I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is there
any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have this wire
on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.

unless you're a real audiophile, you won't know the difference.

habbi wrote:
I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is there
any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have this wire
on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.

I swear the wires my youngin has run in his car has to be 2-0 just
feeding his ^&*%* darn boom box............me I use zip cord or
whatever else I sufficient quanities of, half deaf anyhow so it makes
no difference to me

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 23:55:04 GMT, yourname wrote:

===unless you're a real audiophile, you won't know the difference.
===
===habbi wrote:
=== I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is there
=== any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have this wire
=== on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.
===
===

WINDSONG......the ability to play musical tunes by farting!

This is worth repeating for benefit of al newbies!
Jo Ann asked Dr. Solo to remind people that while she has retired from selling GF (and sold
the business to Ken Fischer http://dandyorandas.com/) she has NOT retired from
helping people with sick GF and koi FOR FREE. 251-649-4790 phoning is best for
diagnosis. but, can try email put "help sick fish" in subject. Get your fish at Dandy Orandas
Dandy Orandas Dandy Orandas........you guys got that DANDY ORANDAS

Actually, your 14/2 will perform far superior to most of the crap
usually sold as speaker wire to clueless audiophiles. Do it!


Harry C.

yourname wrote:

unless you're a real audiophile, you won't know the difference.

habbi wrote:

I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is
there
any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have
this wire
on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.


You should check the "hi fi" that you will be using as some of the older
ones (that I used)
didn't like to see a long run to the speaker. It was some problem with
inductance or something
I don't remember the details. Otherwise you should have no problem.

Bill K7NOM

wrote: (clip)Do it!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I agree. Monster cables are a marketing rip-off. I heard a talk by an
audio engineer in which this was thoroughly analyzed. The main benefit of
those very large cables is in the profit margin. Then there is the placebo
effect, which can seem very real to a believer.

"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
...

wrote: (clip)Do it!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I agree. Monster cables are a marketing rip-off. I heard a talk by an
audio engineer in which this was thoroughly analyzed. The main benefit of
those very large cables is in the profit margin. Then there is the
placebo
effect, which can seem very real to a believer.


I used to know a self-styled "audio expert" who once showed me an article
in which five amplifiers were evaluated by an engineer. Four of them were
in
the $2000 to $5000 range. The fifth was a popular unit which sold for about
$250. His rather extensive testing rated the $250 unit right in the middle
of
the pack. My erstwhile buddy used this to argue that the testing was
invalid
and that the engineer didn't know anything about what he was doing.

He then went on to claim that engineers and musicians tended to own the
worst
sounding systems....

On the other hand, one of the finest sounding systems I'd ever heard was in
a little recording studio. This was many years ago, long before CD's, etc.
The
record player was a transcription player with a 35 lb turntable (lots of
metal
content...). The speakers were a gargantuan pair of Altec Lansing Voice of
the
Theatres. And the amplifier was a $69.95 DynaKit... And, as I recall, the
speaker wires were lamp cord...

Personally, and I'm an engineer by trade, tend to suggest landscape lighting
wire
in higher powered systems or for long runs, although lamp cord works just
fine
for lower power/short runs. Lamp cord is typically AWG 16 or AWG 18.
Landscape lighting wire looks like lamp cord, but comes in AWG 12 and
AWG 14. And it is highly flexible and abrasion-resistant.

But, if you are going to plant it in the walls where it won't be flexed,
your
plain old power wire (Romex, whatever...) will work just fine. The problem
is what to use where you come out of the wall. I'd run the wire between a
couple boxes and put on a blank outlet plate in which I'd installed a couple
pairs of banana jacks. Then use lamp cord for the short runs between the
amplifier and jacks and the speakers and jacks. Or you can use a couple
1/4 in. phone jacks (you can get right angle phone plugs that won't protrude
more than about 1/4 in. from the wall...)

