Speaker Cables - I am a believer now!!

[reubensm]

I was one of those guys who really did not care too much about stories that cables make a significant different to SQ. Moved to Python interconnects primarily as I did not want to use el-cheapo local cables. Now, while moving around things in my new listening space, realized that I need longer speaker cables. Now, I was worried about increasing the length of my speaker cables (to 14 metres) so did a lot of research online. Finally, I decided to try a few things, increased the length of my existing speaker cables (ordinary OEM cables with came with the BPL floorstanders), thought there was a bass fall off. Tried electric wire (used for my home's electric wiring). Still sounded the same, quite disappointing. Finally a friend told me to try high quality 3-way ribbon cable, normally used for submersible pumps. An engineer friend helped me with the calculations and I decided to buy 30 meters of this cable with the following specificaitons:

Number of cores X-cross section (no. x sq mm): 3 x 2.5
Outer dimensions (mm x mm): 13 x 5.9
Max conductor resistance at 20 deg. cel. (ohm/km): 7.41
Current carrying capacity at 40 deg. cel. (amps): 18

Cut the cable into 2 pieces of 15 metres each, used the red and yellow wires (left the blue one out) and wired my speakers to the amp. There was an immediate change, the bass was back, speakers sounded loud and sensitive (as usual) but the marked change was with the imagery. When I closed my eyes and listened (from a central position), if felt like I was in a concert hall, listening to an orchestra. The interesting aspect is that one could enjoy the imagery even if the listening position was changed off centre, beside one of the speakers. I am very happy with the results but think a little more can be done. The room currently has no furniture, just empty. When furniture is added, a bit of the spacious effect (marginal echoing) will be lost but overall, the imagery should be more of less the same.

 

[AmitKumar]

Do you think it is better to buy premuim quality electirc cable as compared to buying good speaker cables?

Will there be cost saving by opting for premuim quality electric cables?

 

[madbullram]

A good cable makes all the difference, but does an expensive cable from an expensive brand makes that difference is the most debatable one. I am not yet convinced because never in a proper blind test its been proven

Any reason why you were suggested this cable, is it bcos submersible pump cables are of the highest quality?

 

[arj]

. When I closed my eyes and listened (from a central position), if felt like I was in a concert hall, listening to an orchestra. The interesting aspect is that one could enjoy the imagery even if the listening position was changed off centre, beside one of the speakers. I am very happy with the results but think a little more can be done. The room currently has no furniture, just empty. When furniture is added, a bit of the spacious effect (marginal echoing) will be lost but overall, the imagery should be more of less the same.

welcome to hell
IMHO ICs make a bigger difference than speaker cables but yes the difference has to be felt. the key is to find one which fits well and stop experimenting too much. in the end the Source/Amp and speakers make maximum difference

Since the Speaker/cable and Amp is one circuit and so the interaction of each of the three makes a big impact..and since we are talking of impedance which depends on frequency - it is dynamic in nature hence unpredictable until you hear it

Do you think it is better to buy premuim quality electirc cable as compared to buying good speaker cables?

Will there be cost saving by opting for premium quality electric cables?

the word "premium quality" is misleading..there is a lot of snake oil in the market and some really good ones as well. hence all high priced cables are not good but really good cables do come up at a higher price.
so unless you hear a difference in your system done waste your time /money

 

[Staxxx]

I am with you with that Arj...a suggestion definitely seconded. Try and buy....expensive CAN be good and cheap CAN be bad too

 

[keith_correa]

Finally a friend told me to try high quality 3-way ribbon cable, normally used for submersible pumps.

Are they ribbon cables or flat [relatively] cables? What brand are they?

 

[reubensm]

A good cable makes all the difference, but does an expensive cable from an expensive brand makes that difference is the most debatable one. I am not yet convinced because never in a proper blind test its been proven

Any reason why you were suggested this cable, is it bcos submersible pump cables are of the highest quality?

