Why on earth do speaker wires sound different?

[Gordon]

Ooops - Gordon forgot a square root in his quick sum - it's actually 8 amps, 32 volts (rounded, rms) or roughly 12 amps/50volts peak. Bur as Gordon says when things are not in phase because of the usual reactive load the numbers can be higher.

Mea culpa OT!! How did I do that!! apologies, rushing again doing more than one thing at a time. The principle is the same even if the numbers are wrong. That resistance does drop the volts in proportion to the current, whatever it is so peaks are still an issue in terms of compression but not as bad as I stated!!

[Gordon]

Mmmm, thank you. Mostly I felt the whoosh as your comments went straight over my head. The calculation arriving at 62.5 Amps was interesting though - mainly because I almost understood it. That is a hell of a high figure. Can mortal amplifiers provide current that high? Where do they get it from? Capacitors I presume?

Sorry about the Whoosh!!! But see my mistake pointed correctly out by OT above - instinct should have kicked in there. Yes, the energy required for the short term [perhaps only a few milliseconds] peak current gets “borrowed” from the large charge storage capacitors in the power supply. The size of these should be in proportion to the expected load the Amp is supposed to sustain safely. The sums show that it is not unreasonable to expect a powerful amp under load to output large current peaks. However the charge demand need not be great: 8 amps for 1 millisecond say is only 0.008 coulombs. Where the rail is perhaps 100 volts DC a 10,000 microfarad capacitor will hold 1 coulomb and the supply will sag slightly for a very short while, approx. 0.8%, in fact it hardly notices. A few milliseconds later the power supply will have restored the rail to its correct value. The mains impedance does have a slight effect on how quickly the power supply can restore the lost charge in the capacitor but it is normally trivial. Also that capacitor needs to have a low internal resistance otherwise that will restrict the current flow. Sustained high power is obviously a different matter.

I checked my amp's manual but it does not quote a figure for current, it did say this though, ".....when operated with both channels delivering maximum power into 4 ohm loads, will consume all the available power in a normal household circuit, therefore a dedicated electrical circuit may be necessary with this situation". 'Blimey' seems to be the appropriate word. I never guessed that my music could delay the making of my dinner. I must remember to turn the volume down if I'm hungry.

Amps rarely quote their current rating, it has to be inferred. That must be some beast you have there! If your amp is delivering say 250 watts into each of two channels sustained and even if its power supply is 100% efficient it has to draw a sustained minimum 500 watts from the mains – 2 amps at 250 volts!! That shouldn’t get your ring main in a sweat or get your fuses popping. Most of the time the amp is ambling along happily at an average power. Your ring main is fused at 30 amps in the consumer unit circuit breaker. At 250 volts you can draw 7.5 KW from that ring!!

Wikipedia says:

A common rule of thumb is that the resistance of the speaker wire should not exceed 5% of the rated impedance of the system.

Seems too high to me.

The table below shows recommended lengths based on this guideline:

Maximum wire lengths for two conductor copper wire[4]
Wire size...................2 Ω load...... 4 Ω load......6 Ω load......8 Ω load
22 AWG (0.326 mm2) 3 ft (0.9 m) 6 ft (1.8 m) 9 ft (2.7 m) 12 ft (3.6 m)
20 AWG (0.518 mm2) 5 ft (1.5 m) 10 ft (3 m) 15 ft (4.5 m) 20 ft (6 m)
18 AWG (0.823 mm2) 8 ft (2.4 m) 16 ft (4.9 m) 24 ft (7.3 m) 32 ft (9.7 m)
16 AWG (1.31 mm2) 12 ft (3.6 m) 24 ft (7.3 m) 36 ft (11 m) 48 ft (15 m)
14 AWG (2.08 mm2) 20 ft (6.1 m) 40 ft (12 m) 60 ft (18 m)* 80 ft (24 m)*
12 AWG (3.31 mm2) 30 ft (9.1 m) 60 ft (18 m)* 90 ft (27 m)* 120 ft (36 m)*
10 AWG (5.26 mm2) 50 ft (15 m) 100 ft (30 m)* 150 ft (46 m)* 200 ft (61 m)*

Again seems a bit high resistance for the audiophile. Keep the length down if possible.

...........which, with my limited understanding, seems to tie in with what you said. That makes (schoolboy physics) sense to me but what about fancy insulation or twisting the wires together or silver plated wire or solid silver wire or keeping the two wires well apart or suspended or bi-wiring etc?