One thing NOT to do is to use the ground wire as a "common" and the
white and black wires as the "hot" speaker wires. You WILL get some
crosstalk between the two channels. But, if you have some, say, 14/3 with
ground, you can, say, use the black and white for one channel and the
red and ground (bare) for the other. For the same reason, use a plastic
outlet plate, not a metal one, to keep the two channels separate, should
you elect to use phone jacks.

Jerry

I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is there
any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have this wire
on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.



Be aware that any length of wire in excess of about 15 feet can act as
an antenna and bring unwanted signals down the line to the amp where it
can get amplified and sent back up the wire and through the speakers.

I used to run a College sound recording studio and a CCTV studio and had
major problems at one stage from the local radio station signal getting
into the system through the long mic leads (we were in 'line of sight'
with their powerful transmitter tower). The problem was eventually
traced back to a single mic lead with a 'ground fault'.

I am also a radio ham and at one time lived in an apartment building and
never caused any interference problems until the 'super' came home one
day with a new 'surround sound' system and I was blasting right through
it whenever I transmitted! The problem was nothing to do with my set up
(I hadn't changed anything) but rather it was his very long runs of
cheap speaker wire picking up my signal and feeding it back through the
very poor filtering on his 'cheapo' amp. The solution in this case was
to fit ferrite rings/loops at either end of his speaker leads and he
never heard me again.

If you are going to run long speaker leads it may pay you to invest in a
few ferrite rings/loops and save yourself a lot of headaches down the
road. They are readily available from the likes of Radio Shack at
reasonable prices.

--
Larry Green

As I think on it though, problems arise if someone thinks the wire is in
fact part of the house wiring[at some point in the distant future] and
hooks it up as such.....might want ot differentiate

I'm down to the point where I run nothing but 3/4" flex plastic conduit
for all my data/audio lines. That way I can upgrade to whatever is the
current state of the art. Who would have thought that Cat 5e cable would
now be obsolete when I did some remodeling 5 years ago? Especially since
5e was not available when I did it!!!

habbi wrote:
I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is there
any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have this wire
on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:52:40 GMT, "Leo Lichtman"
wrote:


wrote: (clip)Do it!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I agree. Monster cables are a marketing rip-off. I heard a talk by an
audio engineer in which this was thoroughly analyzed. The main benefit of
those very large cables is in the profit margin. Then there is the placebo
effect, which can seem very real to a believer.

They look impressive, personally, I listen to everything with
earphones to overcome tinnitus.
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

"Larry Green" wrote in message
.. .

If you are going to run long speaker leads it may pay you to invest in a
few ferrite rings/loops and save yourself a lot of headaches down the
road. They are readily available from the likes of Radio Shack at
reasonable prices.


Just remember that when you go into Radio Shack, speak very slowly and don't
ask for "ferrite rings, ferrite supressors or even the word ferrite." Just
ask for those donut looking thingies that you've seen on some wires before.

Shawn

"habbi" wrote in message
...
I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is there
any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have this
wire
on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.

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.

Harold

"Larry Green" wrote in message
.. .
snip-----

The solution in this case was
to fit ferrite rings/loops at either end of his speaker leads and he
never heard me again.

If you are going to run long speaker leads it may pay you to invest in a
few ferrite rings/loops and save yourself a lot of headaches down the
road. They are readily available from the likes of Radio Shack at
reasonable prices.

--
Larry Green

That's a great tip, Larry. Would you mind detailing how these ferrite rings
are installed? In my case, consider that I'd have my wire running in EMT
for one set of speakers, and in PVC sch. 40 plastic in the other. Each
set terminates in a steel box, and the runs would be made of stranded 10
gage THHN wire, color coded to insure proper phasing. I'd like to make
sure we don't get any noise that isn't a part of the music!

Thanks---

Harold

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 am an EE (well, technically I am, but I've never practiced it) and
I've never understood this craze with speaker wire size. There are only
a couple of fundamental parameters that apply: resistance, capacitance,
and inductance.

