Internal speaker wire

[sloper]

Goodaye all

 

Whats the thoughts on the internal wiring of speakers?

Lots of discussion on cable to the speakers.

 

regards Bruce

[muon*]

This is what I often use, single run for tweeter side of things and a twisted pair for mid/woofers.

 

https://www.partsconnexion.com/DUELUND-81388.html

[davewantsmoore]

5 hours ago, sloper said:

Whats the thoughts on the internal wiring of speakers?

Make a good quality connection between the wire and the speaker terminals and the wire and the amp connectors / binding posts.

[sloper]

l did say internal, after hearing what is spent on cable to the speaker no one has thought too much about the last 18 inches.

 

regards Bruce

[Steever]

I've not met a speaker below about $5krr that would not or has not benefited from an upgrade of their internal cables. 

Some manufactures put in some fairly good cables but it's one of many areas hidden out of sight that compromises are made on.

 

My last speakers (NHT Classic 4) benefited with a full rewire of Kimber 4TC.

As part of an impending cross over rebuild on my current speakers, (Mission Elegante), the factory wiring will be substituted for Flatline Gold from Nordost.

 

This is drawing from my own experience and YMMV.

[gwurb]

My recommendation would be to use multi strand heavy gauge good quality wire. I would stay away from single strand for audio carrying wire. I mean good quality, not high price.

[Steffen]

I like the Jantzen Teflon/silver plated copper wire, e.g. https://speakerbug.com.au/index.php?route=product/category&path=60

 

[Southerly]

I'm in the process of externalising the x/overs of my Heybrook Sextet Mk 4s. The existing internal wiring is OK but knowing what a stunning improvement is obtained with inter/connects using conductors inside over sized dialectric is,  I  must replicate this with both the external and internal speaker cables.

On 02/07/2020 at 12:15 AM, gwurb said:

My recommendation would be to use multi strand heavy gauge good quality wire. I would stay away from single strand for audio carrying wire. I mean good quality, not high price.

I could'nt disagree more, multi-strand flies in the face of sound science. I'm about to use copper 2 mm solid core for bass and 1 mm for mid and treble inside over sized FEP tubing.  Over this I'm going to use hospital oxygen tubing which is soft, this should deal with vibration issues. There are advocates for using single large gauge conductors ie. 1 x 2 mm and for using 4 x 0.5 mm. I shall try both. Only by trying both will I know which yields the best results.

 

Indeed speaker manufacturers seem to completely disregard the effect of vibration on internal wiring - why? As it is all the internal wiring exits via the passive x/over which is placed directly in the bass downward firing port, seems unbelievable but I reckon this is true of most commercial speakers. Where is the most 'air turbulence'/sound pressure, it has to be in the bass chamber. So all the internal wiring is going to exit via the mid/treble chamber and the x/over will be suspended via a wooden bracket on flexible cable (for bike handlebar bags).

 

This also means that the external speaker cables will be suspended off the floor to the amps, one for bass and the other for mid/treble ergo this means no vibration affecting these external cables.

 

Sadly most commercial wiring is made using polyethelene as dialectric because it is cheap but tests have shown that this material has a truly bad effect on copper causing oxidisation. 

 

 

 

[gwurb]

17 minutes ago, Southerly said:

 

I'm in the process of externalising the x/overs of my Heybrook Sextet Mk 4s. The existing internal wiring is OK but knowing what a stunning improvement is obtained with inter/connects using conductors inside over sized dialectric is,  I  must replicate this with both the external and internal speaker cables.

On 02/07/2020 at 8:15 AM, gwurb said:

My recommendation would be to use multi strand heavy gauge good quality wire. I would stay away from single strand for audio carrying wire. I mean good quality, not high price.

I could'nt disagree more, multi-strand flies in the face of sound science

 

The science part of multi strand has been posted by me on the forums before. Can you give objective evidence that multi-strand flies in the face of sound science. Anything from experimental data, physics or engineering publications?

[pwstereo]

@Southerly

"I could'nt disagree more, multi-strand flies in the face of sound science."

 

What science is that? Almost all cables made and sold for audio use are of stranded construction.

Solid core cable is intended almost exclusively for fixed wiring installation.