I was actually looking around at different options (without having to invest much, still recovering from torn pockets after the house construction ). An engineer friend suggested that graded copper-based, PVC submersible pump cables (for higher rated and deep borewell pumps) offered good conductivity with lowest resistance. I just took a chance with it, costed about Rs.80/- per metre so was worth the risk. According to my house hold's submersible pump literature, cable with similar specs can be used for upto 1km (lengthwise) with a 1.5 horsepower pump rated at 15 amps.

Do you think it is better to buy premuim quality electirc cable as compared to buying good speaker cables?

Will there be cost saving by opting for premuim quality electric cables?

Well, that's very subjective. This is my very first try with different cables for my speakers. Used the OEM BPL cables all along, even when I was using the B&W DM3000s. I have no experience whatsoever with speaker cabling. This is my very first try.

Are they ribbon cables or flat [relatively] cables? What brand are they?

The brand is Finolex, not exactly "ribbon" in its truest sense but they are relatively flat. Here's the URL to the site where I first saw these. Even though I have 2 pumps installed at home (1 submersible and 1 external), I was abroad when the wiring was done, so did'nt get to see this type of cable, earlier.

3 Core Flat Cables (XLPE)

 

[arj]

The brand is Finolex, not exactly "ribbon" in its truest sense but they are relatively flat. Here's the URL to the site where I first saw these. Even though I have 2 pumps installed at home (1 submersible and 1 external), I was abroad when the wiring was done, so did'nt get to see this type of cable, earlier.

3 Core Flat Cables (XLPE)

you should try those for power as well. a braided Power cable from Authentic Finolex (lots of Fake Finolex in the market) is a very good cable. make sure that the Connectors at both ends are either Copper or Brass.

 

[madbullram]

Reubensm: Use the Multi-quote feature to reply to multiple people. You can also try earthing wires of 2.5 sq.mm. They were also good to my ears.

 

[keith_correa]

AFAIK, the geometry of that cable is not doing anything for the sound. I briefly checked Finolex house wire specs too and they seem to be the same as the ones used in the "flat" cable. I think it's more to do with the fact that Finolex house wiring cables are high quality as attested to by many folks on this forum. Thoughts?

These seem very nice too. And maybe I'm missing something here but the resistance of these as compared to the Finolex is lower.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

14m is quite a run. I've never needed to find out: maybe it is getting towards a disance where the resistance of the cable really does matter.

reubensm, you understand electronics, and I don't, but the speaker-cable bottom line is resistance, isn't it? So without enquiring any deeper, on emight say thicker is better.

This is my favourite speaker-cable web resource: Speaker wire a History by Roger Russell.

 

[arj]

14m is quite a run. I've never needed to find out: maybe it is getting towards a disance where the resistance of the cable really does matter.

reubensm, you understand electronics, and I don't, but the speaker-cable bottom line is resistance, isn't it? So without enquiring any deeper, on emight say thicker is better.

This is my favourite speaker-cable web resource: Speaker wire a History by Roger Russell.

Thad , AFAIK, it's impedance and not just resistance . So thicker is not always necessarily better

 

[KiranPS]

I had a quite the opposite experience. When hooking up my speakers, when I had to run the wire for 10 meters, my finolex 4 sqmm wire sounded a lot better than a much more expensive speaker wire that the dealer gave me. He actually gave it for free , seing that I was using finolex for my MBLs he thought that I was skimping on speaker wire. I had to explain that finolex actually sounds much better.

I recently even tried a much more expensive and thicker cable from Taiwan, even that did not sound as good as my finolex . The copper looked very thick , when I stripped the insulation to connect , I found the wire was infact not that thick. The transparent round insulation had a convex lens magnifying effect and was making the wire inside look thicker.