Resistance: if you deliver 100 watts (an enormance amount) to an 8 ohm
speaker, 3.5 amps will flow. Wire resistance has 2 effects: heating and
voltage drop. In 16 ga wire, the current density will be about
1ma/circ-mill. I.e., heating will be minimal. 200 feet of 16 ga wire
(100 feet each way) has a resistance of .8 ohms. Carrying 3.5 amps the
wire will have a voltage drop of 2.8 v. Putting it another way, the
wire will consume 10 watts (10%). I'm not sure how this is relevant
since voltage/power drop is just compensated for by cranking up the
volume. So 16 ga wire should more than meet the resistance requirement.

I wouldn't think that the capacitance and inductance of the wire could
be anything but negligible. And I can't see how the wire size would
have a significant effect on them even if they aren't negligible.

There is another consideration: that of the wire acting as an antenna.
This wouldn't effect the loudspeaker, but could feedback to the
amplifier. Again, I would think that wire size would not be a
consideration for this effect.

I fully intend to run stranded 10 gage THHN wires to my speaker locations ...

Use 14 ga: it will be a lot cheaper, it will be a lot easier, and it
will be way more that necessary.

But don't take my word for it - I'm sure that this has been debated
endlessly on the "hi-fi" NG's - Google is your friend.

Bob

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

I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is there
any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have this
wire on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.

Don't use solid wire for speaker audio. Most of the higher
frequency current in audio travels through 'skin effect' on the outer
layer of the copper, and fine stranded wire is a bit lower resistance
at high audio frequencies. Plus, you are going to be moving and
flexing it a lot at the ends, and solid wire breaks when this happens.

12-2 SPT-2 stranded "Malibu Light" wire. Big zip-cord. Inexpensive
and works well in that application, and comes polarized so you can
keep all your speakers in phase. You want to avoid the nasty
listening effects in the room when one speaker is out of phase with
the others - dead spots like the "Cone Of Silence"... ;-)

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.

If you're going more than 50'-100' or so with the signal (like "out
to the shop") use a 70-volt amplifier system to do it, and drop it
back to 8-ohm at the far end with a speaker transformer. Otherwise
you get a distorted signal trying to push 8-ohm audio too far, from
the capacitive/inductive effects of the cable. That's why they have
to apply loading coils every ~6,000' on long telephone cables.

-- Bruce --
--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.

A couple of people have mentioned the possibility that the speaker leads
could act as an antenna, and pick up unwanted radio signals. If you
consider that the output of an audio amp is very low impedance (8 ohms), it
would take a hugely strong radio field to generate any appreciable voltage
in that circuit. Secondly, it is hard for me to see how a radio frequency,
applied to the output circuit of an audio system could have any effect.

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.

"Larry Green" wrote in message
.. .

If you are going to run long speaker leads it may pay you to invest in a
few ferrite rings/loops and save yourself a lot of headaches down the
road. They are readily available from the likes of Radio Shack at
reasonable prices.



Just remember that when you go into Radio Shack, speak very slowly and don't
ask for "ferrite rings, ferrite supressors or even the word ferrite." Just
ask for those donut looking thingies that you've seen on some wires before.

Shawn


LOL........very true........the Shack 'droids' around here seem
particularly dense too. They would probably send you down the road to
Tim Horton's or Krispy Kreme if you asked for a donut!

--
Larry Green

The "skin effect" does not come into play at audio frequencies. You would
need ears and electronics that work at several Mhz (Million cycles per
second).

Using a 70V output system requires transformers which will add more
distortion and frequency response aberrations then running long wire runs.
If you are worried about damping factor at low frequencies, use an amp with
high damping factor (no tubes) . Preferably a Crown Microtech or a
Labgruppen. :-) And just go up in size for your solid wiring.

Cheers
T.Alan (E.E)

"Bruce L. Bergman" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 01:21:06 -0800, "Harold and Susan Vordos"
wrote:
"habbi" wrote in message
...


Don't use solid wire for speaker audio. Most of the higher
frequency current in audio travels through 'skin effect' on the outer
layer of the copper, and fine stranded wire is a bit lower resistance
at high audio frequencies. Plus, you are going to be moving and
flexing it a lot at the ends, and solid wire breaks when this happens.