 

"Over this I'm going to use hospital oxygen tubing which is soft, this should deal with vibration issues. "

 

This does not make a lot of sense, what specifically is it about "hospital oxygen tubing" that would make it a good choice? Why wouldn't you use "automotive vacuum hose", or "aquarium air tubing", or "rubber fuel hose", or "silicon fuel tubing for model aircraft"?

 

What "vibration issues" are you aiming to address?

 

"This also means that the external speaker cables will be suspended off the floor to the amps, one for bass and the other for mid/treble ergo this means no vibration affecting these external cables."

 

This has to be backwards surely?

If the speaker cables were laying on the floor, they'd be less susceptible to vibration, and if vibration was affecting them, the contact with the floor would seem to have a damping effect. By suspending the cables in free air I would imagine that exposes them to more airborne vibration and gives no damping effect.

[Southerly]

22 hours ago, gwurb said:

The science part of multi strand has been posted by me on the forums before. Can you give objective evidence that multi-strand flies in the face of sound science. Anything from experimental data, physics or engineering publications?

Oliver Heaviside, well before the end of the 19th century did the definitive research on electrical conduction. No one in the scientific world has ever challenged his findings, ever- electricity travels not only within a conductor but around it as well. If you have multiple conductors woven together then the electricity/signal is constantly deflecting from one conductor to the others. anything that interferes with the speed and path of the signal is going to corrupt/distort the signal. This is called the skin effect.

 

To overcome this stranded conductors are often enamelled. This does indeed stop the inter reaction but interferes with the propogation of said signal - don't forget ,to quote Heaviside - that the electricity/signal travels not only within but 'around' the conductor as well.  This  affects the mid and especially treble.

 

When a copper or silver conductor is wrapped in a dialectric, any dialectric the same thing is happening, effectively constricting the signal. Most commercial cables use polyethelene because it is cheap but research has shown that this material chemically reacts with copper to hasten the formation of oxides - this is not an opinion but a stone cold fact. That is why many become unhappy with what they are hearing after a couple of years and so begins the search 'for something better.

 

pwstereo - your first paragraph amply illustrated - the inertia effect - we've always done it this way - weight of numbers only illustrates that a lot of audio is the lemming effect. Even so lots of inter/connect and speaker cable companies have abandoned stranded for solid core for the reasons I have stated above. Sadly your coming from the past.

 

Why hospital tubing - because I saw the possibilities when I was in hospital, as simple as that. No way would I use this as a dialectric as it is far inferior to TEFLON or FEP but it is soft as in absorbent got that?

 

You seem to have no understanding of vibration issues at all. Many are attracted to OBs - aka open baffles for the very good reason that the vibration issues within a sealed or ported enclosure are non existent and the baffle, it's construction/materials and dimensions become very important this makes life a bit easier for the O/B constructor.

 

As to your assertion that cables laying on the floor would be less susceptible to vibration than speaker cables suspended in air is - laughable.  Remember we are not talking stadium concerts but music played in peoples' homes. I remember the Reggae concerts of 78 - 9 incredible gigs every Friday night  in the autumn and winter of that year - Third world (before they went commercial) , Burning Spear, Dennis Bovell, Steel Pulse etc. etc. and then in 79 at a different venue Black Uhuru ( I think, it was a long time ago) and the reggae bass was physically abusive, it was like being punched in the stomach - I left.

 

Now I don't think that anyone listens to bass of that intensity and remember your talking about a domestic sound system not a P.A. If you use vinyl then you would know that eliminating floor borne vibration is an absolute must.

 

As to floor contact would be a 'damping factor' - no comment.

 

.

 

[gwurb]

6 hours ago, Southerly said:

Oliver Heaviside, well before the end of the 19th century did the definitive research on electrical conduction. No one in the scientific world has ever challenged his findings, ever- electricity travels not only within a conductor but around it as well. If you have multiple conductors woven together then the electricity/signal is constantly deflecting from one conductor to the others. anything that interferes with the speed and path of the signal is going to corrupt/distort the signal. This is called the skin effect.

 

To overcome this stranded conductors are often enamelled. This does indeed stop the inter reaction but interferes with the propogation of said signal - don't forget ,to quote Heaviside - that the electricity/signal travels not only within but 'around' the conductor as well.  This  affects the mid and especially treble

My original question was whether you can give objective evidence. Yes, skin effect occurs. Where is objective evidence comparing skin effect signal effects between single core and multi strand wire? As the saying goes, show me the data. As mentioned, I have already posted the data on the benefit of multi strand wire and it comes down to the benefit of thinner strands. The issue with thinner is the inability to carry sufficient power thus multi strand is used. Forums search feature is helpful if you want to find that discussion on speaker wire construction.

