10/02/2021
Wire We Hear,
What you need to know about Wire Technology
By Marc Silver
Last week I got a call from someone wanting some information of wire and what he should look for before buying new speaker cable. As we were talking I realized I have yet to write an article discussing what make wire different a how that effects the sound resulting from your choices.
Today we have hundreds of choices of wire to choose from. Prices can range from a few cents a foot to thousands of dollars per foot. That seems like a ridiculous range for something that seems so simple. After all it’s just wire isn’t it.
What is Speaker Wire. Technically it is a metal conductor used to connect the output of an amplifier to the input of a loudspeaker. Simply put, Loudspeaker cable is the wire or cable used to connect the amplifier to the loudspeaker system. Seems pretty basic and easy, but the speaker wire you select can affect the sound as much as your amplifier choice.
In the early years of audio, wires that were used to connect speaker systems were often zip or line cord. Also called lamp cord as it was the same cheap wire used for floor lamps. Typically the longer the wire run, the heavier the wire that was used. There were no special speaker wires. Speaker wire was just plain old copper wire. At this point in my article I have to acknowledge Mr. Noel Lee. Noel founded Monster Cable in 1979 and to my recollection was the first to market speaker wire as an actual audio component. If it wasn’t for Noel, who knows how long it would have taken until we realized the true importance of speaker wire in an audio system. It was the emergence of high tech speaker wire that has raised some fundamental questions about the benefits of these new and sometimes extremely expensive wires.
So lets dive into what makes speaker wire speaker wire.
What is Wire?
If we look at the basics, wire is made up of various materials. With choices that can range from aluminum (only used for industrial applications), to copper, to silver to gold and any combination. For this article I will ignore aluminum as it is never used for Audio applications and after all Audio is what we are interested in. Copper happens to be the most common materials for speaker wire, but Aluminum is widely used commercially for extremely high voltage applications and therefore not a good choice for the high fidelity market.
If copper is you choice, then consider using high purity copper. Look for 99.99% purity. The higher the purity the better the performance. Copper oxidizes in the air, so the dialectic (or covering) for the wire needs to be air tight. Otherwise wire would disintegrate in a very short time. Gold or zinc plating doesn’t tarnish and ensures a longer life. However, you’ll find that even cheap cables have some form of coating that will last the cable’s lifetime. Gold-plating for wire is generally considered by cable designers, not worth the extra expense where as Silver is a considered great choice. Most metallurgists will tell you that copper and silver are far better conductors.
Silver over copper is a very good choice as it offers many of the benefits of silver at a significant savings.
Gold plating.
It is a common belief and misconception that gold is the best connector. Many expensive audio cables on the market and even some of the cheaper ones will often make a big deal out of “gold plating”. The reason for this has nothing to do with signal quality. It became popular because gold doesn’t oxidize and cause lose of signal quality. In fact as I said before, silver is a superior connector for wire, but will require some attention as silver will tarnish (oxidize) and over time, can cause a lose of signal quality.
Gauge and Strands of Wire.
There is a general understanding that the more strands of wire the better and the larger the gauge the better. I have to admit that wire gauge has always eluded me as being contrary to logic. The larger the number the lower the gauge. So if you want a larger wire you want 10 gauge over 18 gauge. I will cover wire gauge later in this article.
The consensus is that the heavier the wire gauge the better bass response and great energy transfer with lower resistance. All thing being equal the net result is heavier wire offers more control over the speaker’s movement. Additionally, the more number of individual strands of wire the better the high frequency response. Basically it comes down to surface area of the wire. A single 16 gauge conductor has less surface area than the same 16 gauge wire made up of dozens of small individual conductors. There are of course exceptions to this rule. For example a flat thin single conductor. Imagine taking a round 16guage solid core wire and run it through a press and flatten it out into a wide thin conductor. The result is far more surface area than the original cable. Examples of flat cable would be Gortz Wire and Taper Wire.
Tire Termination, is it important?
There is a minor controversy over what is better for wire termination. Some people believe that bare wire is the best way to terminate wire because there is less mechanical connections in the way of the sound. I have compared the same wire with pins, vs spades vs. banana jacks. And although the differences are virtually indistinguishable I believe that there is a tiny advantage conically to bare wire over mechanical connectors. But if it comes down to what works the best for me I have settled on a banana jacks as the most convenient. I find myself on occasion disconnecting my speakers for various reasons and just prefer to have the convenience of using banana jacks on my various systems. Also amongst the various styles of banana jacks I prefer a single spring rolled post. My reasoning is this type of banana jack makes more contact within a 4 way binding post and is far more secure.
What is configuration.
