Speaker cables - Hari Iyer's Cable Experiment

[Hari Iyer]

I am 100% sure no FM would I tried this combination. FMs who follow me would know that my speaker wires are 12+12+14 awg each polarity mil spec silver plated Fulton length wires. But unfortunately, the Fulton lengths are not enough for my kind of wierd speaker placement. As I intended to keep these wire, the only option for me to extend this wire was adding other wires to make up for the length. I have been past months doing this with Polycab telephone cables ( 40 strands x 0.5mm) solid copper wire and terminated with Belden 8477 12awg X2 each polarity. I wanted to do away with too many joints and solder.

So today I ordered a wierd wire which are never marketed and sold as speaker wires They are sold as Solar DC cables meant for photovpltic / inverter wiring. So what is this wire specs-

99.99% pure tinned copper wire
Dielectric - XLPO -Polyethelene or Polypropylene
Polyolfines type dielectrics
-4sqmm -12awg conductor
-price -55/ per meter single core
Brand -Polycab

I ordered 20 meters today and shall be delivered by Sunday. I had short listed Belden, Klotz and Eurocable, but did not consider them as it's a PVC dielectric. Price was not a concern as I anyway needed only 5 to 6 meter length. As a comparison the Polycab cost me just 1100/- for 20 meters which is a steal looking at the wires specs -atleast nothing to loose much Who knows this wire could be good or better than the telephone cable + Belden combination.

 

[drlowmu]

I am 100% sure no FM would I tried this combination. FMs who follow me would know that my speaker wires are 12+12+14 awg each polarity mil spec silver plated Fulton length wires. But unfortunately, the Fulton lengths are not enough for my kind of wierd speaker placement. As I intended to keep these wire, the only option for me to extend this wire was adding other wires to make up for the length. I have been past months doing this with Polycab telephone cables ( 40 strands x 0.5mm) solid copper wire and terminated with Belden 8477 12awg X2 each polarity. I wanted to do away with too many joints and solder.

So today I ordered a wierd wire which are never marketed and sold as speaker wires They are sold as Solar DC cables meant for photovpltic / inverter wiring. So what is this wire specs-

99.99% pure tinned copper wire
Dielectric - XLPO -Polyethelene or Polypropylene
Polyolfines type dielectrics
-4sqmm -12awg conductor
-price -55/ per meter single core
Brand -Polycab

I ordered 20 meters today and shall be delivered by Sunday. I had short listed Belden, Klotz and Eurocable, but did not consider them as it's a PVC dielectric. Price was not a concern as I anyway needed only 5 to 6 meter length. As a comparison the Polycab cost me just 1100/- for 20 meters which is a steal looking at the wires specs -atleast nothing to loose much Who knows this wire could be good or better than the telephone cable + Belden combination.

Hari,

You can not add different cable, or even the same cable type, to an existing length, without having a degrade.

If two Fulton lengths ( 57 1/8th inches is a single Bob Fulton increment - developed in his Lab in the 1970s ) is just not long enough ( which is 9.52 feet - as you now own ), simply go to three, or even four Fulton increments.

Three increments is 14.25 feet, and it is a good Iength to consider. Both speaker leads must be the same length.

The mil spec wire we DIY use is designated m22759/11, and all it's specs are on line. Multi stranded copper, silver plated, teflon jacketed. Beautifully made - it is military quality. Yes, 12+12+14 AWG per polarity in parallel gives a favorable transfer efficiency and decent wide band music performance. This is especially so with our own low powered SE amp designs and high efficiency speakers ( ALTEC , etc ).

And yes, the two speaker polarities can not touch each other ONE time, .....or ....it will " destroy " the highs, ( which hopefully your KT88 amp Hari, and my own SE DC amps, are capable of reproducing. )

These speaker leads sound their best suspended in mid air, and not touching each other. Set up is very simple, and highly audible once correctly implemented. The loudspeakers I personally use as a reference are older ALTEC VOTT A7-8 two-ways , with minor mods.

Jeff

 

[mbhangui]

An interesting test carried out by Nelson Pass.

