Why is speaker wire so thin?

#42
I ended up getting 12-ga. wire to run between my 800-watt amp and my cabinet. I didn't buy that because I really needed it. I bought it because the only banana plugs my local Radio Shack had were for 10 to 12-ga. wire and I needed to make a cable with banana plugs on one end and a Speakon connector on the other end right away so I could use my new cab at rehearsal that afternoon. It's certainly excessive, but since it works just fine and I'd have to go find some new banana plugs to use 16-ga. wire, I just haven't messed with it over the last two years.
 
#43
Rip Van Dan said:
I ended up getting 12-ga. wire to run between my 800-watt amp and my cabinet. I didn't buy that because I really needed it. I bought it because the only banana plugs my local Radio Shack had were for 10 to 12-ga. wire ...
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Hmm, I have a whole bag full of banana plugs and have never come across one that wouldn't/couldn't accept wire smaller than its maximum opening. You do know that the set screws can be screwed down pretty far, right?
 
#47
chadds said:
Not expensive and hard to damage. Why not!?!
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Why? It offers nothing over 14 ga unless the cable is at least 80 feet long, and in that case use 12 ga, though I can't imagine why you'd want an 80 foot speaker cable. Even huge PAs don't use 8 gauge, because the PA guys know that if the cable is long enough to need 8 ga where resistance is concerned the capacitance and inductance will be too high anyway.
 
#48
wolfkeller said:
The other day I was installing a speakon Jack on my ampeg 810. Doing this, I of course has to cut and strip the wires which are around 18g or so. I've worked on many cabs, Ampeg, gallien Krueger, Mesa boogie, peavy, ect. They ALL have the thin, weak looking wire.

After I was done, I had to test it so I plugged in my huge 12g speaker cable and it occurred to me, "why do I need this huge cable to run the voltage when the wires inside are so tiny?" Those wires handle all that power, so why can't small speaker cables?

Before anyone says it's because amps are higher powered now, let us remember that a 70s SVT put out the same power as the new ones. Further, high power handling cabs means high power handling speaker.

I'm curious.
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It is divided up, once it enters the cab, but you do have a point, when you compare the difference in gage, between the two.
 
#51
Rick James said:
Why? It offers nothing over 14 ga unless the cable is at least 80 feet long, and in that case use 12 ga, though I can't imagine why you'd want an 80 foot speaker cable. Even huge PAs don't use 8 gauge, because the PA guys know that if the cable is long enough to need 8 ga where resistance is concerned the capacitance and inductance will be too high anyway.
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Often the norm is to put the amp racks behind the speaker stacks, or even fly the amp rack along with the speaker arrays. This was one of the driving forces in developing light weight amps with switching power supplies. In either case, speaker cabling is only as long as it needs to be, line level drive signal is sent down a light weight balanced cable, and the only beefy cable required is from the AC distro to the amp rack, usually 10AWG.

14AWG is about the heaviest wire that a Speakon will accept, without having to trim back some of the strands.
 
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#52
agedhorse said:
Because it won't fit most connectors.
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We were referring to ProCo Fat Max which comes premade with Speakons. I’ve been gigging these for more than a decade. They don’t droop to be caught by the negligent stage walker and make a tidy short connection between cabs. They are like a small water hose. :) I have some more flexible 8 gauge Carver (for all here, the amp company not Carvin) that I’ve had twenty years.
I’m not arguing the necessity for the little sparkly bits to speed down the highway.
I mean why argue size matters? :):):)
 
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#53
byacey said:
Often the norm is to put the amp racks behind the speaker stacks, or even fly the amp rack along with the speaker arrays. This was one of the driving forces in developing light weight amps with switching power supplies. In either case, speaker cabling is only as long as it needs to be, line level drive signal is sent down a light weight balanced cable, and the only beefy cable required is from the AC distro to the amp rack, usually 10AWG.

14AWG is about the heaviest wire that a Speakon will accept, without having to trim back some of the strands.
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Oh man, we used to fly racks of 5 Macrotech 2400s back in the 90s for some events. What a pain. I was so happy when Meyer introduced the self powered series and we got a bunch of MSL4s. That was still a bit of a pain with all of the AC cabling but not too bad because we added multipin connectors to the power distros so we could run heavy multicore cable up to the arrays and break it out right at the boxes. And then we got V-DOSC with lightweight amps and life became a lot easier yet again. :D
 
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#54
byacey said:
Often the norm is to put the amp racks behind the speaker stacks
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It is the norm. Speaker cables longer than 50 feet are nothing but trouble, but line level cables can be run as long as 1000 feet, so the amps are placed close to the cabs, not the mixing console. That's why PA snakes have input wiring to send the mic and direct box signals from the stage to the board, and output wiring to send the board output back to the stage.
 
#55
Rick James said:
It is the norm. Speaker cables longer than 50 feet are nothing but trouble, but line level cables can be run as long as 1000 feet, so the amps are placed close to the cabs, not the mixing console. That's why PA snakes have input wiring to send the mic and direct box signals from the stage to the board, and output wiring to send the board output back to the stage.
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Who puts amps at the console?

Amp racks (if not powered cabinets) are typically placed behind ground stacked or ground supported cabinets, but flown cabinets often would leave the amp racks on the deck and fly Soca to a break-out. These Socas could easily be 75' for arena and shed shows.

Then there is the monitor system, 100' speaker cables are very common on the stages I worked. With a 60' wide stage, and cable routing constraints, 100' is pretty standard, side fills sometimes longer. No problem in practice as long as you understand what you are doing.
 
#56
agedhorse said:
Who puts amps at the console?

Amp racks (if not powered cabinets) are typically placed behind ground stacked or ground supported cabinets, but flown cabinets often would leave the amp racks on the deck and fly Soca to a break-out. These Socas could easily be 75' for arena and shed shows.

Then there is the monitor system, 100' speaker cables are very common on the stages I worked. With a 60' wide stage, and cable routing constraints, 100' is pretty standard, side fills sometimes longer. No problem in practice as long as you understand what you are doing.
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That's the word I couldn't remember. Soca! Socapex with 2k Lapp cable for long runs. It's been a while since I did any system teching.
 
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