"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 01:21:06 -0800, "Harold and Susan Vordos"
wrote:



I'm no EE, but I can't help but feel that the monster cable craze is
*somewhat* over rated. I fully intend to run stranded 10 gage THHN
wires
to my speaker locations in the new house I'm building, and out to the
shop,
underground, in conduit.

Round-trip resistance of a 100 ft run of 12 gage is about 0.375 ohms,
less than 5% of the Z of an 8 ohm speaker. 14 gage would be about 0.6
ohms total.

Skin depth in copper at 20 KHz is about .014 in -- but there isn't
high-frequency power in music. Stranded wire won't help much with
skin effect unless the strands are insulated from each other as in
Litz wire.

Given the skin depth, use of gold-plated anything is absolutely
absurd.

The only exception I might make here is that your connections would
certainly be better, considering gold doesn't corrode the way copper and
other elements do. The only problem I've seen is that the typical gold
connector is so thin that it almost wipes off with your fingers. If you
could buy connectors with a thou of gold flashed on, I can't help but think
you'd benefit by not getting noisy connections.

My choice in using stranded as opposed to solid is for other reasons. I've
pulled enough wire through conduit to know solid is much more difficult. I
also like the fact that it is easier to work with when wiring, and isn't as
prone to breaking from bending. At my age, anything to make it easier works
for me!

Thanks to everyone for the great information.

Harold