blue jeans cable

[Brian Stirling]

14 is plenty for short runs. Are you driving your speakers with 100W constantly? Any loss at normal listening volumes is negligible.

It's not the duration at higher volumes that matter, after all we're not talking IsquareR heating here...

At most typical listening levels 14AWG is more than enough but if you play an action movie at reference levels from time-to-time you can easily have transients over 100W.

This isn't about buying snake oil cables it's about buying cheap but good. As I said before I have mostly Monoproce and BJ cables and my speakers (Paradigm Studio 100's etc) are run using 10AWG.

Sadly, living in an apartment doesn't give me much opportunity to play at reference level as the neighbors complain...


Brian

 

[maziwanka]

just bought 100 ft of 12 gauge speaker wire from them. should be good. will let you know if not

 

[Howard]

At most typical listening levels 14AWG is more than enough but if you play an action movie at reference levels from time-to-time you can easily have transients over 100W.

Brian

Let's assume, of course, that the amp can handle that load, and that the cable is 10 feet long, and that the impedance of the speaker averages 6 ohms.

14 AWG copper resistance is 0.002525 ohms per foot, so the total resistance is 0.0505 ohms. The total impedance is then 6.0505 ohms. Given that 99.9% of all amps today are voltage drive rather than current drive, the volume setting controls the voltage output (which is then equivalent).

With a resistance-free cable, 100 W would mean you're supplying 24.495 V to the speaker. With the real cable installed in line, 24.495 V gets you 99.165 W of delivered power.

The dB difference between the two power levels is then 10 log (99.165/100) = -0.0364 dB, far below the 1 dB that is commonly touted as the smallest obvious difference in SPL (edited).

Cliffs: For a normal run of cable up to 100 W, 14 AWG is perfectly adequate.

Take it from Linkwitz of 4th order LR fame: http://www.linkwitzlab.com/faq.htm#Q37

 

[NutBucket]

Thanks Howard. I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Let's assume, of course, that the amp can handle that load, and that the cable is 10 feet long, and that the impedance of the speaker averages 6 ohms.

14 AWG copper resistance is 0.002525 ohms per foot, so the total resistance is 0.0505 ohms. The total impedance is then 6.0505 ohms. Given that 99.9% of all amps today are voltage drive rather than current drive, the volume setting controls the voltage output (which is then equivalent).

With a resistance-free cable, 100 W would mean you're supplying 24.495 V to the speaker. With the real cable installed in line, 24.495 V gets you 99.165 W of delivered power.

The dB difference between the two power levels is then 10 log (99.165/100) = -0.0364 dB, far below the 1 dB that is commonly touted as the smallest obvious difference in loudness.

Cliffs: For a normal run of cable up to 100 W, 14 AWG is perfectly adequate.

Take it from Linkwitz of 4th order LR fame: http://www.linkwitzlab.com/faq.htm#Q37

True enough but that's not really my point... Buying 10AWG from Monoprice, particularly for relatively short runs, is not much more expensive than 14AWG.


I was driving along one day and came upon a car on the side of the road with smoke pouring out of the windows so I pulled over to help. I quickly discovered that the driver, a teenage boy, had recently installed a car audio system by himself and the smoke was due to the wires he ran, under the carpet, using lamp cord of probably 18AWG. I asked him where he got the power for it and he said he wired it to the battery so I had him lift the hood. Sure enough he'd wired, with lamp cord, directly to the battery without any fuses. I yanked the wires off the battery and in a few seconds the smoke began to die down. By the time the fire department arrived the smoking was mostly over.

I don't go cheap when it comes to wire...


Brian

 

[Exterous]

I just can't stand Monoprice cables. They just feel cheap.

And some of their cables are incredibly stiff. I had to get a short HDMI adapter because the cable was pulling the hell out of the HDMI port.

 

[JackBurton]

And some of their cables are incredibly stiff. I had to get a short HDMI adapter because the cable was pulling the hell out of the HDMI port.

Exactly. I bought some Monoprice HDMI cables and felt they were so stiff they could eventually damage my HDMI port on my TV, which would in the end, cost me MUCH more than what I saved buying some cheap cable. So I dumped them and got some nice BJC. MUCH better quality cable, and wouldn't use anything less in the future.