For a/b testing of speaker wire you should not move from the listening position. You should ask someone else to switch the wires. It seems that even a few inches difference in ear position means you will hear a different sound. There is a great audio myths video on YouTube regarding this. According to them there is a comb filter effect which leads to different sounds in different positions in a room. your brain lets you hear what you want to hear, so if you feel that an expensive speaker wire is supposed to be more detailed, you will hear a more detailed sound. This is similar to expensive wine etc. Except for the professional wine tasters very few can actually tell the differerence between expensive and cheap wines, but most feel expensive wine tastes better.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Ah... Ethan Winer's stuff. Very enlightening

Thad , AFAIK, it's impedance and not just resistance . So thicker is not always necessarily better

There you go... using the right technical terms :lol:

Would I be right in thinking that, for the same material, they would be the same? If not, I shall to google....

 

[captrajesh]

I decided to try a few things, increased the length of my existing speaker cables (ordinary OEM cables with came with the BPL floorstanders), thought there was a bass fall off.

There was an immediate change, the bass was back, speakers sounded loud

I've noticed the very same thing in my first cable experiment more than a decade ago.

all high priced cables are not good but really good cables do come up at a higher price.

Can't agree more.

Would I be right in thinking that, for the same material, they would be the same?

The crux of the matter. For example, there are copper cables and there are copper cables (OFC at that)

In addition, there are variables like thickness of the strands, Cable geometry, shielding used et al.

 

[arj]

Ah... Ethan Winer's stuff. Very enlightening



There you go... using the right technical terms :lol:

Would I be right in thinking that, for the same material, they would be the same? If not, I shall to google....

since it is RLC (resistance , Inductance, Capacitance), the Dielectric property of the shielding , the turns/winding used, number of cores etc all have some level of Impact.
i do remember reading an article that resistance causes the east impact as it is uniform acros the spectrum and also kills of RFI driven currents ? (not sure)

Since L and C are dependent of frequency ( Inductance directly on frequency and Capacitance inversely) the frequency of the signal varies and in music signale there are countless frequencies travelling at the same instant.

My understanding is that for speakers needing High current, the variation in impedance across the frequency spectrum is much lower as a % hence variation in sound may not be high..while or High sensitivity speakers with low currents this is very different hence makes a bigger impact
One theoretical article here but do not know about the credentials of the folks since any idiot is able to become an expert on the internet
Influences of Speaker Cables

I remember reading another article with a proper test..let me see where that is

Here you go. BTW the polj wire mentioned here is supposedly an amazing wire and not available today. also as the resolution of the amp/speaker/source used in the test improves so does the perception of the change
1. Measured frequency response
http://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/art_spkr_cable.pdf
2. Blind Listening tests : https://sites.google.com/site/audiosocietyofminnesota/Home/april-2012-speaker-cable-listening-test

 

[jagdish_p]

14m is quite a run. I've never needed to find out: maybe it is getting towards a disance where the resistance of the cable really does matter.

reubensm, you understand electronics, and I don't, but the speaker-cable bottom line is resistance, isn't it? So without enquiring any deeper, on emight say thicker is better.

This is my favourite speaker-cable web resource: Speaker wire a History by Roger Russell.

Very well written article and practicle. I liked the below the most and I quote

"Suppose you have a system with adequately heavy speaker wire but the connections have gone bad over time. Simply removing and cleaning the wires and terminals and reconnecting them can make an audible difference. Incidentally, this is what can happen if the old wire is replaced with a new "miracle" speaker wire. By disturbing the terminals this can "accidentally" improve the contacts when the new wire with its clean surface is installed. A difference can be heard but not because of the new wire. The same change can be heard by simply cleaning the old wire/terminal contacts and reconnecting them"

 

[keith_correa]

<snip>reubensm, you understand electronics, and I don't, but the speaker-cable bottom line is resistance, isn't it? So without enquiring any deeper, on emight say thicker is better.<snip>[/URL].

Am not Reuben but AFAIK, what matters for good speaker cables is low resistance and low inductance and for interconnects, low capacitance.

