Generally my past practice has been to use 14 ga(AWG) air core inductors for my passive crossovers. I'm now wondering if I can look at 15 or 16 or even 18 gauge which are both cheaper and lighter. What are the issues to be aware of when using these thinner gauge units?
Any thoughts?
TIA
Regarding variations with wire gauges, yes there will be a difference. It depends where the inductors are in the circuit, a bit depends on the power you will have there...
When choosing an inductor, one of the primary concerns is to keep the DCR to a minimum. A high resistance will cause power loss and erroneous operation of the crossover. In some situations, a crossover circuit may be designed around an inductor with a high DCR, but for general textbook crossovers, the lower the better. Also, the resistance can affect the behavior around the cutoff frequency, and it is hard to tell how much without a simulation. It is one of the many judgement calls in speaker building to decide on an inductor.
A larger gauge wire means lower R, the amplifier has better control of the woofer cone at low frequencies, particularly near resonance. A lower resistance always translates directly to tighter bass.
In tweeter crossovers, the inductors one is dealing with are generally smaller in value. Because of the smaller values, the DCR is usually fairly low. As a result you will often see 18 or 20 gauge inductors used in mid and tweeter sections.
So, the bottom line here is; yes it can matter, probably less in the HP section than in the LP section, and a simulation is always good to do.
I am interested if anyone knows of any actual tests on this matter - i.e. built an accurate crossover and then changed an inductor out for a smaller wire (higher resistance) model. Even better, built 1x 'perfect' XO and 1x cheaper and compared the 2.
Maybe i am off the mark...