For 10 foot lengths with properly terminated cables and speakers with inductive high frequency characteristics, the differences between low inductance cable and twin conductor are extremely subtle and subject to question. With a low output inductance amplifier and a Heil tweeter (whose impedance is a nearly perfect 6ohm resistive) the difference was discernible as a slightly but not unpleasant softening of the highest frequencies. Fulton or Monster cables were a clear improvement over 24 or even 18 gauge, though a little less subtle than I would have expected, leading me to believe that the effort associated with heavier cables pays off in bass response and in apparent midrange definition, especially at crossover frequencies. The worst case load, the modified Dayton Wright electrostatics, presented some interesting paradoxes: the extremely low impedance involved showed the greatest differences between all the types of cables. However, the best sound cables were not necessarily electrically the best because several amplifiers preferred the highest resistance cable. In one case, I had to use 24 gauge cable to prevent tripping the amplifier's protection circuitry

And at the end he says

CONCLUSIONS Who am I to dispute the feelings of audiophiles who, evaluating any cable in the context of program source, amplifier, speaker, and listening room, decide they can hear the difference? A few guidelines have emerged here, but the final judgment belongs to the user. All the special cables mentioned worked well on the test bench and, given the assumption that series impedance should be minimized, all of them work better than 16 gauge wire. If, like many audiophiles, you have spent a small (or large) fortune on your hi-fi system, money spent for high quality cables and connectors is a reasonable investment.

 

[Hari Iyer]

An interesting test carried out by Nelson Pass.
View attachment 68691


And at the end he says

I have read this many moons ago.

 

[drlowmu]

I have read this many moons ago.

This Nelson Pass measurement data is from the 1970s ( late ) or early 1980s, in my estimation.

It did not mean much at all to me , then or now.

How does the wire sound ????

Jeff

 

[prem]

In order to appreciate a good cable you must be a listener who dislikes the ability of a cable to reveal detail as if all a sudden your hearing ability has improved a few folds because of the switch of a cable.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Hari,

You can not add different cable, or even the same cable type, to an existing length, without having a degrade.

If two Fulton lengths ( 57 1/8th inches is a single Bob Fulton increment - developed in his Lab in the 1970s ) is just not long enough ( which is 9.52 feet - as you now own ), simply go to three, or even four Fulton increments.

Three increments is 14.25 feet, and it is a good Iength to consider. Both speaker leads must be the same length.

The mil spec wire we DIY use is designated m22759/11, and all it's specs are on line. Multi stranded copper, silver plated, teflon jacketed. Beautifully made - it is military quality. Yes, 12+12+14 AWG per polarity in parallel gives a favorable transfer efficiency and decent wide band music performance. This is especially so with our own low powered SE amp designs and high efficiency speakers ( ALTEC , etc ).

And yes, the two speaker polarities can not touch each other ONE time, .....or ....it will " destroy " the highs, ( which hopefully your KT88 amp Hari, and my own SE DC amps, are capable of reproducing. )

These speaker leads sound their best suspended in mid air, and not touching each other. Set up is very simple, and highly audible once correctly implemented. The loudspeakers I personally use as a reference are older ALTEC VOTT A7-8 two-ways , with minor mods.

Jeff

@drlowmu - I ordered the tin plated 99.99% pure copper wire based on the below logic,

HF in the silver plated copper wire arrives before the MF & LF as they travel on the outer skin of the conductor. This cause some string instruments to have its HF arrive earlier than the mids and lows - though to my ears they sound very musical, but they don't appear to be very natural and accurate. Silver has a conductivity of 105 and copper is 100.

Tin has a conductivity of just 15 compared to copper and tin plating on the copper will cause the HF to slow down drastically and there by align them in time with the LF & MF as they travel mostly through the outer skin of the conductor. For copper the skin depth at 20KHz is 0.461mm. So if each strand is 0.461 mm and is tin plated these frequency will travel only through the outer conductor of the 4 sqmm which i have ordered. For tin plating the skin depth is just 0.076 mm. So the tin plating works good for the 4 sqmm wire.

Considering the frequency of 60Hz which my OB speaker low end -10dB FR is, the skin depth of the copper wire at this frequency is 8.42mm. So these freq will cover the entire depth of the conductor. The LF, MF and HF thus possibly will arrive at the terminal at the same time without any time smear or group delay.

Another important aspect when selecting the tin plated wire IME is that the tin plating should be non-glossy. I have noticed that glossy tin plating cause the HF to be distorted, edgy, bright and superficial. The tin-plating need to be non-glossy and non-shiny to be very effective.

This wire arrives in 2-3 days and let me implement and later comment if the above theory have some weight.