Twisting makes no difference to the resistance although it affects inductance and capacitance, twisting is vital in RF work,
Insulation makes no difference except when very high frequencies are carried [ie RF] and the dielectric of the plastic may matter as will the spacing between conductors,
Silver plating will help with skin effect at higher audio frequencies, solid silver has a slightly lower conduction resistivity than copper [ratio of 1.7 to 1.6] and so will help a bit, Aluminium is worse and oxidises anyway, and Gold is not so good [ratio 2.4 to 1.7 with Copper] but it does not tarnish!!
Keeping the wires apart or suspended will not change resistance but may affect the HF performance. Bi wiring is good.

For over 20 years now, I have used very cheap Linn K20 cable (fairly thick multi-strand). My occasional auditions of other, fancy cables have either provided no audible benefit or they have been significantly worse than the cheap Linn cable. Some people spend a fortune on speaker cable, I was just trying to understand a little of the theory to see if I was missing out on a simple upgrade.

Multi-strand wire will reduce skin effect resistance which is its main benefit, more strands the better – provided the cross sectional area total is equivalent to the single strand it replaces. Your 56 strands of 0.3 mm dia has a DC resistance of 0.004 ohms per metre approx. equivalent to a single 4 mm sq solid as the spec says, lots better than TWE mains wire. Good stuff to use from this simple point of view of DC resistance and it has good low inductance too and will be good for skin effects. You can’t beat lots of copper!!

[Beef Oven]

Being sceptical I do think that cable manufacturers and stockists have made money from this hype.

Nonsense Cloughie. Indeed a professional sound artist/performer/composer drew my attention to these babies this morning. http://www.mains-cables-r-us.co.uk/m...ses-sr20.html#

Totally transforms the attack, back to front dynamic and overall soundstage of your hi-fi.

Transients become tangible and acoustic instruments get that 'reedy' realism. No shit honestly.

And at a mere £39, fuses have never been so affordable.

[MrGongGong]

Makes a great cuppa as well

[johnb]

These Van Damme cables look interesting and some folk seem to rate them highly (whatever value that has). They are also much, much cheaper than Dave's "101 Virgins" brands and come in 2.5, 4 and 6 sq mm cross sections.

Manufacturer's website: http://www.van-damme.com/25.html
4 sq mm : http://www.worldwidemusic.co.uk/van-...0mm-1053-p.asp
6 sq mm: http://www.worldwidemusic.co.uk/van-...0mm-1163-p.asp

After reading Gordon's remarks about the skin effect, the following caught my eye: "Speaker cables have ultra-fine 0.10mm conductors with 7 way plait construction to minimise the skin effect". (E.g. if I interpret it correctly, the 4 sq mm cable has 7 plaits, each with 46 strands of 0.10mm.)

There is at least one UK source that provides them terminated with spades or good quality banana plugs, though at a slightly higher price.

[cloughie]

Nonsense Cloughie. Indeed a professional sound artist/performer/composer drew my attention to these babies this morning. http://www.mains-cables-r-us.co.uk/m...ses-sr20.html#

Totally transforms the attack, back to front dynamic and overall soundstage of your hi-fi.

Transients become tangible and acoustic instruments get that 'reedy' realism. No shit honestly.

And at a mere £39, fuses have never been so affordable.

Well they've had £39 of your brass, Beefy!

[jayne lee wilson]

Before discussing why speaker cables sound different, it might be worthwhile first proving that they do sound different.

By what methodology would you prove that speaker cables either do, or don't, sound different? Spell it out. You're too fond of pseudo-scientific statements without any backup... when I read "studies have shown that" I reach for my stiletto.

My cable-loom evolution is a long and multi-stranded history... with a solid core of trial by listening.
Current speaker wire is the classic Kimber 8TC (here quite a few years now), with the same cable as the link to the tweeters. (Quite a bit of copper in there, OT and G!). Interconnects and mains cable experiences have been much more intriguing, but in this climate of scepticism, sshhh! ... what you sceptics need to accept is that those of us who have these adventures hear things we DON'T want or expect at least as often as those we do!

Hasn't anyone else here had mains trouble? For many years I was fed up with the greying, muted sound I would hear at (especially) winter mealtimes, often affecting the Radio 3 evening concert. Ever the night owl... I soon noticed the shocking improvement in CD playback after 1 or 2 in the morning. What to do?
Eventually I found out about mains filters, conditioners etc... following HIFiNews advice, I fitted two hefty Trichord Powerblocks (well, I didn't fit them, a strong man did - I couldn't even push them across the carpet)...
If this still didn't quite give me "2AM sound all day", it was a great improvement. Even the audible background noise on a DAB tuner's Radio 3 concerts disappeared. (The Arcam DRT-10 DAB tuner disappeared long since of course - you've guessed it, Mum's bedroom again, she doesn't hear the HF distortion - but oh! there's an article about it in this month's HFN!)

Point is, problem met solution, two whacking great isolation transformers in metal boxes. Putting out a balanced current. Downside? They can hum a bit themselves if the neighbours are REALLY busy!