 

6 hours ago, Southerly said:

You seem to have no understanding of vibration issues at all.

I have understanding of vibration. I got a good grade in the university engineering unit on vibration in the last decade. In terms of placing wire inside an enclosure with a driver I would take firmly held in place wire and place it with a surface underneath it, making sure the surface is large. This means the preference is to place it so it's in a horizontal plane. For large surface bottom of enclosure would be first preference followed by bracing somewhere in the enclosure as second preference. That is more preferable to wire suspended in free air at the top of enclosure. 

 

 

[Steffen]

11 hours ago, Southerly said:

Oliver Heaviside, well before the end of the 19th century did the definitive research on electrical conduction. No one in the scientific world has ever challenged his findings, ever- electricity travels not only within a conductor but around it as well. If you have multiple conductors woven together then the electricity/signal is constantly deflecting from one conductor to the others. anything that interferes with the speed and path of the signal is going to corrupt/distort the signal. This is called the skin effect.

 

Pardon the bluntness, but this is bollocks. The skin effect is not caused by using multi-strand cables. On the contrary, using multi-strand is one possible way of mitigating the skin effect. Perhaps you should read up on the early 21st century state of knowledge about electricity and conduction.

 

Sorry, I couldn’t get myself to read the rest of your post.

[bob_m_54]

Not only that, but at 20,000Hz skin effect in copper is 0.46mm, so you don't even have skin effect at audio freqs until you get to a wire of  >1mm diameter.

[Steffen]

Oh, the skin effect plays a role at low frequencies, too. At 50Hz it’s causing great commercial losses (long distance power lines) – it all depends on the current. In some places they use “stranded” power lines for that reason, like these:

 

 

 

[Ittaku]

3 hours ago, Steffen said:

The skin effect is not caused by using multi-strand cables. On the contrary, using multi-strand is one possible way of mitigating the skin effect. Perhaps you should read up on the early 21st century state of knowledge about electricity and conduction.

It is definitely not worse, but multi-strand only has a minor effect against skin effect by increasing the overall area because of the irregular surface area provided by having multiple strands. The rest of the area where the strands are in contact with each other they act as one continuous conductor and still are prone to the skin effect unless they're separately insulated strands (AKA litz wire). Even if they're separately insulated in litz wire, they're still prone to the proximity effect unless the discrete insulation of each strand is thick (in litz it is usually very thin insulation but better than none) or each strand is separated from each other strand by physical distance, such as those that are radially spread out around an insulated core (often air.)

Edited July 5, 2020 by Ittaku

[bob_m_54]

1 hour ago, Steffen said:

Oh, the skin effect plays a role at low frequencies, too. At 50Hz it’s causing great commercial losses (long distance power lines) – it all depends on the current. In some places they use “stranded” power lines for that reason, like these:

 

 

 

A good reason to keep your speaker cables under a couple of kilometers and under a couple of hundred amps then.

[Steffen]

19 minutes ago, bob_m_54 said:

A good reason to keep your speaker cables under a couple of kilometers and under a couple of hundred amps then.

Exactly. Absolutely none of this matters for internal speaker wiring, or even standard length speaker cables.

[Southerly]

On 04/07/2020 at 11:44 PM, gwurb said:

My original question was whether you can give objective evidence. Yes, skin effect occurs. Where is objective evidence comparing skin effect signal effects between single core and multi strand wire? As the saying goes, show me the data. As mentioned, I have already posted the data on the benefit of multi strand wire and it comes down to the benefit of thinner strands. The issue with thinner is the inability to carry sufficient power thus multi strand is used. Forums search feature is helpful if you want to find that discussion on speaker wire construction.

 

I have understanding of vibration. I got a good grade in the university engineering unit on vibration in the last decade. In terms of placing wire inside an enclosure with a driver I would take firmly held in place wire and place it with a surface underneath it, making sure the surface is large. This means the preference is to place it so it's in a horizontal plane. For large surface bottom of enclosure would be first preference followed by bracing somewhere in the enclosure as second preference. That is more preferable to wire suspended in free air at the top of enclosure. 