 

[Dr.Gary]

An interesting test carried out by Nelson Pass.
View attachment 68691
And at the end he says

A very interesting and possibly significant article that provides insight into why some folks are advocates of keeping the positive and negative leads of speaker leads well separated.

This Nelson Pass measurement data is from the 1970s ( late ) or early 1980s, in my estimation.

It did not mean much at all to me , then or now.

How does the wire sound ????

Jeff

Had you read the Nelson Pass article back then or now, you would know that there is no general answer to the question "how does the wire sound?" More importantly, you would understand why that is so.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

@drlowmu - I ordered the tin plated 99.99% pure copper wire based on the below logic,

HF in the silver plated copper wire arrives before the MF & LF as they travel on the outer skin of the conductor. This cause some string instruments to have its HF arrive earlier than the mids and lows - though to my ears they sound very musical, but they don't appear to be very natural and accurate. Silver has a conductivity of 105 and copper is 100.

Tin has a conductivity of just 15 compared to copper and tin plating on the copper will cause the HF to slow down drastically and there by align them in time with the LF & MF as they travel mostly through the outer skin of the conductor. For copper the skin depth at 20KHz is 0.461mm. So if each strand is 0.461 mm and is tin plated these frequency will travel only through the outer conductor of the 4 sqmm which i have ordered. For tin plating the skin depth is just 0.076 mm. So the tin plating works good for the 4 sqmm wire.

Considering the frequency of 60Hz which my OB speaker low end -10dB FR is, the skin depth of the copper wire at this frequency is 8.42mm. So these freq will cover the entire depth of the conductor. The LF, MF and HF thus possibly will arrive at the terminal at the same time without any time smear or group delay.

Another important aspect when selecting the tin plated wire IME is that the tin plating should be non-glossy. I have noticed that glossy tin plating cause the HF to be distorted, edgy, bright and superficial. The tin-plating need to be non-glossy and non-shiny to be very effective.

This wire arrives in 2-3 days and let me implement and later comment if the above theory have some weight.

Why not just pure copper then?

 

[mbhangui]

Electricity regardless of hf, lf or mf travel at the same speed (almost the speed of light). It can travel 7 times across the globe in a second. The only thing that changes with frequency is the wave length of the wave. Electrons however travel much much slower. They travel at what is known as the drift velocity and travel slower than even a snail. The drift velocity of electrons through a copper wire of cross-sectional area 3.00 x 10-6 m2, carrying a 10A current, is approximately 2.5 x 10-4 m/s, or one-fourth of a millimeter per second. If ever the electron reaches the speaker coil from the amplifier, it will be a miracle. But then how does electricity travel if electons are so slow? It travels like a wave. It is like standing in a long queue with no space between the people. The person at the end pushes, the effect of which will be felt almost immediately by the person at the front of the queue.

The speed at which the signal reaches the speaker is the signal velocity which is the same for hf, lf or mf. Once it reaches the coil, the movement of the coil moves the diaphragm and this produces sound. It's after this stage you may get a difference because no speaker is perfect. If you have multiple drivers, the distance of each driver from the ears, cabinet construction, acoustic lobing, reflection, etc will determine if all frequencies reach your ear at the same time or not. That's my understanding and the thing this different plating on the base conductor will do is attenuate the high frequencies differently (skin effect + electrical resistance of the plating).

However, different frequencies have different attenuation is explained here

The speed of electricity is conceptually the speed of the electromagnetic signal in the wire, which is somewhat similar to the concept of the speed of light in a transparent medium. So it is normally lower, but not too much lower than the speed of light in the vacuum. The speed also depends on the cable construction. The cable geometry and the insulation both reduce the speed. Good cables achieve 80% of the speed of light; excellent cables achieve 90%. The speed does not directly depend on the voltage or resistance. However, different frequencies have different attenuation. In your example, the very moment of switching on represents a high frequency front that will be attenuated. While at the input the voltage would increase very fast, at the output it would increase gradually, as if with a delay. It is not really a delay per se, because the initial low level signal would get there almost with the speed of light, but its amplitude would only gradually increase and reach the full voltage with a substantial delay that would depend on the cable and circuit impedance (mostly on the cable inductance). If you use a high speed coaxial cable (like a 3GHz satellite TV cable) instead of a wire, the delay would be much shorter (80-90% of the speed of light to the full voltage). Hope this helps.

