What guage of Monster Cable for 8ohm floor speakers?
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gjt Unregistered guest | Can someone tell me what guage of cable I should use in connecting my JBL E90's to my Pioneer 914K ? Thanks... |
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Bronze Member Username: RobertinchicoPost Number: 36 Registered: Apr-04 | You can use any GUAGE of wire you want; different guages don't sound much different, resistance differs over LONG runs, but if you want to improve your sound quality, you'll need to use speaker cable. |
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New member Username: MongoTucson, AZ USA Post Number: 7 Registered: Apr-04 | I haven't seen a good rule-of-thumb for speaker wire gauge recently, but I have some thoughts. Amplifier designers go to some trouble to have high "damping factor", which means that the output impedance of the amplifier is much lower than the load impedance of the speaker. From the standpoint of the speaker, though, the resistance of the speaker wire adds to the output impedance of the amplifier, lowering the damping factor and degrading the frequency and impulse response of the speaker. Thus, the resistance of the speaker wire should be much less than the impedance of the speaker, no more than 10%, preferably near 1%. 1% of 8 Ohms is 0.08 Ohms. For a rule-of-thumb, lets round this to 0.1 Ohms. My Pocket Ref includes the resistivity of various gauges of copper wire expressed in terms of Feet per Ohm (how many feet does it take to make 1 Ohm of resistance). Since a speaker cable is a two-conductor wire, the cable length will be half the wire length for a given resistance. Thus, the rule-of-thumb maximum speaker cable length is the Feet per Ohm length divided by 20. Here is the resulting table: AWG - Feet #20 - 4.8 #18 - 7.6 #16 - 12.2 #14 - 19.3 #12 - 30.8 #10 - 49.0 #8 - 78 Of course, lower resistance is better, so shorter runs of heavier (lower number) wire gauge are better. Also, the table could be scaled for other speaker impedances. |
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Bronze Member Username: RobertinchicoPost Number: 38 Registered: Apr-04 | Mongo - there are a few problems with your summary. Loudspeakers don't EVER provide a constant, uniform and consistent ohm/resistance load to your amplifier. The speakers resistive and impedance profile presented to your amp differs as the frequencies changes from high to low, as sustained low notes occur, dynamics change, crossover function etc. As the magnets on the drivers are forced to move and then control the cone motion to produce sound, there is an ever changing spectra of resistance, impedance and voltage. The GUAGE of a cable would only matter much if you were using a DRASTICALLY weak amp with HUGE speakers that were difficult to drive. And SONICALLY, if you want your speakers to sound better, you'll have to try some upgraded speaker cables. Home building supply stores are not the places to get cable that make your speakers sound better. No "Rule of Thumb" about cable resistance really applies to modern amplifiers of any nominal power. Unless you expect a Sony Walkman to drive a 10" woofer, resistance is hardly ever an issue. |
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Dave0123 Unregistered guest | gjt the Artic SP-214 cable I'm using is twisted & sheilded and working really well for me. It runs about $1.50 a foot. (average depending on your local retailer) It's also like 96 or 98 % oxygen free. |
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Silver Member Username: KeggerMICHIGAN Post Number: 199 Registered: Dec-03 | mongo has the general idea the longer you run the cables the thicker the wire should be so you don't add resistance. but most of the time 14 or 16 guage is fine. and you don't need anything to fancy just some descent monster cable or best buy carries some well priced acoustic research. even radio shack has well shielded speaker wire. the point is don't get to crazy on high priced brands there is about a 400% markup on cables. if you want to run thicker cable that is fine you just don't want to run thinner. the cable gets thinner as the guage number goes up so don't get any higher guage than 16. |
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Silver Member Username: Disco_stanMinnesota Post Number: 138 Registered: Dec-03 | What do you think about these speaker cables from parts express: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=181-602 But are do those cables have banana plugs on each end? I dont't think a banana plug will fit on the back of my NAD C270 amp. And what else would you suggest for that price range for speaker cables. |
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gjt Unregistered guest | Thanks guys for all your input. I really appreciate it. I just purchased some banana plugs to make it more convenient in setting up my system ; I'll begin tomorrow. Again thanks... |
