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New member Username: Lancer1558Northridge, CA Post Number: 2 Registered: Sep-06 | What benefits do you normally get by changing your speaker wire from 16 to 12 guge? Effect on speaker loudness? Effect on speaker clarity? Thanks, Gary |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomSilver Spring, MD United States Post Number: 223 Registered: Apr-06 | Depends on your speakers resistance, and the length of the run. If the 16ga was sufficient to not cause distortion, generally the 12ga won't offer much benefit. It does help ease your mind a bit if nothing else though, and I think it looks neat. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 9286 Registered: May-04 | . You'll have to explain to me how the guage of the cable can result in "distortion". |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomSilver Spring, MD United States Post Number: 225 Registered: Apr-06 | As I understand it, if the gauge of the wire is too high, the frequency response of a speaker can be altered. |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomSilver Spring, MD United States Post Number: 226 Registered: Apr-06 | Note the gauge of the wire, in relation to the speakers resistance and length of the run. |
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New member Username: Lancer1558Northridge, CA Post Number: 3 Registered: Sep-06 | Jan, in my post I asked about "loudness" and "clarity". Nothing about distortion. My understanding is that the better the wiring, the more subtle detail of audio you will hear. Some reasons people bi-wire, bi-amp and buy very expensive speaker wires. Thanks, Gary |
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Silver Member Username: ExerciseguyBrooklyn, NY USA Post Number: 639 Registered: Oct-04 | 12GA looks MEANER than 16GA. |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomSilver Spring, MD United States Post Number: 228 Registered: Apr-06 | Quality of the wire *may* have an impact on clarity, depending on who you choose to believe. The scientific community tends to disagree with it though. Gauge, so long as resistance is kept to a reasonable amount, will not. Volume also will not be affected by any significant margin. |
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New member Username: Lancer1558Northridge, CA Post Number: 4 Registered: Sep-06 | Stephen, thanks for the info. We are using 16 gauge Acoustic Pro II wire. We are adding an AudioSource Amp 100 power amp along with the JBL E30 speakers to his Onkyo CS-V720 shelf stereo system. My concern is to get the most out of the Onkyo because it is only about 20 watts vs. the power amp which is 50 watts per channel. Thanks, Gary |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 4483 Registered: Dec-04 | Gary, your wire is suitable at 16g. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 9289 Registered: May-04 | . Ohhhhh, these senior moments are coming fast and hard. "We are using 16 gauge Acoustic Pro II wire. We are adding an AudioSource Amp 100 power amp along with the JBL E30 speakers to his Onkyo CS-V720 shelf stereo system. My concern is to get the most out of the Onkyo because it is only about 20 watts vs. the power amp which is 50 watts per channel." How are you adding a power amp to the output of a mini-system? And what does speaker wire have to do with this connection? For the record here, speaker cabling cannot increase the power output of your amplifier nor the efficiency of your speakers. In this regard, the only thing cables can do is eventually decrease the amount of voltage coming out relative to the amount going in. And that would require some very long cables (a few hundred feet) and some very thin guage cable (28 A.W.G. or less) and the difference would still hardly be noticeable. . |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 9290 Registered: May-04 | . "As I understand it, if the gauge of the wire is too high, the frequency response of a speaker can be altered." "Note the gauge of the wire, in relation to the speakers resistance and length of the run." "Distortion" can be defined as many things but frequency roll off is not one of them. At the frequency bandwidth where audio speaker cables operate, there is no worry about "resistance" affecting the high frequency extension of the amplifier as long as the cable would be considered "appropriate" for home audio use. No cable should be too small nor too thin to carry 20-20kHz signals with sufficient accuracy. The inductance and/or capacitance of the cable might affect the high frequencies over much shorter distances but the average D.C. resistance of a piece of cable is typically low enough to not be of concern. You can find a table on the internet and also on a few of the archived threads here where cables have been discussed which gives suggested cable guage for various run lengths. You have to be considering a run of over 100' before you would want to drop the guage down a notch. And even if you didn't make that change, the effects are minimal and probably won't be noticed in a home system. It's always a good idea to use decent guage cables, but your money should go where it provides the best benefit. Thick cables aren't always going to give you much benefit. Cables do make a difference in that they become a part of the circuit that runs from the amplifier outputs (+) to the speaker and then returns to the amplifier's negative feedback input (-). If you disconnect a wire at any one location, you can understand how this circuit travels. When most of the "scientific" community discuses cables, they talk about them as static entities which are removed from the operation of a circuit. This is a bit like suggesting a light bulb doesn't make any difference when you are looking at it sitting in the package. Most people, not all by any means, in the audio community consider cables to be important to the overall sound of the system, but the degree of importance is not generally agreed upon. For one thing, seeing the cable as a part of a circuit and each system representing a different circuit makes it difficult to get a consensus upon how cables affect each system. I would suggest that as the system gets better, the cables become more important. But the system must output a signal that is of sufficient