Speed of light vs speed of electricity

If I arranged an experiment where light raced electricity what would be the results? Let's say a red laser is fired at the same time a switch is closed that applies 110 volts to a 12 gauge loop of ...

physics.stackexchange.com

Imagine Usha Uthup singing with her deep throaty, manly low frequency voice and a person playing guiter, violin, cymbals. Another person playing the drums.
Imagine the havoc if the guitar, violin, cymbal sound reach you earlier, followed by Usha Uthup's voice and in the end the drum beats totally out of tune.
Even in air, sound HF, LF or MF travel at the same speed.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Electricity regardless of hf, lf or mf travel at the same speed (almost the speed of light). It can travel 7 times across the globe in a second. The only thing that changes with frequency is the wave length of the wave. Electrons however travel much much slower. They travel at what is known as the drift velocity and travel slower than even a snail. The drift velocity of electrons through a copper wire of cross-sectional area 3.00 x 10-6 m2, carrying a 10A current, is approximately 2.5 x 10-4 m/s, or one-fourth of a millimeter per second. If ever the electron reaches the speaker coil from the amplifier, it will be a miracle. But then how does electricity travel if electons are so slow? It travels like a wave. It is like standing in a long queue with no space between the people. The person at the end pushes, the effect of which will be felt almost immediately by the person at the front of the queue.

The speed at which the signal reaches the speaker is the signal velocity which is the same for hf, lf or mf. Once it reaches the coil, the movement of the coil moves the diaphragm and this produces sound. It's after this stage you may get a difference because no speaker is perfect. If you have multiple drivers, the distance of each driver from the ears, cabinet construction, acoustic lobing, reflection, etc will determine if all frequencies reach your ear at the same time or not. That's my understanding and the thing this different plating on the base conductor will do is attenuate the high frequencies differently (skin effect + electrical resistance of the plating).

However, different frequencies have different attenuation is explained here

Speed of light vs speed of electricity

If I arranged an experiment where light raced electricity what would be the results? Let's say a red laser is fired at the same time a switch is closed that applies 110 volts to a 12 gauge loop of ...

physics.stackexchange.com

Imagine Usha Uthup singing with her deep throaty, manly low frequency voice and a person playing guiter, violin, cymbals. Another person playing the drums.
Imagine the havoc if the guitar, violin, cymbal sound reach you earlier, followed by Usha Uthup's voice and in the end the drum beats totally out of tune.
Even in air, sound HF, LF or MF travel at the same speed.

Looking at your reply I am thinking of dumping my mill spec silver plated copper wire and buy some wire made of wrought iron coated with zinc to prevent corrosion -

 

[Subbu68]

Electricity regardless of hf, lf or mf travel at the same speed (almost the speed of light). It can travel 7 times across the globe in a second. The only thing that changes with frequency is the wave length of the wave. Electrons however travel much much slower. They travel at what is known as the drift velocity and travel slower than even a snail. The drift velocity of electrons through a copper wire of cross-sectional area 3.00 x 10-6 m2, carrying a 10A current, is approximately 2.5 x 10-4 m/s, or one-fourth of a millimeter per second. If ever the electron reaches the speaker coil from the amplifier, it will be a miracle. But then how does electricity travel if electons are so slow? It travels like a wave. It is like standing in a long queue with no space between the people. The person at the end pushes, the effect of which will be felt almost immediately by the person at the front of the queue.

The speed at which the signal reaches the speaker is the signal velocity which is the same for hf, lf or mf. Once it reaches the coil, the movement of the coil moves the diaphragm and this produces sound. It's after this stage you may get a difference because no speaker is perfect. If you have multiple drivers, the distance of each driver from the ears, cabinet construction, acoustic lobing, reflection, etc will determine if all frequencies reach your ear at the same time or not. That's my understanding and the thing this different plating on the base conductor will do is attenuate the high frequencies differently (skin effect + electrical resistance of the plating).

However, different frequencies have different attenuation is explained here

Speed of light vs speed of electricity

If I arranged an experiment where light raced electricity what would be the results? Let's say a red laser is fired at the same time a switch is closed that applies 110 volts to a 12 gauge loop of ...

physics.stackexchange.com

Imagine Usha Uthup singing with her deep throaty, manly low frequency voice and a person playing guiter, violin, cymbals. Another person playing the drums.
Imagine the havoc if the guitar, violin, cymbal sound reach you earlier, followed by Usha Uthup's voice and in the end the drum beats totally out of tune.
Even in air, sound HF, LF or MF travel at the same speed.