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New member Username: MongoTucson, AZ USA Post Number: 9 Registered: Apr-04 | Chicobiker, I'm sorry I did not make myself completely clear. I did not mean to imply that speakers present a pure resistive load. I know full well they have a complex impedance. But, I think you will agree with me that a poor choice of speaker wire would degrade the quality of sound from a speaker. The ideal speaker wire would be transparent. It would not impose any electrical impedance between the amplifier and the speaker. Of course, the only way of achieving this ideal is to mount the amplifier at the speaker. Typically for convenience we like to mount the amplifier in a separate enclosure some distance away from the speaker, and connect the two with wire. The point I tried to make is that the resistance of the wire can have a significant detrimental effect on the performance of the speaker. I am not just talking about efficiency, where the wire resistance dissipates the input power as heat. So what if the wire consumes 10% (1dB) of the audio power, or even 50% (3dB). Modern speakers are typically so inefficient anyway that this loss is hardly noticable. The real problem is that the wire resistance changes the complex impedance of the amplifier-wire-speaker system, and can degrade the frequency response and distortion of the system, that is, make it sound worse. This was the point of my discussion of damping factor. Amplifier specifications usually state a damping factor relative to a nominal load impedance (e.g., 8 Ohms), so it is really a figure of merit of the amplifier's output impedance or "internal resistance". Electrically, this is equivalent to placing a resistor in series with the output of an ideal amplifier. This resistance has two effects on the speaker. First, differing damping factors will change the Q of the speaker, so the speaker will sound different because the frequency response really changes when amplifiers of differing damping factors are used. Second, a high damping factor (low internal resistance) gives the amplifier the ability to control unwanted residual movements of the speaker caused by its own mechanical inertia or by other forces besides the audio signal itself. These unwanted movements are a source of distortion. This is the background to my original statement: " From the standpoint of the speaker, though, the resistance of the speaker wire adds to the output impedance of the amplifier ..." My conclusion is that resistance in speaker wire is detrimental and must be minimized. Fortunately, wire resistance is easily controlled. Wire resistance is the product of two properties of a wire: its length and its cross-section area or size. Wire size has long been standardized into American Wire Gauge sizes. My rule-of-thumb was to keep the wire resistance below 0.1 Ohm, and my table showed combinations of wire length and size to accomplish this. This is why I bought 12 AWG 2-conductor Carol Brand "Command Series Premium Grade Speaker Cable" at Home Depot for only $0.516/foot for my home theater system. Why should I pay $1.50/foot or more? |
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Silver Member Username: KeggerMICHIGAN Post Number: 200 Registered: Dec-03 | good job mongo i try to keep things simple when someone asks for advice but i like your thought. I didn't even realize home depot carried speaker cable.i'll have to check that out. |
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Dave0123 Unregistered guest | Mongo I did not see the cable you were talking about on Home Depot's web site, but every thing they showed looked like normal wire. Normal wire has a positive & negative wire. (no I'm not insulting any body's intelligence just makeing a point) But any 2 wires run paralle become an antena drawing in noise. Sheildind helps to stop this. Twisting the positive & negative around each other reverses the polarity of the wire every other twist thus repelling noise every other twist resulting in a cleaner signal at the end. This is why most nice interconnects sound better then the ones that come with your gear so it is only natural to want speaker cable that can do the same. Like I said up front I did not see your cable on HD's web site, but if it is made like this then I'll be going to HD to get my cable if not I stand by my current choice. |
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Bronze Member Username: MongoTucson, AZ USA Post Number: 11 Registered: Apr-04 | Dave0123 I just found the Carol-brand speaker cable at my local Home Depot. I never even tried to find it on the Home Depot web site (which I have found less than helpful in the past), and just now I can't find it. I can give you the barcode SKU, which is what shows on my store receipt: 079407762750. This wire looks like "normal" wire, that is, "zip-cord" style, but premium grade with clear insulation. Look up the details on the manufacturer's web site: http://www.generalcable.com/ Here is the product ID code: C1463.15.90 I am not sure that what you said about wires and antennas is entirely accurate. The textbooks I have tell me that two parallel wires form a transmission line. To make an antenna, the two wires must not be parallel. The archetypal antenna is the dipole, where the wires are 180 degrees apart (i.e., in-line and end-to-end). When a transmission line is fed differential signals, the electromagnetic fields from the two wires complement each other to work against radiation or reception. But this is not absolute and some forms of transmission line will have some level of radiation or reception, also called leakage or crosstalk. The straight wire pair (zip-cord style) is probably the worst. Twisting the two wires to form a twisted-pair helps a lot. The best is to make one wire a hollow tube and put the other wire inside it to form a coaxial transmission line. For flexibility, the hollow tube is frequently made out of wire mesh braid, but this is like putting holes in the ideal hollow tube and allows some leakage. Also, it is common to find a twisted pair put inside a hollow tube made of wire mesh braid or metal foil, giving us the shielded twisted-pair. Typically the straight wire pair or zip-cord style transmission line works fine for home audio speakers because the signal levels driven by the amplifier are so high that any pickup is inaudible. This works in my living room. When I turn the volume control fully counter-clockwise, or just pause my CD playback, I can put my ear up to the speaker and not hear anything. Of course, this depends on the electromagnetic environment at your home, such as living next door to a broadcast antenna. Then what you have is a case of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) or an Electro-Magnetic Compatibility problem, and dealing with that is a separate issue. Shielded twisted-pair cable would likely work well to solve an RFI or EMC problem with the speaker wires in a home audio system. |
