Speaker wires from Home-Depot ?

tapeshc

Please Read this article http://home.earthlink.net/~rogerr7/wire.htm

Recently I came across this article and then did some reading on speaker cable manufacturers website. AQ, PS Audio, Cardas.

Then I Ripped apart my AQ Type 4 wire and found 4 solid core wire. More shiny then solid core that you get in home depot. Possibly AQ’s wire is purer.

I have heard a lot about Inductance, capacitance but it seems minimal resistance seems to be the key to performance.

As per this guy, who seems to be knowledgeable enough, doesn’t matter how pure your copper wire it is still not going to make much of perceptible diff. It’s the gauge that matters and if you have enough of it, it should be fine.

AQ’s website says that metal has this directional property too and they take care of that by marking wires as to how they should be used. so that can also induce resistance.

Given all that. I plan to do this experiment.

I will get shielded solid core wires in 20G, 17G, 14G and then try them in diff. combinations, taking lead from AQ’s wire arrangement.

See how It goes.

My only concern is that hope I am not deaf to music, meaning to some people coke and Pepsi are same but not to me. Same is true for sound, so I am afraid I may not be the right person.

At same time I would like to mention that I have full regard for cable manufactrurer’s time & effort that these companies have put in. And I am not bashing any company or have intention to stir up a controversy.

I will appreciate any comments or suggestion if you done some thing like this before.

jdhdiggs

I have done a similar experiment using 3 sets of speakers and the A/B button on the AVR. I have some rat shack 14Ga, monster 16Ga, misc. 18 and smaller wire. I only noticed a difference between the 14 and 16 on my 800's at high volumes. Comparing 20Ga lamp cord to the 14 Ga resulted in a night and day difference. 20Ga seemed to only produce mids, at about 18Ga all the highs were there. At 16ga, bass kept improving. At 14 Ga, almost everything was there. The final configuration that I settled on was 16 ga top, 14 bottom on all the bi-wireable speakers and 14ga everywhere else.

PhantomOG

My only concern is that hope I am not deaf to music, meaning to some people coke and Pepsi are same but not to me. Same is true for sound, so I am afraid I may not be the right person.

That's funny. Growing up I couldn't tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi and now I can't stand Pepsi, which sucks because Coke is generally more expensive than Pepsi.

As of right now I can't tell the difference between cheap wire and expensive wire. Ignorance is bliss.... (at least for my wallet). Maybe I'll go to the Polk Gathering and be awakened. I truly hope not

RuSsMaN

I use 16/2 black lamp cord ($.16/ft) and some 'exotics' also. I won't tell you what I do or don't hear, I'll let you check it out for yourself.

One thing I can and will say about exotic speaker cables, they sure look cool.

Cheers,
Russ

Wolf-R1

Hey there...I'm new to all this but felt that I had to reply to this one.

Tho my experience is not based on speaker wire...it is based on the difference between "Monster Cable" and a generic cable from Home Depot. The cable in question is is the fiber optic cable for digital audio.

Originally I bought the monster cable simply because it was convenient to do so at the time. Little did I know that some months later I would see the EXACT same cable for sale at Home Depot for a quarter of the cost.

From there on out I decided to get all of my speaker cable from generic sources such as Lowe's or HomeDepot. Saved me a bundle the last time I moved and wanted to clean up and rewire all my HT speakers.

tapeshc

I am feeling more & more that I am on the right path.

Believe me I was about to spend 100's or may be 1000's on these cable. I had decided to go with Cardas but because of the price I couldnt dare to take the plunge.

I would still say that they may have less resistance and better insulation but qs. is whether it realy translates in to quality that you can hear.

Tour2ma

tapeshc,
sounds like a plan. be wary of your own expectations influencing your findings. also mix in stranded bundles. otherwise, have fun...

question is, how low of a resistance is low enough? i run 12 ga HD everywhere with my front trio bi-wired...

btw, as a designer for mcintosh for many years, roger does know his stuff.

djreef

After doing a little research I ended up with OFC 8GA from partsexpress (the same used in car installs for power hookups from the battery) for my speaker runs. I figured I'd never have problems with resistance with these. Overkill, I know, but it was only about a buck per foot, so quite a bit cheaper than any of the high end cables. The only argument I have concerning the article is the OFC vs less pure coppers. Oxidation is a real problem with cableing, esp in high humidity. The more iron a cable has - the more/faster it oxidizes. I guess the author never listened to music through oxidized cables before. Distortionrama!!!!!


DJ
= 8-->{I>

Tour2ma

Originally posted by djreef
The more iron a cable has - the more/faster it oxidizes.

where'd this come from? alloys often demonstrate vastly slower oxidation rates than "pure" metals...

For example:
Small amounts of aluminum (1 to 3 wt% Al) were alloyed with copper to study oxidation resistance at high temperatures. Pure copper and the alloyed samples were oxidized from 700 to 1000 °C in air for various lengths of time. The oxidation rates of the samples increased with temperature. The oxidation rates of pure copper and the 1 wt% Al sample were found to follow parabolic rate law kinetics in the temperature range studied indicating diffusion controlled growth. The oxidation resistance of the 2 wt% Al alloy disappeared between 800 and 900 °C. It was found that the 3% Al-Cu samples oxidized at a rate 100 times lower than that of pure copper. The activation energy of copper oxidation at 122 kJ/mol was found to be very close to reported values.

And as for iron presense in copper. The number one contaminant in any mined metal (except gold) is oxygen. Metals in nature exist as their oxide(s). Refining drives off the oxygen and how much returns is a function of the quench conditions following extrusion...

What was the question???

djreef

I'm sorry, I didn't actually have the worthless runs of cable analysed for composition by an independent lab before I discarded them. This was merely through personal observation. Silly me, I know how little this accounts for anything anymore, esp on the internet. I should have known better. To me, if metal turns orange or green it's oxidation. They used to call this rust, I think. I could be wrong about that too, though.

DJ

Tour2ma

lol... sorry if I offended. Thought maybe you had a source.

yup, oxidized copper turns green...

djreef

No offense - research is good. Sources are good, too, but I think observation can come first, sometimes.

DJ

John K.

All commercial copper wire is better than 99.9% pure and whether it's 99.99% or 99.9999% is of little significance, certainly of no significance to audio. This explanation of copper metallurgy may be of some interest. Note in particular that minute quantities of oxygen are intentionally added during the process to combine with the minute quantities of impurities present and to increase the electrical conductivity. If an exposed wire surface(the part covered by the jacket is clean and bright even after years if it's cut open)becomes oxidized(cuprous oxide is dark red and cupric oxide is nearly black)or has some other chemical reaction it should be cleaned or trimmed off. It has nothing to do with the minute quantities of oxygen or other elements in the copper. If despite this, a yet greater freedom from the effects of oxygen is desired, the example of these audiophiles in Project 8, excited by the prospect of finally experiencing truly pure sound, should be considered.

Doug Montgomery

Mr Murphy posted some good stuff about wire also:


http://www.trueaudio.com/post_009.htm

http://www.trueaudio.com/post_007.htm

TrappedUnder Ice

I find the findings about home depot wire interesting...cause I have been using it for over a year...and I have not experienced the degration/coloring mentioned in the article!