And finally... one of ATC's toughguys once told me "If you can't measure it, you can't hear it". Agree or disagree?

[Phileas]

By what methodology would you prove that speaker cables either do, or don't, sound different? Spell it out. You're too fond of pseudo-scientific statements without any backup... when I read "studies have shown that" I reach for my stiletto.

The usual non-pseudo-scientific method is double blind ABX testing.

I'm sure it's possible to construct speaker cables which affect the sound audibly, particularly for very long runs, but as far as I'm aware, sensibly made, ordinary, inexpensive cables are perfectly adequate for normal use.

[MrGongGong]

"If you can't measure it, you can't hear it". Agree or disagree?

There is , of course, the placebo effect
so (in a Bad Science style) I wonder whether blue speaker leads (wires ? ) sound different to white ones ?

(I once made a sound installation in collaboration with a visual artist who said that he didn't mind what it sounded like
as long as the speaker leads weren't white !)

[Nevalti]

.......There are also people who will pay a fortune (see Mr GG's earlier post) for mains cable, and say it makes a difference. I once tried to "discuss" this with someone who had that belief, and suggested that the mains wiring behind the socket from the consumer unit was very likely to dominate, so the cable from the socket to the equipment was probably an expensive waste of money........

I agree that it is ridiculous to spend a lot of money on a pretty mains leads but I think there is a case to be made for using a simple shielded mains lead to reduce mains interference on adjacent interconnects - especially from a turntable or microphone. Even speaker cable could be affected by an adjacent mains lead in theory. If you are using balanced interconnects, and I mainly am, they should not be affected by mains leads so I am in no rush to experiment. I did however buy some shielded cable about a year ago, just to experiment with, but I have yet to make up the leads. In the unlikely event that I detect any improvement I will post it here. In the mean-time I just ensure my unbalanced interconnects are kept away from the various mains leads.

On your second point, I suspect that any music which demanded a continuous 300W from my amp would not be my choice of music! I won't really worry about my dinner being delayed. Somewhere in the house, I have a device which is meant to tell you how much electricity is actually being used on any given socket. If I can find it I will give it a try and report back.

[Beef Oven]

Well they've had £39 of your brass, Beefy!

You don't think I'm mug enough to fall for the Hi-Fi twaddle do you?

[Nevalti]

Before discussing why speaker cables sound different, it might be worthwhile first proving that they do sound different.

In fairness, most of us wouldn't believe it before we heard it. I certainly didn't, but you simply have to sit down and listen. Sometimes the differences are very pronounced.

If you compare a very popular silver plated cable like 'Silver Anniversary' with some much cleaper 4mm copper cable like the old Linn K20, you should hear a difference on virtually any system - unless you own active speakers of course .

[Nevalti]

............Again seems a bit high resistance for the audiophile. Keep the length down if possible.

I am using less than a third of the length suggested - so I will sleep happily tonight. Thank you for your reassurance. It is comforting to have theoretical support for what my ears tell me.

(The amp is simply a Bryston 4B SST. Maybe Canadian house wiring is less substantial than ours.)

[Nevalti]

.........And finally... one of ATC's toughguys once told me "If you can't measure it, you can't hear it". Agree or disagree?

Try asking him if he can hear everything he can measure! If he can't, and he most certainly can't, how can he have confidence in his assertion?

Annoyingly, I can frequently see LEDs flashing or occulting (I can't tell which) at a high frequency but most people, apparently, can not. We are all subtly different - thankfully. The ability to see or to hear defects, that others can not, is often more of a curse than a blessing but maybe some of us afflicted folk get more enjoyment from sound.

[Dave2002]

Before discussing why speaker cables sound different, it might be worthwhile first proving that they do sound different.

A good point. It would be interesting to know if our OP has heard a difference - as it sneaks in as an assumption in his original post. I'm not saying he doesn't. It'd also be good to know in what ways, if he has experience of this, and if the perception of this is repeatable and perhaps also if similar perceptual differences are noticed by others.

Personally I can't say enough about this to be sure that there is a difference, or at least not a strong one, between different cables, but I can assure anyone reading this that analogue interconnect cables definitely make a difference - sometimes remarkably so. I'll give the story/ies later, if anyone wants to know.

Digital interconnects are a different matter, and we may back in the realms of homeopathic woo, as someone else might write.

For anyone trying to make improvements, if the speaker cable is currently "good enough" by some reasonable criteria, then I'd suggest checking out interconnect cables before changing the speaker cables. However, if your speaker cable is bell wire or similar, it could be worth getting something better before doing anything else.

The discussion so far has highlighted some quite high current requirements - though now perhaps reduced somewhat due to OT's recalculations. Interesting!