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New member Username: Mike_zimonOwen sound, Ontario Canada Post Number: 1 Registered: May-04 | If I may make a correction here. If you have a speaker with a constant impedance, meaning, when you plug into the speaker, right into the transducer wire, with no crossovers, no resisitors, no inductors, no transformers, no capacitors, you get the idea, and you have a full range driver, as in some planars, you do have a purely resistive load. Uniform impedance = a more likey flat frequency response if the speakers had one to begin with. |
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Silver Member Username: KeggerMICHIGAN Post Number: 323 Registered: Dec-03 | the thing is though mike speakers impedance very with frequency. some very more than others and at different frequencies. a well built crossover does it's best to make it flatter. but the drivers themselves with no crossover very in impedance. |
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Silver Member Username: Disco_stanMinnesota Post Number: 146 Registered: Dec-03 | Kegger, You seem to know your cables. I'm trying to pick a method of DIY cabling and I think I'm interested in doing the coax cabling. Where you join up 2 parallel coax cables together, one being the + and other -. The coax cables have the solid core and strands of copper to get the qualities of other expensive cables. So thats an idea, any other thoughts? |
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Silver Member Username: Disco_stanMinnesota Post Number: 147 Registered: Dec-03 | My budget is really tight so thats why I'm doing this. |
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New member Username: Mike_zimonOwen sound, Ontario Canada Post Number: 2 Registered: May-04 | Crossovers have to be designed to handle the varying impedance of a dome tweeter and a cone woofer, as they will have quite different efficiencies and therefore, resisitances. But with a full range planar, the impedance is more uniform. The major benefit here is that without the crossovers, you don't get the intended crossover impedances to counteract the natural impedances of the drivers, and you get a smoother more free flowing sound. And as the planar driver is exponentially lighter than the cone, it produces the highs, lows, and more importantly, the midranges without any "channelling" to the intended drivers. This can heard, or better yet, not heard in vocals, the hardest instrument to reporoduce so that it does not sound like it is going through a microphone, wire, amp, speaker. Some people will pay more for cables, (silver being a better conductor than gold, for example) than they do for their speakers! Overkill? I think so. Keep your runs short as possible, and a 12 guage cable should be sufficient. Rules disallow me from mentioning my speaker's name, but I have found that the most natural sound does not come from an electrostatic, or a crossovered planar, but from a full range planar. |
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Silver Member Username: KeggerMICHIGAN Post Number: 324 Registered: Dec-03 | matt i actually have not seen that. you have any info on it? i would be interested in seeing what you mean, maybe a website or something. the only cabling i have seen people mention that would be a little different is using cat5 network cable for speaker wire. but i'm allways up for new knowlage. so if you could point me in the right direction and i do some research i could try to gave you my feelings on that.sounds interesting though. |
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Silver Member Username: KeggerMICHIGAN Post Number: 325 Registered: Dec-03 | mike i definately agree with you a planer is much flatter in the impedance than a standard driver. the most notable problem with planers in getting solid deep bass from them expecially at higher volumes that's why you'll see most of them with a standard low frequency driver at the bottom. i love planers they are sweet and you got that right the mids and highs are awsome. and if you read my other posts you'll see that we agree on not buying rediculas cabling either. i bet your speakers sound great i wish i could afford them! |
