What type/ AWG size do u use on your RT600i's???

mantis

Just a couple of clowns.....with nothing better to do.

RuSsMaN

C'mon man, no meltdown like last night?

PS: 'Yeah, but you won't listen'

Cheers,
Rooster

gidrah

I'm still going to do DIY cables but in my drunken state last night I bid on and won some nice looking 13awg silver coated jobbies. I was going to build some speaker cables, then interconnects. I guess I'll do the interconnects first.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1383499056&rd=1

I've got my eyes on 16lbs of 20awg pure silver wire.

TroyD

I'm going to be building some DIY cables and ICs. I understand you have experience in these areas. Could you give me some info into the make-up of some of your favorites and why? Were they copper, silver-coated copper, pure silver. In multi strand cables, was each strand insulated or where they all just wound together into a cable. What dielectric do you prefer? Teflon, air, etc.

What's your take Dan?

What are the differences between the high end wires? What makes Transparent better than any other wire? Another question that I have, given that thicker is better, what is the optimum length for each guage? At what point (or length) is there a noticeable difference in guage?

BDT

ralph76

Originally posted by TroyD


What's your take Dan?

What are the differences between the high end wires? What makes Transparent better than any other wire? Another question that I have, given that thicker is better, what is the optimum length for each guage? At what point (or length) is there a noticeable difference in guage?

BDT

Troy, U must have been reading my mind. I had the same exact questions in mind.....

TroyD

See Ralph, I'm looking out for ya.....

In all honesty, I'm not trying to put Dan on the spot but I think they are valid questions. The 'well, it just sounds better' argument only goes so far. At least with speakers and amps and so forth you can usually say that because of _______ it affects the sound in such and such a fashion. With wire it's not so clear cut, IMO. Look, take a piece of 16 (or whatever) awg from Home Depot, Monster, AR, Rat Shack, RCA yada yada....other than the label they all look pretty darn similar. Heck, even my Straight Wire biwire cable looks pretty similar if you get right down to it.

BDT

mantis

OK,
If you really want ot know I can get into theory and debate about what makes one wire different from the next and so on and so forth.

Wire length varies from company to company.
If your concerned about the length of wire your using,check with the given manufacturer.

The longer the length the thicker you would want to wire to be.This is speaker wire I'm referring to.

Coax would need to be amped after a given length....Analog or digital runs vary.Coax Digital for sat works well up to 100 feet,after that you need to think about powered multiswitch to keep signal integrity.

Cat 5 can run 500 feet due to the twisted pair technology.

The questions asked that you would like me to address is about speaker wire correct???Ok,
I will start out general then if there is more you need I will do my best to answer your questions.

16 guage generally can run about 50 feet with good shielding.Loss of signal integrity.Some claim 25 feet and some 100 feet.It depends on the cable company.I'd call customer service to get exact lengths wire there cable.

14 guage can go alot further.100+feet usually is fine.After longer runs you want to consider 12 guage.

These wire lengths are generally for non full range speakers like Inwalls, rears , and bookshelf.

Full range speakers in My opnion should use a bit heavier guage.
14 instead of 16 and so on.

But thats not exactly what your after in this are you????your looking for why does wire sound better then others.

Well thats a really good question to ask before you lay down serious cash for better wire.I have used Monstercable and Straight wires for a long time.Monstercable was the main focus.I grew up with there products in my family and I felt they made nice cables at a good price.

Transparent came into my life When I started at Soundex.Everybody who worked there insisted I tried there wires and compare them to the best of what I owned.So I took the challenge and brought all kinds of wire home to see if I could hear a difference from my high end Monster that I felt was good quality.Transparent opened up sounds that I simply couldn't hear using the Monstercables.Now I own M950i's and M1.4s Biwres which are almost top of the line.And the difference was large.

Detail is what I believe the easyest thing to hear.Just play a somg you know well,change out to another cable and see if it sounds exaclty the same or different.Better or worse.

Now the Question was what makes Transparent better then other cables.They have alot of reasons.There network bricks is what they talk about the most.Keeping out Emi and RF is what makes for a good cable to start.They way the wire is twisted inside and the kind of dielectic is another thing they feel makes an audio difference.

So noise is what makes a cable sound better or worse.Keeping it out,sending the signal unchanged is what your looking for.Some cables can act as a good antenna......this is very bad.Noise can destroy all the detail, nuances of texture, tone,color, body,demension, and even contrst that are encoded in your music.If you are critical about your rig......these things should concern you.They do me.I want to hear it.I paid all this money for my rig and on and on and I want it to sound really good.

Well Transparents networks are a passive electrical networks that reject out noise.There custom build for each and every wire length and size.

There is such a world of understanding of why what wire does in your system........I think you need to hear the difference to believe anything these companies talk about.As far as they are concerned there products are the best on the market.Ask Monster, Straight,Tributaries,Cardost,Kimber,Transparent,Mit,Nortist,they wil all tell you that they do it better then the next guy,and even why.
I had a lengthy discusion with one of the reps from Tributaries about S Video wire.He told me there S video couldn't be beat my anyones cable.And he took one apart and showed me the 7 layers of maddness they use to keep noise out and siganl integerity in.These guys go out of there way to create what they feel the ultimite conductor.

Solid, stranded, copper, silver,Teflon, are some of the materials used in todays wires.Most of them use the same stuff inside but lay it out in a different fashion.Monster uses a bass flux tube inside of there wires and counterclockwise twist there conductors.Does that work????I don't know, but I know they believe it does.They also use a type of network winding in there wires.So I will give you some things they have showed me.
The speaker wires use all kinds of technology.If you ever take apart a Monstercable speaker wire you will find some things not in other wires.They use multitwist ultra tight windings of conductors resulting in enhanced sonic performance and noise rejection.They go on and on about there own network windings and such.It's all inthere as I have cut open alot of Monstercables myself to see.

