Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
Welcome to TalkBass! Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Why is speaker wire so thin?
- Thread starter wolfkeller
- Start date
I had short thick speakon cables made for me. For me wanting thicker cables really doesn’t have anything to do with performance of the cab they are plugged into. It’s because I like how thicker cables are much less likely to become a tangled mess. When we finish a set I quickly stuff the two speakon cables in the back of my rackbag and zip it shut, when I go to take them out again they come right out, no untangling cables.
Right!
They'd be totally un-PC these days no doubt. Tho they do have a big giant one in the oval office
The reason for using small gauge wire is you don't need to use large gauge wire. Read this, look at the chart for gauge requirements. http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
Damping factor is the best argument that I know of in favor of using speaker wiring that seems like overkill compared to the wiring practices used in other applications. One of the links above has a couple of articles that pooh-pooh the importance of damping factor due to what goes on inside a speaker anyway. To me that is more of a condemnation of the speaker design than the practice of paying attention to damping factor when selecting the speaker wire gauge.
Either way this is a matter of concern mostly for home audio system work where one of your primary concerns is reproducing a musical performance with very low distortion. Those of us who create music don't mind distortion as long as it is produced artistically! That would argue that in our case we may not be terribly concerned about amplifier damping factors. However, one group that I know of who were trying to make a solid state amp sound like a tube amp felt they were still too far from the goal after exhausting all the common and not so common techniques for building a solid state tube amp. One of them theorized that part of the tube amp sound might come from a tube amp's lower damping factor which allows the speakers to do their own thing and contribute to the final sound. So, they added some resistance to the speaker wiring and claimed that the result was a noticeable improvement in the fidelity of their solid state amp's faithfulness to its tube prototype's sound. Obviously your ears may disagree but this claim does make me consider damping factor something which should be considered and tested rather than pooh-poohed out of hand when you are putting together an amplifier/cabinet system.
As far as heat rise goes, well if you are constantly driving your amplifier output to square waves then your speaker wiring probably should comply with the NEC requirements since they are based on continuous full power delivery to the loads and that is the situation you have in that case. The rest of us are only hitting the amp's power output limit on the occasional peak, if then, and can back off on the NEC requirements.
With good reason. http://www.diyspeakers.net/Articles/Richard Pierce DAMPING FACTOR.pdf
The damping factor controversy arose after the invention of SS amps, which have a high damping factor, as opposed to tubes, which have a low damping factor. SS advocates pointed to high damping factor as why SS was superior, tube advocates pointed to low damping factor as why tubes were superior. Both camps were grasping at straws. Before SS and high damping factor came along no one worried about damping factor, and those in the know kept it that way.
Read the article again. It argues against outrageous claims that have been made. It allows that damping factor may produce audible differences just not to the degree that some have claimed and not for the reason they claimed. It freely admits to having considered only one aspect of the controversy, the one most often alluded to by those making outrageous claims. I'm not claiming any more than what this author allows as within the realm of possibility at the conclusion of his analysis: there might be audible differences. And I know that some have claimed to hear them. This is the point where a double blind listening test would have to be done to confirm or deny that those claims are true. If true then the fun of sussing out why could begin in earnest.
Actually, in almost all cases 18 is plenty big. In fact, I would ask the question the other way around. Why are so many amp-to-speaker cab cables so big?
Electronically speaking, you are in a creek. You need a canoe. You do not need a ship.
Electronically speaking, you are in a creek. You need a canoe. You do not need a ship.
Last edited:
because the distance from the jack to the speaker is Short ... long run signal loss is not a problem
agedhorse
Commercial User
- Feb 12, 2006
- 52,447
- 176,650
- 14,248
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Marketing drives many things, especially in the accessory world
\
... and we have a winner!
Mag wire ampacity ratings differ from hookup wire— mostly but not all due to the heat tolerance of the outer insulation/varnish.
agedhorse
Commercial User
- Feb 12, 2006
- 52,447
- 176,650
- 14,248
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
D
Deleted member 165050
Guest
The wire gauge in an Instrument cable is typically around 22 ga.
There's a difference between the gauge of the wire used and the physical size of the cabling.
I love explanations that use analogy; it's like having someone draw you a picture.
It was more of a similar point I hoped to make, but I guess the delivery was off. External cables of some length that get exposed to the elements tend to be overbuilt compared to short wire runs inside equipment.