quality to allow small differences found in cable choices to come through. As a group most mini-systems have problems (distortions) which would swamp the smaller improvements of a sophisticated cabling system. Even with the AudioSource amp in the system, the source quality coming from the mini-system wll compromise the outputs. The lesson to be taken from this is, improve the source first as it affects everything that happens downstream. If you are just looking for more volume, then your mini-system will be fine for a start with more efficient speakers. But changing to thicker speaker cables won't make an appreciable quality difference in this set up. Save your money for more important things. . |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 4484 Registered: Dec-04 | But they look cool. Will 12g even fit in the mini-outs? |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomSilver Spring, MD United States Post Number: 236 Registered: Apr-06 | I'm not referring to rolloff per say. "What happens when the resistance gets too high? First, there is power lost in the wire and the speaker will not play as loud. More important, as the resistance in series with the speaker increases, it makes the amplifier look more like a current source. This means the speaker frequency response will tend to follow the rise and fall of its impedance curve. The impedance of most speaker systems is not constant with frequency. A speaker that is rated at 8 ohms may be exactly 8 ohms at only a few frequencies. The rest of the time it may wander above and below this value several times. As the wire resistance increases, it becomes significant compared to the speaker impedance. It will affect the areas of lower impedance values first and eventually will be audible. Speakers with small impedance variations versus frequency, and that don't dip below the nominal impedance, will be more tolerant of higher resistance in the speaker wire. On the other hand, speakers with large variations in impedance that dip below the nominal value will be much easier to notice. If the speaker has constant impedance versus frequency, the only change will be reduced output." I'm reading that to mean that the frequencies affected will be determined by the impedance curve; in any event, it distorts the sound from what it should be. And yes, while it takes some combination of fairly crummy wire, low impedance speakers with a impedance few spikes, and a reasonably long run to make it happen, the 24 gauge stuff I see packed with a lot of lower end speakers could make it happen if one is not careful. Mind you I'm not saying the OP has this problem, simply that if the 16 AWG doesn't have the problem, the 12AWG won't really make a difference just because its thicker. |
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New member Username: Lancer1558Northridge, CA Post Number: 5 Registered: Sep-06 | Nuck, you can get 50 feet of 12 gauge Acoustic Research Pro II with pins included at Best Buy for $39. The system is for my son's dorm room at college. His first requirement was that the system did not take-up much room,college dorm rooms are not large. The 8 inch powered sub and power amp will be placed under the bed because of space limitations. The intent of my original post was to ask how to get the best performance out of his system with basic equipment and basic information. Thanks, Gary |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1965 Registered: Feb-04 | What benefits do you normally get by changing your speaker wire from 16 to 12 guage? Using a lower gauge (thicker wire) permits the use of longer wire lengths and lower speaker impedence assuming that the fraction that the wire resistance contribute to the total load should be kept under some small value: http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#wiretable As Stephen said in other words, if your speakers were fine with 16 AWG, they will also be fine with 12 AWG but you might not gain anything going to 12 . |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 9296 Registered: May-04 | . SM- I don't know what you are quoting from, so it's difficult to make comments. The effects described are real and should be of some concern to anyone with cables exhibiting a high resistance. But the author doesn't seem to have a grasp on the D.C. resistance of a typical home audio speaker cable. (http://sound.westhost.com/cable-z.htm) Keep in mind when you read this article the author is describing high impedance cables. Resistance is merely one component of impedance and the typical resistance values are described in a table about midway down the page. With a typical resistance of 11 milliOhms the average 12 A.W.G. zip cord is at or below the output impedance of even the most stingy transistor amplifier. The output resistance of a moer typical solid state amplifier or certainly a tube amplifier will far exceed the average resistance of a normal run of 2 A.W.G. cable in a home system. So, to achieve the effects your author attributes to a high resistance speaker cable, you would have to be running a a string of rusty 6 penny nails laid end to end. "What happens when the resistance gets too high? First, there is power lost in the wire and the speaker will not play as loud." As you can seee from Peter's chart and article, maintaining the same guage of cable over a fifty foot run will typically result in a loss of approximately 0.2dB. True, the speaker techinically will not be playing as loud, but ... |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomSilver Spring, MD United States Post Number: 237 Registered: Apr-06 | Its from the same page Peter posted. |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomSilver Spring, MD United States Post Number: 238 Registered: Apr-06 | But yes, all I'm saying is that so long the gauge is sufficient that the resistance is low enough to avoid those effects, increasing the gauge won't have a real impact. Since I didn't know the OP's speakers or how long of a run he was using, I didn't want to make any assumptions. If he had 4 ohm speakers that dipped down to 2 ohms and he was running lengths of 50 feet, 16 gauge wouldn't be my choice. However, assuming that the 16 gauge was sufficient for the run, 12 gauge won't give a notable improvement. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 9298 Registered: May-04 | . SM- I don't know what you are quoting from, so it's difficult to make comments. The effects described are real and should be of some concern to anyone with cables exhibiting a high resistance. But there is a problem with the article. The author doesn't seem to have a grasp on the D.C. resistance of a typical home audio speaker cable. (http://sound.westhost.com/cable-z.htm) Keep in mind when you read this article the author is describing high impedance cables. Resistance is merely one component of impedance and the typical resistance values are described in a table about midway down the page. With an average resistance of 11 milliOhms the generic 12 A.W.G. zip cord is at or below the output impedance of even the most stingy transistor amplifier. The output resistance, not to mention impedance, of a more typical solid state amplifier or certainly a tube amplifier will far exceed the average resistance of a normal run of 12 A.W.G. cable in a home system. So, to achieve the effects your author attributes to a high resistance speaker cable, you would have to be running a string of rusty 6 penny nails laid end to end. ********************* "What happens when the resistance gets too high? First, there is power lost in the wire and the speaker will not play as loud." As you can see from Peter's chart and article, maintaining the same guage of cable over a fifty foot run will typically result in a loss of approximately 0.2dB. True, the speaker technically will not be playing as loud, but ... ********************** "More important, as the resistance in series with the speaker increases, it makes the amplifier look more like a current source. This means the speaker frequency response will tend to follow the rise and fall of its impedance curve." Once again, most of this is technically true, but not seeing the realities of the situation. As the impedance rises, the need for voltage from the amplifier increases, thus reducing the requirement for high current. Running out of voltage is hardly ever a problem with modern voltage driven amplifiers as they can, if necessary, literally draw voltage from the wall outlet. Running out of current is far more of a problem with most amplifiers driving modern speakers and this will occur when the overall impedance of the system decreases. Increasing the resistance of the cable would actually make the amplifier more stable in this situation as it would tend to raise the impedance of the circuit. Increasing the cable run over fifty feet would suggest you should increase the guage by one element. To not do so will increase the actual resistance of the cable by a few milliOhms. When the speaker itself is careening up and down in impedance by several Ohms (a far more important concern regarding voltage/current draw) than the cable's resistance is constantly increasing, the author's point seems a bit far fetched. ************************ "As the wire resistance increases, it becomes significant compared to the speaker impedance." Sorry, I don't know how this can happen. Impedance is a value that combines R,C and I. Those values are constant over a length of cable. Resistance cannot increase on its own without any other value of the cable increasing also by a similar amount. I am not an engineer and if someone with a few letters behind their name can tell me how the resistance can change at a more drastic rate than the capacitance or inductance, I would be pleased to learn something today. You can choose a very high resistance cable to begin with, but that would indicate someone with absolutely no concept of how to manage a system and very long runs of any modern cable that would be suggested for such an application. This "situation" sounds more like the Depression era Grandpa going out to the garage to get that 200' run of heater wire he has been saving for forty years for just this sort of use. ********************** "It will affect the areas of lower impedance values first and eventually will be audible." I assume the author means low impedance speakers, but that isn't clear to me. Low impedance speakers will draw more current by their nature so this argument is goobledygook. ********************* "Speakers with small impedance variations versus frequency, and that don't dip below the nominal impedance, will be more tolerant of higher resistance in the speaker wire. On the other hand, speakers with large variations in impedance that dip below the nominal value will be much easier to notice. If the speaker has constant impedance versus frequency, the only change will be reduced output." Again, this is nothing-speak. This is the sort of commentary used to convince someone of a political position that says the other guy is evil without pointing out that your guy does the same if not worse or, at least, not mentioning what actually happens in the real world. Since the output impedance of the amplifier will be what drives this frequency variation more so than the actual resistance) of the cable, siting the cable's resistance as a cause of this reaction is misleading at best and irrelevant at most. *************************** *************************** "I'm reading that to mean that the frequencies affected will be determined by the impedance curve; in any event, it distorts the sound from what it should be." No, it does not "distort" the sound. Frequency response, noise and distortion are different things. While a very broad definition of distortion might include some noise product, frequency response is still a separate item. Distortion is typically considered any byproduct of the reproduction system under scrutiny, it is something added that was not in the original signal. The most common forms of distortion are harmonic, which describes the uneven distribution of harmonic elements that should or should not accompany the original signal. There is also IM distortion which is the result of two frequencies combining in order to construct a non-related third frequency. (18kHz and 20kHz combining to create a 19kHz signal.) While this addition of distorted frequencies deals with items which can be assigned a numerical value, they are not counted as a variation of the base frequency response of the amplifier or speaker. In other words, distortion will not cause a drastically