12-2 SPT-2 stranded "Malibu Light" wire. Big zip-cord. Inexpensive
and works well in that application, and comes polarized so you can
keep all your speakers in phase. You want to avoid the nasty
listening effects in the room when one speaker is out of phase with
the others - dead spots like the "Cone Of Silence"... ;-)

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.

If you're going more than 50'-100' or so with the signal (like "out
to the shop") use a 70-volt amplifier system to do it, and drop it
back to 8-ohm at the far end with a speaker transformer. Otherwise
you get a distorted signal trying to push 8-ohm audio too far, from
the capacitive/inductive effects of the cable. That's why they have
to apply loading coils every ~6,000' on long telephone cables.

-- Bruce --
--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.

"Larry Green" wrote in message
.. .
snip-----

The solution in this case was

to fit ferrite rings/loops at either end of his speaker leads and he
never heard me again.

If you are going to run long speaker leads it may pay you to invest in a
few ferrite rings/loops and save yourself a lot of headaches down the
road. They are readily available from the likes of Radio Shack at
reasonable prices.

--
Larry Green


That's a great tip, Larry. Would you mind detailing how these ferrite rings
are installed? In my case, consider that I'd have my wire running in EMT
for one set of speakers, and in PVC sch. 40 plastic in the other. Each
set terminates in a steel box, and the runs would be made of stranded 10
gage THHN wire, color coded to insure proper phasing. I'd like to make
sure we don't get any noise that isn't a part of the music!

Thanks---

Harold


Hi Harold,

Ferrite 'noise suppressors' can come in several forms such as beads,
rings, hinged 'rectangles' and cylinders. The fitting of each type is
different in each case.

Ferrite Beads
These are 'normally' very small (less than 1/4" dia.) and are slipped
onto a wire before it is attached to a piece of equipment. Usually used
internally on a device.

Ferrite Rings
These can come in a range of sizes up to several inches in dia. They can
also be 'salvaged' from the back of old speakers or TV tubes (be careful
of high voltages if messing with TV tubes even if they are switched off
and unplugged!) To fit a ring to speaker wire you simply pass the wire
around the ring several times by going through the middle and around the
outside. Six to eight turns are normally sufficient to block any stray
signals. Make sure the 'turns' are equally spaced around the ring.

Ferrite 'Rectangles'
These are the most common type found in Radio Shack and are two 'U'
shaped pieces of ferrite mounted in a hinged plastic holder with a clip
to keep the 'loop' closed. Undo the clip, open the 'loop' and wind
several turns of your speaker wire around one half of the 'loop' then
cross over and wind the wire around the other half. If you wind
clockwise on one side wind counter-clockwise on the other side. Close
the loop and re-clip when you are done.

Ferrite Cylinders
These can come as either solid or split (like the 'rectangles'). You
have more than likely seen this type many times and not realized what it
is. The 'bumps' on a computer monitor cable are ferrite cylinders to
prevent stray signals getting to the monitor. For solid cylinders you
simply pass the wire through the hole in the centre and hold them in
place with either electrical tape or a small cable tie at either end.
Split ones 'normally' come in a hinged plastic fitting. Undo the
fitting, slip the speaker wire into the 'slot' between the two halves
and close the fitting again. If the cylinder slides on the wire use
either electrical tape or a small cable tie at either end to stop it
slipping.

Whatever type you use they have to be fitted at each end of each set of
'long' wires in your system (the shorter wires are not 'normally'
affected) as close to the device in question as possible (i.e. where the
wires connect to the amp and speaker). A short length of wire (say up to
6") sticking out of the 'connection' end is OK if you don't have room to
fit all the ferrite rings/loops/cylinders close to the amp.

HTH

--
Larry Green

Most designs of the ferrites just clamp over the wires.
Do make sure that the wires for one channel aren't connected to the other
channel as some amps use differential drive to get the power up for the
output. Even just if you have a "correct" hot and ground, the current is
high enough that one channel will feed to the other if you tie the grounds
together anywhere in the system.
The wire size is a good one for higher power amps as you will be driving a 8
ohm load generally and any resistance between the speaker and the amp will
drop the quality of the sound by allowing the speaker to resonate more as
the impedance of the wire is increasing the source impedance that it sees.