 

[anuragn]

I had a quite the opposite experience. When hooking up my speakers, when I had to run the wire for 10 meters, my finolex 4 sqmm wire sounded a lot better than a much more expensive speaker wire that the dealer gave me. He actually gave it for free , seing that I was using finolex for my MBLs he thought that I was skimping on speaker wire. I had to explain that finolex actually sounds much better.

I dont think your experience was opposite. Actually, 4 sq mm wire is very thick, appx equivalent to 11AWG. And I'm sure the expensive wire that you got free would have been 16AWG or 14AWG at best.
I have observed that speaker cables have thicker insulation, which even though may be better, but give a sense of illusion of being heavier, and hence better. And the transparent ones, as you already said, make the copper wire appear thicker than it actually is.

 

[murali]

14m is quite a run. I've never needed to find out: maybe it is getting towards a disance where the resistance of the cable really does matter.

reubensm, you understand electronics, and I don't, but the speaker-cable bottom line is resistance, isn't it? So without enquiring any deeper, on emight say thicker is better.

This is my favourite speaker-cable web resource: Speaker wire a History by Roger Russell.[/QUOTE]

The following is from Jon Risch, a DIY guru of cables and one of the most sensible guys to talk to on this subject:

cheers.
murali

There are several web sites that proport to "tell the truth" about speaker cables and interconnects. They tend to focus ONLY on DCR and simple FR into a resistive load.
Given this kind of approach, one would get the idea that if you just used enough bailing wire, it would sound just fine!

However, this overly simplistic approach overlooks the imperfections in the basic LCR parameters. L being inductance, R being resistance, and C being capacitance. There is no such thing as a perfect resisitor that has ONLY resistance, or a perfect capacitor that has ONLY capacitance. The same is true of these parameters in terms of audio cables, and since the audio cable is carying an AC signal that has a dynamic range in excess of 90 dB, very small signal abberations that do not show up with dirt simple measurements or caculations can beconme a factor.

I will be the first to say that audio cable differences are NOT that huge to the average person, and may not be noticable at all on a Dept. store all-in-one rack system. But fopr a decent mid-fi system costing $1000 or more, there is a good chance that, if not right now, you will eventually be able to notice and appreciate, the sonic improvements that can accrue with the use of high performance audio cables.

Regarding the specific web site you mention, see a reply regarding this site below:

There are many things that are quite out of date in the information presented at this web site. This is a good example of the old school on cable matters. Blinders and tunnel vision.

The wire length chart is strictly concerned with resistive losses and the resultant amplitude drops. The author states that the table is based on a nominal resistance at the speaker end (resistive load), and a 5% signal loss to the speaker. In past references to this article, when referring to the 5% loss, I used the phrase "approx. 1/2 dB", but some folks took me to task for saying this when the table varied from around 0.44 to 0.45 dB of loss. Now you know the rest of the story.

Quite simply, if the speaker cable can cause a 1/2 dB loss or more into a nominal rated impedance (say, 8 ohms), then what will it do into a loudspeaker? For a resistive load, the loss will be all across the audio band evenly (ignoring speaker cable inductance, we'll look a that later), and there will be no effect on the frequency response.

But a loudspeaker is NOT a flat resistance, it has a widely varying impedance across the audio band, and typically has a rising impedance in the crossover region, to as high as 30-60 ohms. When we examine the signal from the amp at the speaker terminals, due to the impedance of the speaker dipping down to below the nominal rating (it is not uncommon for an 8 ohm rated speaker to dip down to 6 ohms or even less), and rising up far above the nominal, the voltage divider action of the speaker cables resistance will cause the frequency response to deviate across the band, directly inverse to the speakers impedance. Where the speaker impedance dips low, the losses are greatest. For the nominal 8 ohm system with a loss of about 1/2 dB into 8 ohms, the real world impedance dip of 6 ohms will cause approx. 2/3 of a dB loss.
Conversely, for the high impedance region near the crossover frequency, the losses may drop to less than 1/100 of a dB. The net change across the audio band can easily be close to 2/3 dB if this wire table is followed.

