, so it's basically just like connecting a coil in series with the circuit.
Coils in series act as low-pass filters, so this actually could reduce the high frequencies passing through a twisted pair cable, and as far as audio signal, this would not be beneficial. Just FYI, twisted pair cables are not recommended for alarm sensor dry contacts because of the inductance that would reduce the reaction time to for ex. a quick opening and closing a door. If the cable is long enough, the signal may not even get to the alarm zone terminal. Of course, it would be best to have an A/B comparison scenario to see (well, hear) if there's a noticeable difference in high frequencies with both type of cables.
I hope this helps..
Cheers!

[lucidlx]

For portable PA, only use stranded cable. HO7 rubber sheathed, is ideal. Solid core will only flex so many times before it breaks. Apart from it being a complete pain to coil! If it's an installed PA system, then solid core would be ok. Sold/Stranded won't make any difference to the sound. Solid core is cheaper. Most stranded cable is twisted inside the outer sheath.

[EraYaN]

And remember don’t do solid core anywhere where there would be movement, you will break the core. Even heavy vibrations can break the core. PA’s number one priority is reliability.

[mikepxg]

IT DOES NOT MATTER. Just listen to the music stop worrying about equipment.

[mysockC]

Really the only time you ever need to "twist" wires together is when the source and load have a high impedance, and they are subject to common mode noise or stray fields. Both speaker and power cables are taking power from a low impedance source and feeding it into a low impedance load. The noise has no effect, and the noise that does (e.g. GHz wireless signals) are quite easy to screen out via metal chassis work hooked to the local star point or ground lead in the equipment and filters on the incoming supply.

[SuperMcgenius]

I have installed many PA systems, if it is a fixed install use 20 amp circuits and 12 ga. Keep your amps really close to the speakers with short cable runs with 10 ga speaker cable. I use canarie quad cable for line level.

[AnalogueGround]

There is missing information in the question to give an absolute answer. How long is the power cord going to be and how powerful is the amplifier? With a 3 metre 14 gauge cable it will drop just 0.25volt with a 1000W rms amplifier at full chat drawing 10 amps on a 110V supply. The incoming power to the venue will be varying much more than this, so going for thicker cable makes no sense. Something to consider with a professional installation is the robustness of the cable and a thick rubberised outer is more impervious to damage than T&E.

[lwdp]

Hi Paul. Unless 12 gauge wire was specified, there’s probably 20 or 30 feet of 14 gauge to reach the outlet. The electrical difference of using 3 or 4 feet of 12 gauge to finish the connection must be minuscule. Have you actually heard an audible difference?

[gioponti]

oh, I challenge the advise of using solid core cable in power cables: in my experience they sound good at first but connection in plugs via screw down terminals is tricky if not impossible to do: copper is soft and gives and so the connection always loosen up a bit, so that after some time the good sound is gone and a certain harshness sets in. Also safety is a topic. some companies such as AQ manage to do a reliable connection of SC wires via cold welding though..
Perhaps via crimping SC wires with Furutechs y-lugs, which they produce only for their power cables, it can be done reliably. But mind, “wrestling” with a rather rigid high x-section power cord inevitably exerts bending torque on connectors, to some extent bending torque also extrnds to SC wires / y-lugs and connection points within the plug.. so best check and re-tighten connections regularly.

[volpedo]

I’ve heard quite a few times Paul mentioning the benefits braiding cables. Each time he states that braiding makes the wires cross each other at 90° but if you look at them closely the are nowhere near perpendicular. I might be getting this wrong.

[tradestube]

I don't think the question was about power cables. In pro-audio the mains are the main front of house speakers; I think he's asking about speaker cables.

[spacemissing]

Most household outlets are supplied by 14 gauge wire.
Think: posssibly as much as 80 or more feet of that,
and you propose to make the last 6 feet between the outlet and the amplifier number 12?
Ridiculous.
But it's your money and you can waste it as you see fit.
I get good results with the # 18 cords that were permanently attached to my equipment by the manufacturers.

[oivindtangen]

With a twisted pair, 2 or 3 turns per inch, you get 40 to 60 dB better common mode rejection. That means if you have strong RF fields from from a near by transmitter, eg AM transmitter, 0.5 miles or closer, or local communications equipment, you will have less chance of RF interference, if your amplifiers are badly filtered. However most equipment nowadays are well filtered and meets the FCC or EU EMC standards, so you rarely will be in trouble. Good luck!

[mysockC]

For power cables I absolutely prefer to use twisted vacuum dielectric conductors for the utmost in isolation. That way no noise whatsoever can infiltrate the system.

[freekwo]

Ana Vidović for english speakers Vidovich. From Karlovac, Croatia.