Heavy Gauge Speaker Wire Changes Everything

[genek]

Pre-conditioning is or was at 1/3 or 1/2 volume for a period of time prior to their testing.

This I believe generated the most heat and this is where most older amplifiers failed the approval tests.

I hope the mfrs of my amps did that pre-conditioning before they shipped them, because I don't think I've ever had mine turned up that high except when listening for hiss or hum with no signal going through them. Maybe I should've just bought a couple of Henry Kloss' table radios and save myself a bundle over the years.

[soundminded]

Pehaps it is time to write something definitive about wire and cables. From what audiophiles say you would think that the wire and cable industry in general and major cable manufacturers in particular including electrical engineers are either blithering idiots who don't understand the needs of audiophiles or just don't care while the boutique cable manufacturers have the inside track and are forging ahead at the cutting edge finding out the real truth and selling the only products which are best to "get the job done right." Actually, exactly the opposite is true.

Among the very first mathematical models an electrical engineering student is presented with when he begins his studies specific to electrical engineering, usually in the first semester of his junior year (at least that's how it was when I went to school) is the "telegrapher's equation."

http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/tech/cable.htm

The equation was developed around 1855 for use by engineers designing telegraph systems and became important again with the invention of the telephone. With the inventions of radio and television as well as other applications in the 20th century, the need to understand exactly how wire affects electrical signals took on new importance. The standards for generic wire performance were catalogued by among others the ILRE (International League of Radio League) no later than around the 1920s. The ILRE was the predecessor of the IEEE. There is more known about the characteristics of wire than probably any other element in an electronic or electrical network. It is the wire industry, not the small time audio tinkerers in their cottage industry garage-like factories who have the vast laboratories to test and perfect wire and cable and develop them for specific purposes.

The reason some electrical engineers may fall prey to the audiophile wire market (most don't) is because they have forgotten this early and relatively easy subject. It may be revisited again when they take a course in network theory. At its core, the mathematical model of wire is of what is called a distributed parameter network. This means that the model of a wire is made up of an infinite number of infinitesmal elements, resistors, capacitors, inductors. The approximate solution shown in the reference link is the equivalent lumped sum parameter network which is easily solved in a network analysis and synthesis. Although the model could be expanded to include many other elements such as shunt inductance and shunt resistance as well as the corresponding parameters for the connection terminations, these are usually so insignificant as to be meaningless in most analyses and are therefore ignored. There may be cases where they are not however such as when there has been corrosion on the terminations over time or a thin film of oil prevents a less than metal to metal connection. The model may change if the wire itself has become corroded too. In general however, the elements shown in the link are good enough.

Wire is NEVER used as a control element for a network, its purpose is to connect one node of an electrical circuit to another in such a way that the changes to the signal from the output of the driving device to the input of the driven device is insignificant compared to the requirement for the application. This is why only electrical performance with actual measured numbers matters, subjective likes or dislikes are meaningless to an engineer. The goal is to make the wire perform as close to a perfect shunt as possible.

The correct application of wire for a particular job therefore is determined by the nature of the signal, the distance, any interfering external signals, and the network characteristics (voltage levels and series impedence) of the source driver and the characteristics (impedence) of the load. The tolerence of the change to the signal is also a factor. It is therefore possible to devise wires which will deliberately alter electrical signals by configuring their resistance, capacitance, or inductance to be so high that they act as filters which can result in audible degradation of the electrical signals they connect. For instance, if two wires are compared and one does not result in a signal as loud as the other (wire is a completely passive device, it has no gain) then that wire should be discarded as defective, inappropriate for that application. That in a given situation, a wire so extremely constructed may act as a filter to mitigate problems elsewhere in a network does not make it a good choice, there are much better and cheaper solutions such as designing a filter specifically for the problem encountered. An equalizer is one such filter which is why audio engineers invariably use them. Because they have become cheap with little profit in them, it was incumbent upon the audiophile wire industry to convince its uneducated market that equalizers degrade audio performance and are therefore unacceptable. And they can...when used improperly because they are powerful tools. The correct use of an equalizer requires either proper test equipment or a very well practiced musically trained ear and a lot of patience. Most audiophiles give up on them relatively quickly because they have neither.

When the load impedence of say a loudspeaker (or an amplifier) is relatively low compared to the wire connecting it to the driving source, the wire can become an audible factor unless its impedence is chosen carefully. This is why a speaker such as AR3 which can have an impedence of around 1 ohm at some frequencies will benefit from very heavy gage wire. It's also why a so called "passive preamplifier" which is merely a potentiomenter which doesn't amplify anything is a dumb idea. The high output impedence of most vacuum tube amplifiers compared to the load impedence of the speaker and the wire can also be sensitive to the impedence of the wire more readily.

Bottom line, it is not necessary or desirable to use exotic wires, the major manufacturers in the wire industry has spent decades designing and fabricating the best solutions for connecting audio systems with products at very low cost manufactured in very high volume. Used correctly, they offer the best solutions. If there are problems, the best solutions to those lie elsewhere, not in an endless and usually fruitless and expensive search for a wire which will make a suitable filter to correct only a specific audible frequency response deviation in one particular sound system.

BTW, the 1/3 20 minute power preconditioning requirement for the manufacturer's specification and testing of amplifiers was mandated by the FCC in the 1970s to end the ludicrous horsepower race in which meaningless numbers were applied to amplifiers power claims. However, even with the FCC rules, the use of a single number to specify amplifier output power capabilities is a gross oversimplification of a complex issue, an uneducated market wanting a single number to use as a figure of merit to compare different products when in actuality, for an engineer usually no one single number is sufficient when engineering a solution to a particular problem.

[oldguide]

Absolutely brilliant post!

You might be interested to know that the Amazing Randi, a former magician who has become a professional debunker, decided to take on exactly this problem. Randi is known for offering a million dollars to anyone who could prove paranormal phenomena exist. So far the million is unclaimed.

A few years ago he offered a similar challenge to high end cable manufacturers. He offered another million to anyone who could prove the difference between basic speaker cables and a $7,200 pair. Still no takers.

The challenge and much other speaker cable debunking is on a great site:

Amazing Randi Speaker Wire Challenge

[genek]

Amazing Randi Speaker Wire Challenge

According to this article, Randi's personal sound system uses $80 speaker cables. I wonder if he's tested these against the 16ga lamp cord from Home Depot that many of us are using.

I guess everyone's skepticism threshold is different.

[Mexicomike]

Yep, I'd say that Randi wasted 80 bucks on "exotic speaker cable!"

[genek]

Yep, I'd say that Randi wasted 80 bucks on "exotic speaker cable!"

Straight from the horse's mouth:

"They have excellent "spade" terminals, they're heavy

gauge, coil easily and neatly, work perfectly. I'm sure they can't be

differentiated from 16-gauge zip cord.

James Randi."