--
Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

My understanding of the relevant physics issues is the same as
yours. I have not seen an intelligent, educated human being put forth
any plausible theory why large speaker wire is justified. 14 gauge
lamp cord ought to be adequate.

100 honest, real, continuous, watts of sound are outrageously loud and
are apt to damage anyone's hearing.

I agree with this statement entirely! I used to work in a recording
studio and 'looked after' my hearing as it was a vital part of my job.
The number of times 'bands' would ask for the volume to be 'cranked up'
during mixing got beyond a joke. They didn't appreciate that your ears
very rapidly get tired when exposed to loud music and your critical
judgement gets shot to hell! Several hours of listening to the same
track over and over is wearing enough at the best of times without
having the volume 'pinning you to the wall'!

We used to check the 'mix' at various volumes (and through several
different speaker options) throughout the process but the majority of
the 'fine tuning' was carried out at a volume that could be sustained
for several hours. We also insisted on regular 'silence' breaks during
the sessions to give our ears time to 'relax'.


Note how many sound devices advertise "300 watts" of sound, and yet have
fuses that are to blow under much lower power consumption.


While they may advertise "300 watts" of sound the chances are that if
you cranked that amp up to full volume it would be distorted to hell!
However, having a 300 watt amp but only running it at sub-100 watts is
not a bad thing in terms of signal to noise ratios and quality of audio
output. The extra 'overhead' means that you are never getting close to
the distortion threshold when listening to it at 'normal' levels.


--
Larry Green

In article , Leo
Lichtman says...

A couple of people have mentioned the possibility that the speaker leads
could act as an antenna, and pick up unwanted radio signals. If you
consider that the output of an audio amp is very low impedance (8 ohms), it
would take a hugely strong radio field to generate any appreciable voltage
in that circuit. Secondly, it is hard for me to see how a radio frequency,
applied to the output circuit of an audio system could have any effect.

The rf signal does not show up as differential mode on the speaker
wires. It shows up as *common* mode. Both speaker wires of the
pair have the same voltage impressed on them.

Think of the speaker wire as a *single* conductor that sits in
the rf field that a local tranmitter sets up. The wire is a driven
element in the field so it has so-and-so many volts per meter
of rf voltage impressed on it by virtue of being immersed in that
field.

So there will be some large rf voltage between the end of the
speaker wire(s) and ground in the chassis of the amplifier or
whatever teh speakers are connected to.

This is fine at this point because the output transistors don't
care about a few millivolts of rf being there, and because
it's common mode, the speakers never even *see* the rf.

The trouble happens because the internal layout of consumer
grade electronics is pretty poor. Once the rf gets inside
the chasssis, it can easily re-radiate and be picked up by
more sensitive stages. If there is any non-linear device
in the input stages of, say, a low-level preamp, the rf
can be demodulated down to audio frequencies at a point
where it *does* matter.

How do you fix a problem like this?

1) make the driven element (speaker wires) a worse antenna.
This is done by putting chokes at some point along their
length (wrap the speaker wires around a ferrite torroid a
few times to make a common mode inductor) so as to change
the length of the antenna, away from the problem frequency.

2) bypass all the speaker leads, inside the chassis. This is
done with a low inductance capacitor (short leads, typically
0.01 mfd or so) so that the speaker terminals present a very
low impedance to ground for rf. The rf currents in the
driven element never get inside the chassis then.

3) improve the layout and isolation inside the amplifier
or reciever by using better shielding on sensitive front
end stages. This is one area that most manufacturers
avoid because it adds complication and expense.

Note that even incoming power leads can bring common
mode rf into a chassis. They should in principle be
bypassed right at the point of entry as well.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

yourname wrote:
unless you're a real audiophile, you won't know the difference.

Even if you are, you won't know the difference. Time domain
reflectometry comparison between Monster Cable and #14 zip cord showed
no difference in signal quality in a band from 0 to 100MHz.