Wire configuration is in my mind the major characteristic that effects the sound do to the wire choice. The basic choices are parallel twin lead, twisted twin lead, bundled and twisted, braided, co-axial, twisted flat, flat solid core, and innumerable combinations of the above. It is safe to say that there are as many variations of wire configuration as there are combinations that can be made. Plus I plan to get into various dielectrics and coatings for wire later in this article.
Each variant has both advantages and disadvantages. Some have to do with performance while others have to do with cost. I recall the old saying, “You can have it either good or cheap”.
I have seen wires that use multiple strands of wire of various gauges combined to make up the total gauge of the wire and I have seen the same gauge as one large solid core. In my opinion I lean toward the former over the later. I am of the school that believes that the more strands of wire the better the high end and more open the sound stage, also the more flexible the wire. I found on the internet the following concerning solid core. “An ideal application of solid wire would be carrying power through a building structure, as this requires a high current, little movement, and long-lasting durability... Solid wires are more suited for outdoor or heavy-duty applications where higher currents and more rigid durability are required.
• Building infrastructures
• Vehicle controls
• Outdoor applications “
One of the best examples of a braided wire is Kimber Kable. Ray Kimber actually patented the braid configuration he uses for his wire. He uses counter-rotating sets of conductors to cancel the magnetic interaction effect in wire. Some of the characteristics attributed to Kimber is excellent bass response and open detailed high end. I have used many of his cables and have liked them all.
Another variant is a flat set of twisted cable as demonstrated by Nordosts. They’re known for multiple twisted pairs set side by side in a flat configuration. Nordost falls into the group of exceptional wire that happens to be very expensive. Then again it is the only wire used by NASA.
Speaker and Amplifier Connectors
There has always been some controversy as to whether the connectors used on the ends of the wire have a significant affect on the ultimate sound. Typically the connection between the amplifier terminals and speaker terminals are pressure device of some sort. That includes 5 way binding post, as shown above, Spring speaker clips, and terminal blocks.
The quality of the connection is generally determined by to how tight you can get the binding post or the pressure of a spring which holds the speaker wire against the metal of the terminal. So How good the connection has an effect.
The metals used in each type of terminal again relate back to the same characteristics of the wire I discussed earlier. The finer the material the better the performance.
The performance is also affected by oxidation over time and the connection can become bad to the point where the connection is just bad and unusable. Dissimilar metals can also promote corrosion with action like a battery when they are in a humid environment. The result being high resistance and clearly audible distortion.
In most cases it is not unusual to have some type of oxidation to cause oover time I have had more than my share of 12g speaker wire that has turned green with oxidation and when I cut the wire open only to be showered by oxide from the interior of the wire. Once replaced I was amazed at the improvement of the system performance.
Some people believe that by simply removing and cleaning the wires and terminals and reconnecting them will resolve the issue. I disagree. However, if the oxidation is isolated to the terminals or ends and is not that bad then cleaning and treating can work. Additionally each connection will expand and contract differently due to temperature changes.
The only way to maximize the quality of the connection is to wrap and solder the speaker wires directly to the amplifier outputs. Let me add this is something I don’t recommend.
Cable Resistance Does Wire Length Really Matter?
All wire has resistance. The question is what happens when the resistance gets too high? The most obvious effect is power lose. I also hear what I can only describe as sonic congestion. Speakers not only don’t play as loud as they could, as resistance in the speaker wire increases, it makes the amplifier look more like a current source. In brief, the speaker frequency response will tend to follow the rise and fall of its impedance curve causing non-linear performance. In short, the higher the resistance the worst the performance.
Ideally by using heavier gauge wire the better the performance.
Resistance
Some people believe that resistance in the speaker circuit is the key factor that determines loudspeaker performance. This includes the connecting wire between the amplifier terminals and the speaker terminals, the amplifier internal impedance and the impedance of the speaker system. In every sire setup there is contact resistance at the connecting terminals of the system. In most cases the internal impedance of good quality amplifiers is very small and difficult to measure. The remaining factors are the speaker system impedance and the speaker wire resistance.
Typically a 8 ohm speaker can have over 120 feet of wire internally, which includes all the internal wiring and the wire in the speaker voice coils themselves. This is all part of the resistive circuit that makes of the speaker system.
Since most people are not going to open their speakers and rewire the cross-over and internal wiring, the only thing left to consider is the resistance of the speaker wire.
Material ICAS% Conductivity
Silver
105%
Copper
100%
Gold
70%
Aluminum
61%
Tin
15%
Copper
100%
Maximum Wire Lengths For Copper Wire
I am not entirely sure who decided on the system to determine wire gauge, but it truly has never made any sense to me. If I was the person to decide on wire size I would have had larger number to make up heavier wire. But this is not how the wire industry thinks. Wire is specified by gauge numbers. A smaller number indicates a larger diameter of wire and consequently a lower resistance. Stranded wire is composed of several smaller conductors to make up the total gauge of the wire.
