Speaker Cable Gauges

[davejones]

A friend of mine worked as a sound engineer at Abbey Road studios for over 20 years. He told me they use solid copper electric cable. He said all these high end speaker cables are a waste of money.

[petersouthernboy]

I think it’s important to know about the works published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. In a nutshell, 12 AWG or 10 AWG copper cable from a quality manufacturer like Belden for a couple bucks per foot is imperceptible from the high dollar cables.

[Skoozatz]

My man removed his glasses and I knew shit was about to go down

[totalplonker]

Back in the day when I was using a budget receiver I had always been aware of a hiss, it was only subtle but still very annoying! Well anyway after auditioning several AVRs it became apparent that the hiss was coming from my unshielded cables! Considering I was in a middle of an upgrade I thought I'll start with what was annoying me the most (the hiss coming from the unshielded cables) So I changed my 18- gauge cables for the 14-gauge amazonbasics and even though their was a slight improvement in sound quality the hiss still remained! It was only when I finally purchased shielded cables that the hiss had finally been eliminated! 🥳 Probably because of the aluminium shield protecting the cables from RF/EMI interference! My room is so much quieter now (floor noise) that I can actually start enjoying my movies at lesser volumes.

[kenwebster]

Hi, In relation to the question whether it matters if the speaker enclosure wiring being a thinner gauge than the external cable: The answer is that cable properties like impedance are a function of both length and gauge. Therefore, the short run of thinner cable within the enclosure only has a tiny influence on the electrical properties within the total run length from amp to driver. Therefore, it is unlikely to make a noticeable difference as long as the cable is reasonable. I have been maintaining a church PA for about 30 years. While PA is not HiFi, I think it would be fair to say that in pro PA we at least pay attention to the 1st 1 or 2 most import factors that influence sound quality. There is a general principle of impedance matching in audio. That is, a source device and it's cabling must have a significantly lower impedance than the receiving device. If not, there will be a filtering effect and the sound will have poor bass, clarity and richness. This is not much of a problem for most signal level equipment (except pickups which are high impedance sources) since audio gear tends to be designed with this in mind. However speakers also do not fit this pattern as their dynamic drivers nominal impedance is generally only 4 - 8 ohms. For this reason, Amp output impedance has to be extremely low (hopefully much less than 1% of this) and the speaker cable impedance must also be extremely low as well. A lot of PA occurs in fairly noisy or acoustically poor environments, so as a general rule passive speaker cable will be chosen to be no more than 5% of the load impedance. However, a lot depends on the stability of the gear in question and I personally have set a cable limit of less than 2% of load for our church PA system. The impedance question seems to be a 1st order consideration for choosing twisted strand copper speaker cable. As pointed out in the video, there are other considerations and cable types beyond this, personal taste being one of them. This is probably a reasonable guide in that 2% of load impedance would be a satisfactory 1st base line for most audiophiles, but it is not the only consideration. There are Cable gauge/length impedance charts online but they are based on differing standards and many will lead to mediocre results. If it's important for the cable impedance to be extremely low (thousandths of an ohm), It is important for the connections to be maintained absolutely tight and corrosion free....(use a contact conditioner guys....sigh!) I had an interesting experience with 1 m cable runs into ProAcc EBTs recently. I just used some 18ga cable to make up 1m speaker cables which should have been gross overkill on the impedance issue, but the EBTs sounded harsh when turned up and left me feeling rather jangled after long listening sessions. As and experiment, I swapped in 1m of 14 ga speaker cable and found the sound smooth and relaxed even at high volume, no listening fatigue now. I have to say that from a listening perspective it is hard to say what changed, not harsh anymore certainly and certainly a much more pleasant and relaxing experience but in terms of frequency response, clarity, it's a mystery. Anyway, I like to be able to work from a known good standard such as the impedance charts, it's a good solid foundation and proved itself with the PA and other applications but I have to admit it failed this time. So I am willing to accept there is stuff we don't know and useful as it it, the commonly accepted simple audio engineering theory just doesn't explain everything in all cases. Sure you can set an initial baseline to try and that will possible be OKish but in the end, you just have to experiment and trust your own ears and that can get real expensive.


There is a difference between being a technician and being an engineer. My father was chief electrical engineer at a world class electrolytic copper smelter. He said that engineering is the practical application of the scientific method. The modeling is just the tool to establish the initial plant design setup. After which, the process of applied science began, gathering and analyzing experimental data to optimise the performance efficiency of the plant. In other words, the theory does not define the end point, it just gets you the best starting point you can get in order to make a start on the real engineering. This is what many people just don't get.