I am building a new house and I want to hardwire it for speakers. Is
there
any reason not to use plain solid strand 14/2 NMD 90 wire. I have this
wire
on hand and it is half the cost of speaker wire.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:40:07 GMT, Ted Edwards wrote:
yourname wrote:
unless you're a real audiophile, you won't know the difference.

Even if you are, you won't know the difference. Time domain
reflectometry comparison between Monster Cable and #14 zip cord showed
no difference in signal quality in a band from 0 to 100MHz.

I don't know about _your_ ears, but mine don't go quite that high...
The point about solid wire looking like power wiring is valid, though.
As low voltage cable, it'd have to be in different junction boxes and so
on. Something to consider - if you run that blue flexible conduit ('Smurf
tubing' I've heard it called), then you can always pull new cables in as
technology and your needs change. That's the one thing I didn't do when
I built my house, that I regret not doing.

Dave Hinz

yourname wrote:

As I think on it though, problems arise if someone thinks the wire is in
fact part of the house wiring[at some point in the distant future] and
hooks it up as such.....might want ot differentiate

Good point. However, a fine point marking pen will write on the jacket.
I would suggest writing "SPEAKER" every 6' or so along the wire.

Ted

On 24 Feb 2005 19:43:27 GMT, Ignoramus30876 wrote:
On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:40:07 GMT, Ted Edwards wrote:
yourname wrote:
unless you're a real audiophile, you won't know the difference.

A typical answer from a monster cable advocate

Heh...I've saved a ton of money over the decades by not being able to
hear that alleged last 5% of sound quality improvement that makes
something 10 times more expensive.

Even if you are, you won't know the difference. Time domain
reflectometry comparison between Monster Cable and #14 zip cord showed
no difference in signal quality in a band from 0 to 100MHz.

Don't you know that expensive cables improve "believability" of sound?
G

As soon as you can put "believability" into engineering terms I can
measure, I'll be happy to measure it. I used to work with a guy who
was an freak amongst audiophiles - granite turntable, magnapan speakers,
tube amps, cables the size of your arm, and all that. Yeah, sure, it
sounded good, but...the Bose system for a few hundred bucks sounds
pretty damn good too, y'know?

Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:

That's a great tip, Larry. Would you mind detailing how these ferrite rings
are installed?

With the controls of the system set for normal listening, stop the CD,
tape or whatever. Turn up the volume control about 5 or 10 db and
listen carefully. If you don't hear any stray signals, as they say,
"Don't fix it if it ain't broke." If you do hear a bit of a local
brodcast station or ???, try the ferrite beads.

Ted

RoyJ wrote:
current state of the art. Who would have thought that Cat 5e cable would
now be obsolete

Have you got faster hardware that can use better such as fiber optic?

Ted

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:56:57 GMT, Ted Edwards wrote:
RoyJ wrote:
current state of the art. Who would have thought that Cat 5e cable would
now be obsolete

Have you got faster hardware that can use better such as fiber optic?

That's why I suggest the flexible conduit. Yank out the cat5, put in
the gigabit ethernet fiber. Next time it'll be something else.

A couple of people have mentioned the possibility that the speaker leads
could act as an antenna, and pick up unwanted radio signals. If you
consider that the output of an audio amp is very low impedance (8 ohms), it
would take a hugely strong radio field to generate any appreciable voltage
in that circuit.

It's not the voltage but the signal that is the problem. The signal will
'ride' on whatever is available in the cables. The field does not need
to be 'hugely strong' either, even passing cars with radio transmitters
(CB, Ham, taxis, emergency services etc.)can affect audio systems with
long speaker wires.

Secondly, it is hard for me to see how a radio frequency,
applied to the output circuit of an audio system could have any effect.


Believe me it happens and I have had to deal with it several times. The
signal may be applied to the 'output' in terms of the speaker wires but
it is a 'closed loop' system and that signal can and *does* get back
into the amp where it 'can' get into the amplification circuit and be
amplified and sent out to the speakers as part of the 'mix'. A lot has
to do with the design of the amp and how good it's rejection circuits
are on the 'front end'. Most 'cheap' modern amps have very poor
rejection circuits and are prone to picking up stray signals.