 

[gorb]

the monoprice redmere cables are the shit

 

[tential]

I've never used them, but they get a lot of positive buzz on AVS from people who want something with a more premium feel than what Monoprice sells. I don't know if the performance is any different.

For speaker wire, I bought a spool of some RCA stuff at Fry's years ago and it's still working for me.

Not sure if serious...

They get positive buzz from the lower quality members who will rate anything that costs a lot of money with a good review. This would be similar to paying 100 dollars for a Sata cable that is "better quality".

Realize that this is generally a blinders effect and that I don't think I've EVER seen a person who did a side by side comparison on avsforum say that bluejeans is better. Experienced members say get monoprice, the new guys who just built their theaters and are trying to spend a lot of money and don't know where to ptu that money to for the best returns generally get bluejeans and stuff like that.

Edit: If you want nice looking cables, go look at the threads on avsforum on how to do it yourself. It's a short project for reusable great cables. When I get my first pair of tower speakers worth more than 1k, I'll be making my own cables just so that they are better protected.

 

[Howard]

Not sure if serious...

They get positive buzz from the lower quality members who will rate anything that costs a lot of money with a good review. This would be similar to paying 100 dollars for a Sata cable that is "better quality".

Realize that this is generally a blinders effect and that I don't think I've EVER seen a person who did a side by side comparison on avsforum say that bluejeans is better. Experienced members say get monoprice, the new guys who just built their theaters and are trying to spend a lot of money and don't know where to ptu that money to for the best returns generally get bluejeans and stuff like that.

Edit: If you want nice looking cables, go look at the threads on avsforum on how to do it yourself. It's a short project for reusable great cables. When I get my first pair of tower speakers worth more than 1k, I'll be making my own cables just so that they are better protected.

When we're talking cables, when you understand what types of cable stock and connectors are being used, you get more peace of mind. Are any of these differences noticeable in the end product? Well, that's not necessarily what they're being marketed for...

 

[blackangst1]

Just please, whatever you do, dont buy anything from this snake oil salesman!

 

[gevorg]

BJC are great, probably the most you should ever pay for your "highend" needs. For everything else, there is monoprice.

The weakest link of any cable, especially those that are mass produced, is the termination between the wire and the connector. Handmade termination ensures that the connection is tight and properly soldered. Ignore audiophile mumbo-jumbo such as 99.99999999991% oxygen-free copper or some funky cable structure. Making a good cable isn't rocket science and should be cheap.

 

[rancherlee]

For speakers it's the cheapest 12g I can find. For HDMI I like Bluejeans, it was the ONLY HDMI cable out of 3 that would work at full 1080/60 on the 35' run from my receiver to my projector. The Monoprice had trouble with the handshake and another one I tried would only go 720. The Bluejeans was noticeably thicker yet more flexible to which helped make a clean install.

 

[hans030390]

Just got my 6' RCA cable in from BJC (their common, best model). It's a beast of a cable and makes Monoprice feel quite cheap in comparison, which is saying something given that Monoprice is excellent for the price and solid as-is.

Is the price difference really going to be worth it for most consumers? Absolutely not. However, I was able to measure a 5-6dB reduction in the amount of noise and distortion at 60Hz on an external loopback test with my Onkyo SE-200PCI sound card compared to a cheap, thin RCA cable. Other measurements improved across the board, but usually by 0.3-0.4dB better than with a cheap cable. So, there's a measurable difference in quality over the cheapest of cheap cables, but I'm not sure how Monoprice would compare. For me, the beefy shielding of the BJC cable is what's making the biggest difference. There's a lot of other cables (power, network, audio) in the same area as the RCA cable I'm using for my sound card.

Basically, I'd get Monoprice for basic needs, as its quality will be more than enough. Go with the nice BJC stuff if you want to be sure you're getting the best you can for a relatively cheap price compared to other crazy expensive cables.

 

[NutBucket]

Can I ask what method you used to make your measurements?

 

[hans030390]

I just used RightMark, line-out to line-in external loopback test on the card with an RCA cable. It's not the most accurate software ever, but it has its uses.

 

[NutBucket]

Oh. Well, whatever floats your boat.