[Magnulus]

16 gauge is adequate for most stereo setups, and that's a very conservative estimate. In reality most people could probably get by with 18 gauge wire with no audible differences running 8 ohm speakers.

Copper is getting expensive and there is really no sense in wasting money on thicker cables than what you need.

[biketech]

Speaker impedance and sensitivity play a large role in what to choose . An 84 dB speaker with 4 ohm impedance will require heavier gauge than an 8 ohm speaker with 94 dB sensitivity simply because the former draws much more current at the same volume . Cable company Analysis Plus makes cables in many price ranges and was my choice as a retail customer only .Excellent

[cheeky]

I had some crappy 18 awg cheapo speaker wire on my hifi (it's all I could get at the time). Sounded okay too at the time.
I then upgraded the wire to 12awg and used banana plugs at both ends and the sound did improve vastly it became richer.
So gauge does matter to me lol.

[jctedsap]

A late friend that used to sell and install audiophile systems tried to explain it to me several times. Good quality is important and Paul makes sense with using different gauges though I don’t know of any. Personally I like heavy gauge fine strand. But I am not an engineer nor claim to be one. In the presence of someone like Paul I would occasionally ask a question and try to absorb his wisdom. I just wish he could went a little further into this topic.

[oysteinsoreide]

I'm now using 14 awg single strand cable, and it works very nicely. good high end details, and no lack of bass.

[philspencelayh]

I can certainly see your point. I dont know if you are familiar with "The Groundhogs" if not they were a classic 1970s power trio. I dug one of their albums out today and I had not heard it for quite a while. Recorded in 1971, very loud and as clear as a bell. Perhaps they should get the old engineers out of retirement to show the current crop of "engineers" how to do it.

[michaelangeloh.]

Just go in-between... Here's a fun little fact from the guitar-world; Some guitarists use the old classic coiled cables, which are actually very thick, to round off the top-end. - I believe Brian May is a particular one who uses it as part of his sound. - So that's what thicker cables do. They might definitely carry more of the signal, but then capacitance will roll off the top-end.

[MeatPopsycle]

From an audio standpoint, that transition @1:51 was a thing of beauty.

[wp]

I've never understood why high end consumer audio has not moved towards balanced interconnects. Consumers are duped into spending thousands on exotic cables that at best make no difference and at worst degrade the sound when this simple alternative is out there.

There is a reason all pro level equipment uses balanced interconnects, there are measurable, objective advantages yet we persist with silly silver strand thousand dollar RCA interconnects.

[DanGoodShotHD]

What I'm getting as someone building a guitar speaker cabinet is it depends on what tonal characteristics you're looking for from that particular speaker. In my case I was looking to get a clean lowend for the bottom cabinet. The top cabinet is for higher tones. Together they blend nicely giveng me the sound I'm looking to achieve. Clean Bass you can feel and a clean high end that cuts through with scooped mids.

[randomtube]

Wouldn't it depend on length and current draw? Tweeters dont draw as much as mid bass or subwoofers. So it would make sense to use a smaller size. Thats why bi amping your speakers is the best option if you can. You can use different gauge speaker cables. Smaller gauge for tweeters and larger gauge for mid bass and subwoofers.

[tubefreeeasy]

For my 3 watt amp, I use a bare 16 gauge soft silver core cable wrapped in an 8 gauge teflon jacket.

The cable offers the lovely transmission, fullness, no glaring sibilance, and smoothness only pure silver offers.
However, with an oversized jacket, I get a more open sound with added RF protection.

Tempo Electric Cables suggests using bare wire to attach to the speaker posts.

I’m sure, it’s to reduce metal mixing and offer maximum signal transmission.

I feel, I hear the potential of these cables over my Nordost knockoffs I had attached to my system.

[thinkIndependent]

Paul that sounds like the solid vs stranded wire controversy

I'm my thinking it's why bi-amping was once so popular

My practical experience of problems with wiring and troubleshooting millions of feet in it in my lifetime definitely a preference toward stranded at higher frequency

[Nightjar]

Cables only take away. They don’t add to anything. You have the signal and it either degrades it or keeps it intact.

[williac]

Thank You. Here is my confusion and it's not so much the cable as it is the ends. If you are going to have a solid (banana or spade) connector at the ends, why is it so important to have a cable that has fine wire that is just the right size? It seems you are adding resistance at both ends time (X) 2, the male and female. It seems as well that with a banana plug in hole in the threaded, you are relying on the point connection of the male and female and the threaded portion you are clamping with. With a spade it's the same. Point contact would seem to defeat the purpose of the fine wire heavy gauge high end cable. Shouldn't you at lease eliminate the connector at the cable end and gain as much potential contact as possible going straight to the device?