How skinny can speaker cables be?

[klettermann]

For starters let me be clear: I'm not a believer in special magic cable voodoo. At the same time I do believe that there must be some limits. At one extreme, for example, running inefficient current-hog speakers with a 300wpc amp using hook up wire is probably going to have some detrimental effect. This leads to my current dilemma. My recently bought house is prewired through the walls with 18 ga. wire (maybe even 20, I didn't measure, but the point is, it's small). The cable runs are about 25 ft. My thought is to use them for a modest setup of mid-market bookshelf speakers and a similarly modest amp, say 30wpc. Nothing killer, more like Sonos-grade. Under this scenario I'm thinking that the skinny cable might be fine. Thoughts or comments? Thanks and cheers,

 

[fpitas]

Audio Myth - "Damping Factor Isn't Much of a Factor"

Myth - "Damping Factor Isn't Much of a Factor" Myth - "A Damping Factor of 10 is High Enough" Myth - "All Amplifiers Have a High-Enough Damping Factor" Where did these Myths Originate? These myths seem to trace back to a well-known paper (PDF) written by Dick Pierce. His analysis shows that a...

benchmarkmedia.com

The wire lowers damping factor, as the article describes. It's complicated. Most people use 12AWG for reasonable runs.

 

[fpitas]

Speaker Wire

There's a handy chart there if math isn't your thing.

 

[antcollinet]

For starters let me be clear: I'm not a believer in special magic cable voodoo. At the same time I do believe that there must be some limits. At one extreme, for example, running inefficient current-hog speakers with a 300wpc amp using hook up wire is probably going to have some detrimental effect. This leads to my current dilemma. My recently bought house is prewired through the walls with 18 ga. wire (maybe even 20, I didn't measure, but the point is, it's small). The cable runs are about 25 ft. My thought is to use them for a modest setup of mid-market bookshelf speakers and a similarly modest amp, say 30wpc. Nothing killer, more like Sonos-grade. Under this scenario I'm thinking that the skinny cable might be fine. Thoughts or comments? Thanks and cheers,

It'll work, but is a little smaller wiring than you really need for speaker cables, especially in 25ft lengths. You may well get frequency response errors due to the interaction of the wire impedance with the speaker impedance characteristic.

Whether this is significant enough to concern you, well: You have the house, you have the wiring, Try it and see.

 

[amirm]

Whether it makes a difference also depends on the speakers. The lower their dip in impedance, the more of a difference it makes. And the wider the dip, the more audible it will be.

 

[DMill]

For starters let me be clear: I'm not a believer in special magic cable voodoo. At the same time I do believe that there must be some limits. At one extreme, for example, running inefficient current-hog speakers with a 300wpc amp using hook up wire is probably going to have some detrimental effect. This leads to my current dilemma. My recently bought house is prewired through the walls with 18 ga. wire (maybe even 20, I didn't measure, but the point is, it's small). The cable runs are about 25 ft. My thought is to use them for a modest setup of mid-market bookshelf speakers and a similarly modest amp, say 30wpc. Nothing killer, more like Sonos-grade. Under this scenario I'm thinking that the skinny cable might be fine. Thoughts or comments? Thanks and cheers,

its a great question. If it is 20 or even 18 ga. wire for 25 ft. It’s probably worth the effort to rewire with 12 ga. It’s ridiculously easy to re-run existing wire. A new run can be a pain in the ass depending on your house. That said, it sounds like it’s not like you’re going to be doing a ton of critical listening in that room. You might be just fine with what’s there if you just want jam some tunes in the background and you aren‘t trying to make it into your listening space.

edit: I just want to say re-running wire SHOULD be very easy. I have seen situations where it was ridiculous. Like any home improvement project.

 

[MarkS]

A 25ft run of two-wire 20gauge cable would have a resistance of about (10 ohm/1000 ft)*(50 ft) = 0.5 ohm

Electrical Wire Gauges

A speaker like the Revel M106 has impedance minimums of about 5 ohms at 200Hz and 3kHz:

Revel Performa3 M106 loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

The extra 0.5 ohm from the cable would result in a dip in the power to the speakers at those frequencies that is down by a factor of 5.0/5.5 = 0.9, corresponding to a dip of 20*Log[0.9] = -2 dB at those freqencies.

However, like all speakers, the M106 exhibits variations of more than 2 dB with frequency:

So I would buy speakers like the M106 whose impedance minimum is 5 ohm or above, and then not worrry about it.

 

[klettermann]

Audio is a strange thing. It always seems like after all the theory the answer so often ends up being "just try it," LOL. Anyway, I think I'm in luck. After my brain-fart cleared I realized that the cables are all 4 conductors, hence I've actually got 2x the cross sectional area that I thought, closer to 15 ga. The previous setup just used 2 of them! I can't imagine what the previous owner was listening to in his pre-internet/wireless world. The funny thing about forums like this is that they provoke you to see what you were looking at all along. Thanks and cheers,

 

[computer-audiophile]

It always depends on the overall context. For certain high-sensitivity speakers in conjunction with flea power tube amps I liked to use so-called "Klingeldraht" at demonstrations to impress the audio friends which came to my place.

My photo:

 

[computer-audiophile]

For my actual JBL's I made thicker ones.

 

[mhardy6647]

^^^ I think that folks sometimes lose sight of one simple truth: it's OK to have, and appreciate, loudspeaker cables that look nice.

Mine look kind of nice -- and feature those same "Nakamichi" banana plugs.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Nice examples!

I also liked the potted James transformers (like in your picture). Are they still in production? It was a long time ago.

 

[fpitas]

Sheesh, no Litz wire?

 

[computer-audiophile]

The appearance of cables sometimes follows fashion considerations for me. For example, I like snake patterns at the moment. This is another speaker cable I have here.

 

[fpitas]

My bland round Monoprice cables are, admittedly, boring looking.