The following is a typical guide for determining the minimum gauge and maximum length of wire with minimal negative sonic effect.
Wire Size
2 ohm load
4 ohm load
6 ohm load
8 ohm load
22 AWG
3 feet max
6 feet max
9 feet max
12 feet max
20 AWG
5 feet max
10 feet max
15 feet max
20 feet max
18 AWG
8 feet max
16 feet max
24 feet max
32 feet max
16 AWG
12 feet max
24 feet max
36 feet max
48 feet max
14 AWG
20 feet max
40 feet max
60 feet
80 feet
12 AWG
30 feet max
60 feet
90 feet
120 feet
10 AWG
50 feet max
100 feet
150 feet
200 feet
Please note: This is not my chart. I personally would NEVER use any speaker wire less than 16 AWG even for cheap speakers and background applications. This chart is based on wire resistance not to exceed 5% of nominal value.
To Bi-wire or Not To Bi-wire
The concept of Bi-wiring is an interesting one and one that has a fair amount of controversy within the audio industry.
For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, Bi-wiring is where two runs of hot and ground wire are attached to separate terminals on the speaker. One set is connected to the High Frequency terminals and the other to the Woofer terminals and the wires are combined at the amplifier.
Some speaker companies feel there is no need to bi-wire a speaker while others feel it is a valuable sonic improvement.
Those companies that believe in the value of bi-wiring design their speakers with dual sets of speaker terminals.
There is a phenomena known as Back EMF or Back Electo Mechanical Force. This occurs when the inertia generated by the movement of the woofer cone generates signal that travels through the cross-over network and effects the sound of the high frequencies of the speaker.
The Audiophiles response would be to use separate amplifiers, referred to as Bi-amplification. Bi-amplification completely isolates the speakers as each is attached to separate amplifiers. Bi-wiring is a compromise. The Back EMF now has to travel the entire length of both legs of the wire run where the additional resistance reduces the affect of Back EMF on the high end within the speakers.
In my experience Bi-wiring does have a audible effect on the sound. Improving the detail and imaging of the system. I have found that the better the system the more audible improvement there is. Is it a “OMG I can’t believer the difference,” difference. Not really! This is a subjective difference that each listener has to decide on in a case by case evaluation.
When I run speakers that can be bi-wired or bi-amplified, I always do so. I do it because I honestly hear that difference. That may not be the case for everyone.
For those who are interested in a more complete explanation I am including a link to a site that will help.
Back Emf | Physics (lumenlearning.com)
Can You Hear the Difference
Like I said in the past. Everything you listen to is a matter of subjective opinion. I have had the opportunity to listen to some of the world’s finest speaker wire costing more than a small house. Would I spend as much on my speaker wire as the total of my electronics? NO! Mostly because I have trouble justifying the expense. And I don’t have an unlimited budget. But, would I spend 10% to 20% of the system cost? My answer is YES I would! When I evaluate a system my selection of wire and cable is just as important as any of the component parts. When I have used multi-thousand dollar wire on a multi-thousand dollar system I can hear a difference, but I also take into consideration where I get the most performance for the dollars spent on that system. It may be that spending more on the speakers and a little less on the wire the end result is better. I also consider system longevity. If I spend $5000 on a pair of speakers that I plan to keep for 20 years, I may only spend $200 initially on wire with the feeling that I could later upgrade the cable at a later date while keeping the speakers. I consider this approach with all aspects of any audio system purchase.
Over the last 53 years I have been in audio, I have often been asked by customers and friends to make recommendations for their systems. When it comes to selection of any of the components of a audio system I do my best to supply as much information as possible so they can make an appropriate choice.
Since I can’t pick someone else s favorite food, or the person they should marry, or the place they should live, I certainly can’t decide whether they should spend $50 or $5000 for his speaker cable and associated cable. I have always suggested to my customers in the past, that they borrow two or three pairs of wire and listen to them in their system and then decide for themselves what makes sense for their system.
Speaker Wire Companies:
Audience
Analysis Plus
Apature Wire
Audio Art Cable
Atlas
Audioquest
Beldon
Cardas Audio
Chord Company
Fono Acustica
Furukawa
Gortz
Kimber Kable
Kubala-Sosna
Luna
Monster Cable
MIT
Naim
Nirvana Audio
Nordost
Pure Silver
QED
Stealth
Straight Wire
SVS
Tara Labs
Tellurium
Van den Hul
Wire Wizard
Wire World