I can't agree more....

All I know is the keep the resistance of the 3m or less length of wire to the minimum and not to influence the impedance of speaker presented to the amp. Size matters depending on the impedance of your speakers but at short lengths benefits become questionable?

Silver plating lowers the resistance a teeny bit in a 3m long wire generally used. Having spent some money on silver plated wires reading all those theories in the past without applying logic and engineering, still use a couple of bits of that wire for connecting my speaker, My other set of wires that is just plain copper does the same job.

12 micron silver on copper as per MIL spec to change the whole audio spectrum on a 3m wire carrying a couple of amps. Even at kA range coupled with a few hundreds of kV, we bother only if the length of the busbars is considerable.

Oh, yeah you change from lowly copper wire to uber expensive wires (can't call them cables since we EEs have standards that define cables differently) you'd hear some difference because you change from an oxidised wire to a clean one. Oxidation adds resistance at the joint / interface so simply keep the connectors clean. A very thin coat of silicone grease at the connections or remove, clean and reconnect the wires once in a while.

BTW MIL-QQ-S-365 has been replaced by ASTM-B-700 quite some time back.

 

[Subbu68]

@mbhangui @headcase Got that homemade FM antenna up on the window and enjoying stations from Dubai and other places some 180km away

Tivoli Model One has REC OUT and is connected to the amp with a 4m long Aux wire (heresy for audiophiles ).

 

[mbhangui]

Silver plating lowers the resistance a teeny bit in a 3m long wire generally used. Having spent some money on silver plated wires reading all those theories in the past without applying logic and engineering, still use a couple of bits of that wire for connecting my speaker, My other set of wires that is just plain copper does the same job.

I too discovered this the hard way (after spending some dough). In my case it is the Van Del Hul Revolution cable which absolutely shows no difference compared to a 12 awg cable from profx at 1/30 the cost. But now it is there and people ask me why I have such a thick cable and I tell them there is silver there and the audio electrons love costly metals like our better halves. Most of them thank their stars that they didn't get afflicted with this audiophile sickness.

 

[Subbu68]

I too discovered this the hard way (after spending some dough). In my case it is the Van Del Hul Revolution cable which absolutely shows no difference compared to a 12 awg cable from profx at 1/30 the cost. But now it is there and people ask me why I have such a thick cable and I tell them there is silver there and the audio electrons love costly metals like our better halves. Most of them thank their stars that they didn't get afflicted with this audiophile sickness.

I spent on Van Den Hul Snowwhite and for no reason to bi-wire my old Jamos. ABS - Audiophile Bipolar (bi-wiring) Syndrome but aging wisely now

 

[keith_correa]

It's so nice to see that some of us have not lost the ability to laugh at ourselves when warranted. Keep at it, guys!

 

[Subbu68]

It's so nice to see that some of us have not lost the ability to laugh at ourselves when warranted. Keep at it, guys!

Hehehe... but in the process when calculating the money lost that could have now become a fortune for retirement fund feeling foolish and sad. This 'disease" is similar to the other one - going after the "Pixel Nirvana" in photography. Lost a good fortune due to that fever too . Now Google Pixel is the best camera

BTW, just noted your signature. Sums up what some of us learnt in a hard way

 

[mbhangui]

Hehehe... but in the process when calculating the money lost that could have now become a fortune for retirement fund feeling foolish and sad. This 'disease" is similar to the other one - going after the "Pixel Nirvana" in photography. Lost a good fortune due to that fever too . Now Google Pixel is the best camera

BTW, just noted your signature. Sums up what some of us learnt in a hard way

Photography is another madness and it easily rivals the madness in audio. Here I have squandered tons on Nikon SLRs, lenses, flash lights, wireless thingies to turn on flash when you click the button, gps and some DIY stuff making my D200 getting transmission of TTL signals via bluetooth and what not. The worst is I used to strap all these devices over my neck all over Chennai and folks thinking here is a madman walking with necklaces of batteries, bluetooth dongles and wires going inside my D200. But there were some good moments like getting the GPS signal the first time and capturing this water splash first time. All these lenses, as of today are thriving with rich fauna of fungi, but unfortunately not the one that gives you the kicks with Psilocybin.

