I noticed some clear electrical wire at a store the looked a lot like speaker wire, right down to the 2 coloured cores and transparent imsulation. It was sold for lamps etc and it was a pretty heavt gauge. Why couldn't thios wire be used as speaker wire. Are they not both copper core? Are there different properties in speaker wire that electrical wire does not have?
electric wire as speaker wire
- Thread starter ultravox
- Start date
Originally posted by: Colt45
copper = copper.
and transistors suck it
Yup...safe to use that. You can probably get longer lengths and more appealing wire from Home Depot/Lowes though
-=bmacd=-
BTW I've always wondered, does higher gauge mean it can transfer more? I have 11.5 gauge speaker wire and it's thicker than 26 gauge hook up wire? WTF?
Higher gauge = more transfer current = less interference = possibly better sound quality (over low guage)
Sometimes the cheap lamp cords don't have the POS / NEG color codes so it's hard to tell if you run the wire behind stuff what goes where, but, you are good w/ the 2 colored cores.
HomeBrewerDude
Lifer
- Jan 18, 2001
- 14,465
- 1
- 0
um... the impedence mismatch can lead to a distortion effect similar to the echo in The Adventures of Superman episode "Echo Canyon".
click above link for demostration of irritating buzzing sound.
click above link for demostration of irritating buzzing sound.
Originally posted by: Colt45
wanna clue us in on how this wire is going to fvck up the impedance?
I fscked up my klipsch 2.1s when i tried my homemade 14 ga speaker wire and got the pos/neg incorrect (fscked up means the speakers won't work anymore)
Colt45
Lifer
- Apr 18, 2001
- 19,720
- 1
- 0
Originally posted by: fatbaby
Originally posted by: Colt45
wanna clue us in on how this wire is going to fvck up the impedance?
I fscked up my klipsch 2.1s when i tried my homemade 14 ga speaker wire and got the pos/neg incorrect (fscked up means the speakers won't work anymore)
if you dont know what the question is, don't answer
but pos/neg really shouldnt affect it, since audio is AC. (well it doesnt make a difference on my tube things, never tried reverse polarity with a SS amp)
Originally posted by: Colt45
Originally posted by: fatbaby
Originally posted by: Colt45
wanna clue us in on how this wire is going to fvck up the impedance?
I fscked up my klipsch 2.1s when i tried my homemade 14 ga speaker wire and got the pos/neg incorrect (fscked up means the speakers won't work anymore)
if you dont know what the question is, don't answer
but pos/neg really shouldnt affect it, since audio is AC. (well it doesnt make a difference on my tube things, never tried reverse polarity with a SS amp)
No, it won't. It's just out-of-phase.
14 gauge speaker wire, and a 3 gauge shotgun. You have to fire that thing from a boat to absorb the kick.
But yes, lower = better, and reversing polarity will mess your sound quality. Some people deliberately reverse both speakers to stay in-phase and invert their subs, but I don't.
- M4H
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,795
- 84
- 91
yup out of phase = sh*t stereo but not broken
i use lampcord(16 gauge electrical wire). reasonably priced(very cheap), decently thick, but not too much so. well now that i think of it, its probably speaker wire.. cheap anyways. used solderless plugs from radioshack for promedia conversion. thers a guide on the net somewhere.
i use lampcord(16 gauge electrical wire). reasonably priced(very cheap), decently thick, but not too much so. well now that i think of it, its probably speaker wire.. cheap anyways. used solderless plugs from radioshack for promedia conversion. thers a guide on the net somewhere.
RaySun2Be
Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 16,565
- 6
- 71
Originally posted by: fatbaby
Originally posted by: Colt45
wanna clue us in on how this wire is going to fvck up the impedance?
I fscked up my klipsch 2.1s when i tried my homemade 14 ga speaker wire and got the pos/neg incorrect (fscked up means the speakers won't work anymore)
Bummer, but you can't blame the wire for that.
I had an electrician get the pos/neg switched on a whip chord for a UPS. It's a dasm good thing that APC UPS had built in protection. :|
Also, a lot of the electrical wire may not be color coded, but will use ridges as an indicator of polarity. We used electrical wire to make our own speaker cables all the time, because I could make it to the custom lengths I needed, and it didn't cost as much as "speaker" wire, which meant I could use a lower gauge (thicker wire).
Aren't your reference to high and low gauge backwards?
It should be
"Lower gauge = more transfer current = less interference = possibly better sound quality (over highguage)"
In general, lower gauge (thicker) wire is better. I've learned this from experience. I forget the reasons, but it improves the high frequency spectrums sound quality (clarity). Bass is also cleaner. Overall, lower gauge wire makes everything sound better!
True.
Part of the reason is that thick cable have less votage drop (voltage drop shows up as dull base).
Yes, you can go overboard but remember your amp can physically accommodate only so much wire. Most receivers choke on anything heavier than 14 guage. I don't see the need for using anything heavier than 16 guage in any consumer application.
Not really, but like he said, there's only so thick a gague that the binding posts are gonna accept, and most wiring inside the typical speaker is 16-20AWG anyway. Yes, copper is copper basically, varying degrees of it.
In the live sound business the wire most often used for speaker cabling is usually 'meant for electrical' 11/2 & 12/2 SJOOW, because it's cheap to buy in bulk (less than $.20/ft) basically the same thing that companies like Pro-Co and Monster cable use for their cables and charge $.50-$1.00/ft. Now some will argue that some brands using the same amount of copper are better than others, on the other hand it is known that different types of insulation can affect inductance. Members from AES (Audio Engineering Society) are starting to round up cable manufacturers claims that may be misleading consumers, or "Wire Fraud" as they're calling it, and taking them to consumer advocacy groups.
Some interesting reads -
Audio Engineering Society - The Truth About Audio and Other Cables
Steve Lampen from Belden Wire talks about that test here
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