A compent was made about opening up 16 guage wire from whoever you wanted....they are all different.Monster has a plastic tube down the center ....for a reason and different size conductore wrapped around counter clockwise.Radio shack and Home depot don't put all that inside there wire.

The real question is what why is it better.........that comes after you hear it to be better.I feel if it sounds better, then investagate why......Like transparent...I felt Monstercable was the **** untill I heard Transparent make them sound awefull.But Monstercable puts all that time and research into there cables,as most do, and transparent just flat out sounded better all the way around.Smooth bass and a list of things I could talk about.

I know this post is long..There is so much to talk about.

I feel ...well you all know how I feel about wire.I still respect all your opnions.....this means you 2 Troy.....if you can't hear a difference then how can you justify spending the money???If I didn't hear a difference from my M950i's at 130.00 a meter to Transparent 200.00 a meter,I wouldn't have dropped the cash.Yeah they look real cool with the bricks inline but so what , you can't see them,there behind the rack.

Well feedback is needed to continue....my fingers are going to start hurting....:)

TroyD

Sure, I'd honestly like to hear your theories.......

BDT

mantis

read above I edited that post

mantis

ask some questions so I can cut to the chase and not babble so much

HBombToo

Has any1 heard of Maxwell? and not Smart if thats what your thinking.

My thought in line with Mantis on the whole matter may be the following, and go easy on me cause I've taken Russmans advice and drank a few cold 1's in memory of our friend.

Maxwell wrote that if theres a change in current a B field will be the result. Our Speaker cable IMO is nothing more than a resistor and an Inductor in series with very small capacitance. Inductors hate changing currents irregardless of the potential applied. This may be what Mantis has been trying to describe the whole time. Different class lines have differing inductive reactances which impacts the upper end of the audio band. Perhaps a line with less inductive reactance sounds more,"Open or Airy", not my term but I'm only trying to explain that more power is delivered to the mid and tweet sections of the speaker due to less reactance.

Just a shot in the dark but the question remains for me is how much could we possibly lose? TUFF Question i think iMHO.

HBomb

goingganzo

i went 12 guage all the way around and i got a good 12 guage around 90cents a foot it has a dubble insolator and i put it in my walls too i must have 200+ feet of wire i setup for bi amp/wire my front 3 and 1 run to all my 4 suround

HBombToo

ganzo, you and I are at the same paypoint on footage and I'm also pleased. Just trying to play the devils advocate.

HBomb

gidrah

Mantis - I behind you all the way (way behind) on cables/wires. Some people can hear the difference and some cannot. I'm trying to find out whether or not I can. Few people can audition cables/wires in their home. Basically if it's packaged or even expensive, to take it home, you've gotta buy it. I don't have the resources you do and therefore must look past brands/models and get down to the root of theory.
You've dealt with Cat5. I'm thinking about doing a braided cat5 speaker wire. It has many of the things I'm looking for (separate conductors w/teflon). My question would be Cat5e. I know this is better cable for networking, but why? Would I get a sonic improvement using this over the standard Cat5. I know that you've demo'd some pre-made stuff, but if you can't help me or don't know their basis and fundamentals, that's fine.

HBombToo - You've used some terms that I would like to know more about. I guess you're "the cable guy". How did you measure? E-mail me if need be.

mantis

I'm no way the expert on cable theory or why they use the materials they do.I'd like to continue my quest for better understanding about wire and why it sounds better then the next or at least different.

I've read alot of articles about how wire is wire.If you got good copper and a jacket of a certain guage,your in good shape.But,I have listened to so many different brands and I can hear some differences from wire to wire.You can simply increase your bass responce in your subwoofer by using a Monster THX subcable.Then with the same length,same setup swap it out for a Transparent sub cable and your bass smooths out,seems more in control and more musical.Why is that if wire is wire????
I listen to all the reps talk about there companies wire and why it's better then the next guy.They all make some type of sence in there own right.Monster is the king of technology in wire yeat there wire isn't the best on the market as far as I'm concerned.
I did so many side by side comparasions from Monster to Transparent and everytime I allways picked the Transparent as the better sounding cable.

Liv4fam and I have both done blind demo's with wire,remember were not rich,money is allways a factor when it comes to wire.It isn't easy to drop thousands of dollars to wire your system if you can buy other brands for hundreds less,**** I would love to go to Home Depot and wire my entire new theater,It would save me thousands of dollars.Inwall Transparent I'm gonna use for my rears cost 8 bucks a foot+you got to buy the network brick to finish it off and they cost 200 bucks for one.....Damn thats alot of money when your going to use 4 rears.**** people if I didn't hear a difference from Transparent to Monstercable,Hell I would wire it all with monster at 1.00 a foot and no network, but I can't.
The cat 5 idea I actually tried and found for whatever the reason the highs where mushy, bass was sloppy and mids where all muddied up.Bad sounding cable for speaker wire.You can also use it for interconnects for long runs...again not verygood sounding.I also tried coax for interconnects.....horrible sounding.

Good questions If anyone else has more to add please jump in here and help out.

HBombToo

gidrah, I'm far from an expert on any topic ever discussed on this Forum but I do have some Opinions. But Thanks anyway.

My discussion was just an attemp to bring in some actual theory of why a cable may sound better. The theory is basic field theory that I learned as an undergrad EE which was a long time ago for my small brain. Besides when I wrote this I was half kicked in the Arss so please forgive the rant.

My problem with subjective evaluations are in regard to my lack of experience and my ear has never been trained; therefore, on my quest in pursuing this hobbie I tend to base judgement on numbers rather than subjectivity.

I have a hard time justifying expensive cable on subjectivity but I'm trying to understand this thing from both angles.

HBomb