marked variation from the median frequency response of, say, 20-20kHz + or - 0.5dB in an amplifier. ************************ " ... while it takes some combination of fairly crummy wire, low impedance speakers with a impedance few spikes, and a reasonably long run to make it happen, the 24 gauge stuff I see packed with a lot of lower end speakers could make it happen if one is not careful." If the impedance of the speaker is low but constant, or high but constant, then no effect will be evidenced. Consistency of impedance is the key here, not where the speaker starts or its nominal impedance. There is no run long enough with a modern amplifier considered good enough for home audio use, where common sense would apply, to be affected by the guage of the cable. Since the average 24A.W.G. cable provided is no more, than, maybe, ten feet, you are stretching for this conclusion. You would have to run several hundred feet of the common 24 A.W.G. zip cable provided with a cheap system in order to have a high enough impedance to affect the frequency response of the average speaker. In terms of the resistance only of the 24A.W.G. cable, a few hundred feet might, in some cases affect the damping factor of the amplifier, but that doesn't alter the frequency response of the system. Damping factor is a matter of the amplifier controlling the movement of the low frequency driver and not vice versa. Frequency response remains virtually constant when damping is raised or lowered by a substantial factor but the driver is no longer as well controlled and you will hear a less defined low frequency content. Sorry, but, no, the {resistance of the typical home audio cable isn't going to matter that much unless we are really, really stretching to make a point. . |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 9299 Registered: May-04 | . My computer is doing funny things on its own, so, sorry for the additional marks here. I think it might need a short vacation. |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomSilver Spring, MD United States Post Number: 239 Registered: Apr-06 | " I am not an engineer and if someone with a few letters behind their name can tell me how the resistance can change at a more drastic rate than the capacitance or inductance, I would be pleased to learn something today." Well like I said, it was part of the link that Peter posted, by Roger Russell. "Since the average 24A.W.G. cable provided is no more, than, maybe, ten feet, you are stretching for this conclusion. " Check a Sony 5.1 system sometime. You'd be surprised with the junk they package nowadays. "Distortion is typically considered any byproduct of the reproduction system under scrutiny, it is something added that was not in the original signal. " Point taken. Either way, response is altered, and not in a linear manner generally. Either way, my understanding of the phenomenom is admittedly not huge. But nonetheless the point remains that so long as the 16 gauge wire was sufficient, 12 gauge will be as well. No notable improvements in sound will be brought about because of it alone. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1967 Registered: Feb-04 | "As the wire resistance increases, it becomes significant compared to the speaker impedance." Sorry, I don't know how this can happen. Impedance is a value that combines R,C and I. Those values are constant over a length of cable. Resistance cannot increase on its own without any other value of the cable increasing also by a similar amount. I am not an engineer and if someone with a few letters behind their name can tell me how the resistance can change at a more drastic rate than the capacitance or inductance, I would be pleased to learn something today. This is simply a misunderstanding. The wire resistance increases by increasing its length, until it becomes a certain fraction (5%) of nominal speaker impedence. The author doesn't seem to have a grasp on the D.C. resistance of a typical home audio speaker cable. Well, he was Director of Acoustic Research at McIntosh Laboratory, Inc. and the originator of McIntosh Loudspeakers. We can probably assume we don't need to see letters after his name to know he's for real. |
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Silver Member Username: ExerciseguyBrooklyn, NY USA Post Number: 656 Registered: Oct-04 | I know there's something to be learned in all this banter, but why argue? You probably won't be satisfied if & until you actually try & listen for yourself. The difference in $$$ between 16ga, 14ga, & 12ga wire is rather negligible in the overall scheme of things. ...Hmmm, but what about 10ga? |
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Silver Member Username: ExerciseguyBrooklyn, NY USA Post Number: 659 Registered: Oct-04 | ...Perhaps I should have said bickering instead of banter, it's all pretty useful info, but to what end? These cable/wire threads always seem to get everyone so hot-under-the-collar. Let talk about something less "heavy" like the war in Iraq, abortion & g@y marriage. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 9303 Registered: May-04 | . I have a considerable amount of respect for Mr. Russel though I disagree with some of his statements. Mostly because his writing style is clumsy and his assumptions are not typical of real world situations. The result is fraught with "misunderstandings". The table is worth siting however. I am not arguing with anyone. I don't think Stephen understands what is happening with cable and I am trying to explain as clearly as possible, not strike down anything he says. "But nonetheless the point remains that so long as the 16 gauge wire was sufficient, 12 gauge will be as well. No notable improvements in sound will be brought about because of it alone." In the case before us, with a mini-system, no, there will be no improvement. That might not be the case with a different amplifier. A lower impedance cable might actually improve the damping factor of an amplifier even in the short runs in a typical home system. I am still not sure how the speaker wire will enter into the system along with the separate power amp. Something about this still doesn't sound right. As to the Sony 5.1 system, there are enough problems with a Sony 5.1 system alone that cable should be the least of your worries. . |