 

 

I don't understand your last paragraph at all - (1) firmly held in place wire - just what do you mean - held how and with what and your preference is for multistrand wire which is tightly wrapped in a dialectric, so vibrations on the chamber surface will feed directly into the wiring - really. 

 

The Sextets have a separate enclosure for the  mid and tweeters exiting into the bass chamber through a very crudely drilled hole, otherwise these speakers are very well made. The bass chamber extends via a downward firing port to the bottom of the enclosure - no horizontal surface here. 

 

And as for placing  passive x/overs directly in the path of the bass output and the Sextets are not alone in this - this is not good engineering but is par for the course - the inertia effect - we've always done it this way. 

 

(2) suspended in free air - that's exactly what the existing wiring does now - conductors tightly wrapped in sub-standard polyethelene dialectric used because it's cheap and 'we've always done it this way.  The existing tweeter and mid wiring is the ribbon type - great for sound pressure and vibration to work their 'magic' on. The bass wiring is bare multi-strand copper, tightly wrapped dialectric (of course) hanging down to the x/over. 

 

Being aware of the effects of vibration on wiring and x/over were the very reasons I decided to externalise the x/over and change the wiring.

 

It would be great if a tech college could be persuaded to create a programme to test the effects of vibration on speaker wiring with powerful speakers it could well mean the wiring literally vibrating visibly. So how to stop the vibration from contact with the actual wiring - creating an air gap/decoupling. I do that by using over sized dialectric so that very little of the conductor/s actually touches the dialectric but small sections of the conductor/s will still touch. So something must be used to further decouple the dialectric and that can only mean a  buffer is needed. Whilst in hospital and needing an oxygen feed I immediately saw the possibility of the soft plastic tubing used, crap as a dialectric but great as a buffer. With the FEP tubing I use there is still a small air space with this tubing. So, when vibration makes contact with this soft plastic material most of the vibration will be dissipated, any remaining vibration will be dissipated in the air gap with the FEP tubing. 

 

With the Sextets all three transducers are close together  at the top of the cabinet so I have to decide (a) to exit the mid and tweeter wiring separately and seal that chamber completely from the bass chamber ( a good idea) and create another exit for the bass wiring. Or (b) channel all internal wiring via one exit point.

 

The x/over will be suspended at the back of the cabinet inside damped wooden open ended sleeves for good heat dissipation. The external speaker wiring will be damped similar to the internal wiring. As I don't play music at ear splitting levels and use kelims and antique Dutch table carpets on rear and other walls I cannot see airborne vibration as in any way meaningful or damaging in any way.

 

Ittaku check out on ebay - Hi-end 7N ( I doubt it's 7N) copper + pure silver DIY speaker cable - you can choose 4 - 12 core around a FEP core from USD 15.88 + free post, worth a punt.

 

 

 

 

[DanFi]

Without getting into the debate because I have no idea. When I made my speakers I used single strand wire internally.

 

For funsies I wouldn't mind trying to make my own speaker cable so would single strand also work between the amp and speaker terminals. Would I just have to add more strands to get the effective crossection up??

 

Thanks

[Ittaku]

44 minutes ago, DanFi said:

For funsies I wouldn't mind trying to make my own speaker cable so would single strand also work between the amp and speaker terminals. Would I just have to add more strands to get the effective crossection up??

Yes

[MattyW]

On 20/06/2020 at 12:42 PM, muon* said:

This is what I often use, single run for tweeter side of things and a twisted pair for mid/woofers.

 

https://www.partsconnexion.com/DUELUND-81388.html

Yup, using this (Ian did the work) in my Oatlon W2-1000F speakers, and I've a mix of that and the Duelund DCA16GA stranded in my speakers upstairs..... Currently using DCA16GA between amp and binding posts also though I will be trying Litz silver in the not too distant future. That said my binding posts are probably my bottleneck. Poor quality.

Edited July 13, 2020 by MattyW

[pete_mac]

5 hours ago, Southerly said:

dialectric

 

I hate to be "that guy" who mentions spelling... but it's 'dielectric'. 

[BLAH BLAH]

240volt Dyslexic...?!?  

Edited July 13, 2020 by BLAH BLAH

[bob_m_54]

22 minutes ago, pete_mac said:

 

I hate to be "that guy" who mentions spelling... but it's 'dielectric'. 

Insulation.