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New member Username: Mike_zimonOwen sound, Ontario Canada Post Number: 3 Registered: May-04 | I Like Sarah McLachlan, so does my wife. But she also likes Metallica, and when I crank "Sandman", I have yet to have anyone tell me to turn the sub on. My 14 year old does, but his taste in music is, well . . . After much experiemntation with different guages of trandsucer wire, differnet materials, different dimensions, I don't need the sub. The bass is tight, clean, not muddy or "boxy" and it has that initial speed for the impact. (I know, bass signals are slower waves, but that initial impact is imporatnt, and the lack of ringing is too. (I have heard box speakers lined with lead! to nullify the box resoannces, and they cost $40,000 per pair. Email me direct if you like and I will send you a link to the site. I do this for the love of it(and to put Cheerios inth cupboard for the kids, for sure)and I would like to see more people owning planars--any planars-- as once their friends hear them, they get hooked. This is what tight, clean powerful bass sounds like. Not all planars do it well, to be sure. And most need 250 watts from a good high current amp. Not these. I was impressed with the Magnepan 1.6's. But the power requirements hurt my wallet. And the bass just didn't go deep enough for me. Many people are in awe when they here what a good planar can do.Where are you in Michigan? I plan on being in Sarnia (across from Port Huron) next month. Maybe I could show you what I mean. Mike |
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Silver Member Username: KeggerMICHIGAN Post Number: 326 Registered: Dec-03 | i'm in the lower half of the lower penisuala. close to detroit. i'm in warren. and i have listened to many a planer type speaker.i love em.i'm building a set of speakers right now with a planner tweeter. i have a friend who sells a newer type planer at actually a reasonable price around $1700pr "that is, reasonable for planers anyway" i forget the make though but they sound really nice.i don't think it is an actual large company but a guy who builds very few sets. and yes i know that recently their have been some major breakthroughs in planer technology and they now can produce much better bass than they use too.it just has to be implemented correctly. i would love to see a new set of speakers i am allways up for something new.but i think we may be a little too far apart."maybe not" |
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Silver Member Username: Disco_stanMinnesota Post Number: 148 Registered: Dec-03 | Keggar, Heres a refrence link that give you instructions of doing this type of cabling Hope this will start you out. |
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Silver Member Username: Disco_stanMinnesota Post Number: 149 Registered: Dec-03 | ....Ok I have done some more research on this cabling design...Sorry for the frequent posts, at school I check these forums daily as a religious act...HAHA, jk. But heres the link from Audioholics: http://audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/interconnects/CrossCoax_vs_ZipCo rd-p1.htm They do mention the Belden coax # in there so you can look it up on their website so nvm the giggerish from the above post. And I all the links on the audioholics link above have really good info. |
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Silver Member Username: Disco_stanMinnesota Post Number: 150 Registered: Dec-03 | One last link...this one is a good one: http://www.mindspring.com/~pmbenn/cables.htm 2marrow is my last day of high school so there will be no more of this spamming posting going on.  Keep Posting. |
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swampcat Unregistered guest | Get the original its @ 10 or 12 Just get monster cable or maybe radio shacks top end speaker wire wich is 99.9% copper and 12 gauge I believe. WIRE HAS NO SOUND only resistance and don't bi wire, no diference. All MYTH. |
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Anonymous | hey Kegger, I got my 30 ft Z speaker wire (12 gauge) for $1.80 a ft. (msrp.$2.50 is that a good price at Sound Track ? |
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Silver Member Username: KeggerMICHIGAN Post Number: 344 Registered: Dec-03 | that's a descent price. |
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Bronze Member Username: MongoTucson, AZ USA Post Number: 22 Registered: Apr-04 | Matt Haug , I have used 2 parallel coax cables in a balun for an antenna feed, but I think that coax cables intended for RF or video are typically not appropriate for speaker wires. I tried using RG-58 for my speakers, but I found that 12AWG duplex (e.g., zip-cord) speaker wire gave me better sound, especially better bass. The reason is that RG-58 (and RG-59) have a center conductor that is only 23AWG, way too small for driving a speaker (unless it is very small and low power). A larger coax might be OK. RG-6 has an 18AWG center conductor which would work for short runs. For serious power or length, you would have to go to RG-8 with a 13AWG center, or RG-11 with a 14AWG center, but these are half-inch diameter cables. Of course, another way to use coax the size of RG-59 (about a quarter-inch diameter) is to use two in parallel without using the center conductors, that is the shield of one is connected to + and the shield of the other is connected to -. But this is exactly the same, electrically, as using simple wire of the same equivalent gauge (about 14AWG in the case of RG-59 such as Belden 89259). I agree that the articles on Audioholics have great info but your link did not work for me. I had to edit the URL up a few levels, then navigate the site buttons back to the article: Personally, I use Carol-brand cable I bought at Home Depot. The 12AWG "Command Series" "Premium Grade Speaker Cable" (product ID code: C1463.15.90 ) cost only about $0.52/foot. http://www.generalcable.com/ Similarly, CAT5 cable would not be appropriate for speakers since the conductors are only 24AWG. It was designed for wide bandwidth (hundreds of MegaHertz) low power signals (milliWatts), whereas a speaker cable needs only 20kHz of bandwidth, but must handle many Watts of power. |
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