The Result



The camera and the setup in the bathroom



The setup with a DIY circuit to amplify the sound captured by microphone and turn on a solid state relay, The two wires from the relay were connected to the shutter button so that when the water drop landed, the sound would trigger the relay and the relay would trigger the camera to take the photo at the exact time when the water drop hit the water surface in the orange coloured mug. Later after perfecting it, I used a maroon tile as a background.



A DIY circult to amplify the water splash and feed it to the Nikon camera internal trigger circuit.



and then there was this thing I did to transmit GPS signal from a GPS chip ttl signal to bluetooth transmitter to bluetooth receiver to my Nikon camera so that photos could be geotagged. I once took this whole thing to Vandalur Zoo in Chennai around my neck and people gave me looks as if I have escaped from one of the cages.

Geotagging with Nikon D200

There are various techniques for associating a geographical location with a photograph . Nikon D200 has a 10 pin connector which can be c...

my-equipments.blogspot.com

 

[drlowmu]

Why not just pure copper then?

Hello Fifty Fifty ,

Copper plays the midrange frequencies, which is precisely what many many amps and speaker systems also do. If you are satisfied listening to that, and many audiophiles are, fine !! Use pure solid copper. Be happy with it. The music will tune to the AWG of the solid copper used. Avoid pure stranded copper wire, because it will corrode between strands over time, and degrade. Individually insulated strands of pure copper wire, LITZ wire, should not corrode. Solid copper wire, if properly silver coated,should not corrode.

Did you know, copper sounds MUCH like silver, if it is cryogenically treated. ?

Some people want their amplifier to also play the high frequencies of instruments well, cymbals, the top end of struck piano keys, etc. I know I do. To do this, takes a special design of both the amplifier and speaker crossover. It also takes silver content in the wire being used.

I find the Mil Spec m22759/11 wire has a good balance of lows, mids and highs in the combination of 12+12+14 . Two Fulton 57 1/8th inch lengths, works very well. Have any of those posting here, other than Hari, ever heard this ??

I have no financial interest in this. I have told you , where to source the wire easily at surplus prices, and how to build it. My interest is getting good sound in my living room, that puts a smile on my face and amazes me - every time I hear it.

I like to share subjectively-proven information of my findings with other listeners who share similar goals. I really don't give a hoot about theory, speed of light, electron flow, or whatever highly educated people want to ascribe to wire - but do not take the time to hear it !!! It is all totally irrelevant to me.

Personally, all I really care about, is how something will sound in my system !!! Good luck to all.

Jeff

PS, As a result of various recent interactions, terminate a " trio" of wire ends with VAMPIRE brand spade lugs, a decent choice.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

Hello Fifty Fifty ,

Copper plays the midrange frequencies, which is precisely what many many amps and speaker systems also do. If you are satisfied listening to that, and many audiophiles are, fine !! Use pure solid copper. Be happy with it. The music will tune to the AWG of the solid copper used. Avoid pure stranded copper wire, because it will corrode between strands over time, and degrade. Individually insulated strands of pure copper wire, LITZ wire, should not corrode. Solid copper wire, if properly silver coated,should not corrode.

Did you know, copper sounds MUCH like silver, if it is cryogenically treated. ?

Some people want their amplifier to also play the high frequencies of instruments well, cymbals, the top end of struck piano keys, etc. I know I do. To do this, takes a special design of both the amplifier and speaker crossover. It also takes silver content in the wire being used.

I find the Mil Spec m22759/11 wire has a good balance of lows, mids and highs in the combination of 12+12+14 . Two Fulton 57 1/8th inch lengths, works very well. Have any of those posting here, other than Hari, ever heard this ??

I have no financial interest in this. I have told you , where to source the wire easily at surplus prices, and how to build it. My interest is getting good sound in my living room, that puts a smile on my face and amazes me - every time I hear it.

I like to share subjectively-proven information of my findings with other listeners who share similar goals. I really don't give a hoot about theory, speed of light, electron flow, or whatever highly educated people want to ascribe to wire - but do not take the time to hear it !!! It is all totally irrelevant to me.

Personally, all I really care about, is how something will sound in my system !!! Good luck to all.

Jeff

PS, As a result of various recent interactions, terminate a " trio" of wire ends with VAMPIRE brand spade lugs, a decent choice.

Thanks Jeff, that's a very useful explanation!