A few years ago there was a big scare up here in Canada when Industry
Canada proposed some new rules with regard to domestic amplification
equipment. The European Community had recently introduced much higher
standards for equipment in terms of the ability to reject unwanted
signals while Canada's proposals virtually eliminated the need for
filtering by 'effectively' saying that the equipment in question had to
'accept' any extraneous signals. This raised huge problems for the Ham
Radio community as it meant that Canada could be 'flooded out' with
cheap Asian amps that could no longer be sold in Europe and which would
mean that Hams would suddenly be 'causing' interference problems with
neighbours who bought said amps despite the fact that they had changed
nothing in their transmitting equipment!

I am not sure if the proposals ever went through but I do know of
several cases of Hams suddenly getting into cheap 'home theatre' systems
and having to help cover the cost of fitting ferrite loops to the
systems in an attempt to cure the 'problem'. In most cases the Hams
either paid for the loops themselves or helped to pay for them despite
the fact that it was not really 'their' problem simply because the
alternative was to face being 'taken' off the air for 'supposed or
implied' interference problems!

--
Larry Green

In article r4qTd.475$_G.97@clgrps12, Ted Edwards says...

Even if you are, you won't know the difference. Time domain
reflectometry comparison between Monster Cable and #14 zip cord showed
no difference in signal quality in a band from 0 to 100MHz.

Ah but Ted. You should know more than anyone that TDR
measurements won't show the real effect taht true audiophools
can hear. Their ears are so much more sensitive than those
instruments.

How else could they justify buying those gold-plated power
connectors?

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

Bob Engelhardt wrote:

Resistance: if you deliver 100 watts (an enormance amount) to an 8 ohm
speaker, 3.5 amps will flow. Wire resistance has 2 effects: heating and
voltage drop. In 16 ga wire, the current density will be about
1ma/circ-mill. I.e., heating will be minimal. 200 feet of 16 ga wire
(100 feet each way) has a resistance of .8 ohms. Carrying 3.5 amps the
wire will have a voltage drop of 2.8 v. Putting it another way, the
wire will consume 10 watts (10%). I'm not sure how this is relevant
since voltage/power drop is just compensated for by cranking up the
volume. So 16 ga wire should more than meet the resistance requirement.

I would go for #14 or even #12 on a very long run. 0.8 ohms will have
no serious effect except for two considerations: An 8ohm speaker will
have resonances giving rise to frequencies where the impedance is
considerably less. Speaker damping depends, to some extent, on the
source impedance driving it. It would probably be advantageous to keep
it down to about 0.1 ohm.

For long runs, like from house to shop, it would be much better to run
shielded wire carrying line level (~0.1 to 1 volt) signals to an amp in
the shop. That amp doesn't need to be all that fancy to give pleasant
listening over the sound of a running lathe. :-) 'course, if you build
your own, ...

I wouldn't think that the capacitance and inductance of the wire could
be anything but negligible. And I can't see how the wire size would
have a significant effect on them even if they aren't negligible.

Right. 30KHz has a wavelength of about 100m (~300') and a propogation
delay of the order of 100nsec in 100'. It ain't going to effect any
audio signal even at frequencies only your dog can hear.

But don't take my word for it - I'm sure that this has been debated
endlessly on the "hi-fi" NG's - Google is your friend.

Forget it!! There is more BS in the field of audio than any other -
even car sales! Unless you have the math, physics and electronics to
adequately check out every post you'll do nothing but get confused.
And, typically, the more serious the "audiophile", the more used hay
you'll get.

Ted

Bruce L. Bergman wrote:
Don't use solid wire for speaker audio. Most of the higher
frequency current in audio travels through 'skin effect' on the outer
layer of the copper, and fine stranded wire is a bit lower resistance
at high audio frequencies.