Interestingly enough, this amount of variation far exceeds the +/- 0.1 dB level match/FR criteria held dear by ABX/DBT proponents.

The above is all predicated on strictly resistive behavior for the speaker cable, but ordinary zip cords also exhibit a significant amount of inductance, sometimes enough to roll-off the HF's by as much as 0.3 dB at 20 kHz for a 10 foot length into a 4 ohm load. If a speaker system also happened to have low impedance at HF's, which is not uncommon for electrostats or high end speakers, then the total deviation within the audio band could easily approach or exceed 1 dB due to speaker cables that meet the table's requirements.
Make the cable longer, and the inductance goes even higher, and this is NOT accounted for in this chart. For a 20 foot run, using wire gauges according to this chart, the losses at 20 kHz could reach 1.3 dB or greater. For a 16 ga. 50 foot run, the losses could reach 2.2 dB or more at 20 kHz.


This very aspect of cables was brought up in an article by E. Brad Meyer in Stereo Review, "The Amp/Speaker Interface",Vol. 56, pp. 53-56 June 1991.

So cables that are substantially less resistive than what is shown in the referenced table would be a good thing, and would avoid uncontrolled frequency response deviations due to the speaker cable.

Another problem with using this wire table, is that it will also allow the damping factor at the speaker to drop to around 16 or so with real world speakers. This can cause the bass to sound boomy and ill-defined, with reduced punch and tautness.

Some attempt to minimize the import of these inductive losses is made by referring to the amounts of change that we can hear at 20 kHz, as if a HF roll-off was OK because of certain hearing related metrics. This is a classic confusion of psychoacoustic data with simple cable response, and what you should really be concerned with, is can YOU hear the effects of a frequency response roll-off so close to the audio band? Most people find they can notice a dulling of transients, and less HF clarity when the HF's are beginning to roll-off that much.

My own opinion is that lower resistance AND lower inductance cables than are recommended in this chart are going to offer less frequency response deviations, as well as other less obvious improvements, such as loudspeaker damping, and then there is always the issues of the quality of materials used in the cables, the cheap zip cord (AKA lamp cord) cited in the referenced article uses very poor insulating materials, and the quality of the copper is in question.

I think that it puts things in persepctive when we stop and really LOOK at the wire chart. It says that for a 12 foot length (or less), that 22 ga. wire is OK. I would have to challenge YOU to try a length of 22 ga. zip cord wire, and compare it to a length of 12 or 14 ga. wire, and see if YOU hear any diference. Note that this kind of comparison would be addressing primarily the resistance aspects that he was concerned with, and not any of the other issues that speaker cables can have.
If you can hear the difference that this kind of comparison makes, then you have just proven Mr. Russell to be WRONG.

Some of the other issues raised at this web site:

Oxygen free copper and silver wire. Once again the only issue that is examined is the resistivity. What about how OFC reduces the disruptions to the copper metal's crystal lattice? Many high end cable companies have found that very high purity copper, or some special way of processing the copper, is necessary for best results. It is not just the resistivity issue, but a certain amount of concern for non-linearities as the signal passes through.

Listening tests are brought up.
However, we have a "no-DBT" rule here in the Cable Asylum, and so I can not comment on this portion of the web page. E-mail me if you would like to know more.

The Stereo Review Cable test article is brought up. This is one of the more controversial articles, as it was so-heavily edited by the Stereo Review editor to read the way he wanted, that the original author challenged the editor regarding the conclusions that the article appeared to make.

There is a reference to a Sound & Vision Q&A answer, that just happens to jibe with Roger's POV, but it helps to realize that essentially, S&V was previously Stereo Review magazine.

On the whole, this web site page is sadly out of date, and provides no hard core data that is relevant, and the wire table does not allow for a very basic level of accuracy in terms of speaker cables.