Even at RF, that only works if the individual strands are insulated
(Litz wire). Besides, skin depth in copper at 20KHz is ~0.5 mm so
forget it.

Ted

Larry Green wrote:

Ferrite Rings
These can come in a range of sizes up to several inches in dia. They can
also be 'salvaged' from the back of old speakers or TV tubes


The ferrite used in permanent magnets has a different composition than
the linear ferrites used in attenuator cores and is already in
saturation. In addition to adding a little inductance, the material in
an attenuator core is "lossy" at RF frequencies, turning the RF energy
into heat.

Kevin Gallimore




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Ted Edwards wrote:


Forget it!! There is more BS in the field of audio than any other -

Antennas come pretty close, though.

Kevin Gallimore

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Don Foreman wrote:


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


Right! Solid gold is what you need! Accept no substitutes!

Kevin Gallimore

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On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 14:28:32 -0500, Larry Green wrote:


My understanding of the relevant physics issues is the same as
yours. I have not seen an intelligent, educated human being put
forth any plausible theory why large speaker wire is justified. 14
gauge lamp cord ought to be adequate.

100 honest, real, continuous, watts of sound are outrageously loud and
are apt to damage anyone's hearing.

I agree with this statement entirely! I used to work in a recording
studio and 'looked after' my hearing as it was a vital part of my
job. The number of times 'bands' would ask for the volume to be
'cranked up' during mixing got beyond a joke. They didn't appreciate
that your ears very rapidly get tired when exposed to loud music and
your critical judgement gets shot to hell! Several hours of
listening to the same track over and over is wearing enough at the
best of times without having the volume 'pinning you to the wall'!


I wonder if they cared about their own hearing.

LOL......as most of the 'clients' were rock/metal/thrash heads they
probably didn't even care or their ears were so shot already they
couldn't even hear a track played at a 'comfortable' working level!



Note how many sound devices advertise "300 watts" of sound, and yet have
fuses that are to blow under much lower power consumption.


While they may advertise "300 watts" of sound the chances are that if
you cranked that amp up to full volume it would be distorted to
hell!


Not only it would be distorted to hell, but instead of 300 watts,
you'd probably get 20 watts max.

In fact, I may do an experiment today.

I have a "consumer unit" that is a Philips CD player from Walmart (5
speaker). I forgot what watt rating it has, maybe 150 or 300 watts. I
am sure that this rating is fraudulent, and want to verify it tonight,
in the following way:

I have a Kill-A-Watt power meter. I will plug this philips into the
power meter, note power consumption when it is playing Metallica at
low level (very quietly), then will crank it to the max and measure
the new power use as evidenced by the Kill-a-watt.

Make sure you are wearing ear protection if you crank it up full ;-)


I expect the difference to be much less than the "rated" wattage.


I would expect it to be much less too. Numbers sell product and the
manufacturers know that 99% of their potential customers have no way of
verifying if the claims made in the advertising 'blurb' have any
relevance to 'real life' facts. In many cases the customer is only
interested in it being 'kick ass' loud. I am constantly amazed at the
volume of some of these in-car systems that 'idiots' are buying today. I
saw a TV show the other night where they did an 'overhaul' of a car and
fitted over 3,000 watts of amplification into it! Nobody in their right
mind would ever run that up to full volume and if they did they would
come out of the car with blood running from their ears!


--
Larry Green

Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:

That's a great tip, Larry. Would you mind detailing how these ferrite
rings
are installed?


With the controls of the system set for normal listening, stop the CD,
tape or whatever. Turn up the volume control about 5 or 10 db and
listen carefully. If you don't hear any stray signals, as they say,
"Don't fix it if it ain't broke." If you do hear a bit of a local
brodcast station or ???, try the ferrite beads.



Yup....no point in fixing what ain't there! However, long speaker cable
runs *are* prone to picking up signals and sometimes those signals may
be short lived (a passing car transmitting etc.) As the ferrite
'filters' are fitted close to the respective equipment and not in the
wall I would suggest you run the cables and try it. Then if you are
getting problems you know how to fix it.


--
Larry Green