Bought some 14/2 “speaker wire” from Home Depot

Its not #3. 

when you switched wire, what did the audiophile in your avatar say ?

Would agree that your system is probably good enough that it would be hard to find cables that would degrade it too much, but we spend what we do for the little differences. Do you have dedicated circuits? If not, you should.

I will go with mainly 4, but high frequency is mainly inductance not gauge of wire so your Analysis Plus cables don't need to be that special to be work well.

I have found that most speaker wire in most systems barely moves the sonic needle.  The only speaker cable that made a meaningful difference in my system is Auditorium23.  My 16-yr old daughter listened to them and said "they sound more detailed than your old wires".  She was spot on and she has never even been exposed to audio jargon.

@11.00 for 25 feet it is an alu/copper clad?. If it was pure copper in zip cord, that would have helped.  Copper works very well, but don't tin the ends, that will change the sound to.. 4% silver and 96% lead and tin...
99.99% copper, and a graphene paint.. Mind blowing, simple, but great results...50 hours to settle...

Regards

It would be pure copper as pretty much all residential 14 awg Romex is. How will tinning the ends change the sound? 96% may have lead may not.

I tinned the ends to prevent any stray strands. The wire I bought is all copper- not copper clad aluminum. 
And Ms. Boyd is always happy - which is the most important thing 

Re dedicated line- i did that in my prior home and it was without a doubt the single biggest improvement, dollar for dollar, that I ever made. Did a home run to the panel with 10 gauge. Electrician thought I was nuts when I asked for 10 gauge. 

Or maybe he thought you were nuts for running a dedicated line while using zip cord speaker wire?

I feel like I’m back in the 80’s. The reason I know for sure its #3 is because there are no systems not resolving enough to hear the better wire. So its definitely not the system. Its #1, only its listening not hearing. While it could well be your hearing stinks too its far more likely your hearing is fine, you just aren’t very good at knowing what exactly it is that you are hearing. In other words, its listening.

For sure its not #4. That and some of the time warp comments are what make this feel like the 80’s. That’s how far back you have to go to when wire was wire. Although even they they were starting to figure out there’s more to it than gauge and other numbers lousy listeners love to bandy about.



You’ve got a Linn, and some other fine components. It could be this is some kind of challenge to my troll master status, in which case you have some really nice cables and are jerking our chain. Frankly hoping that is the case. Because otherwise, sorry, you are right about #1 and your time will be a lot better spent learning to listen.

Its not that hard, and you will be shocked how much better your system will sound with some quality wire.

Don't use solder for high current connections.  Cold weld/crimp. :-)

Otherwise, here's what I have observed:

Fancy cable only shows us that a lot of amps are more impedance sensitive than we think they are. At best, their effect on the listening experience is subtle, and very rarely worth what they charge.

Next, too many audiophiles put emphasis on gear that is "resolving" of downstream equipment.  I've gone the opposite.  I want gear that is resilient, that sounds great no matter what is upstream. I am not building cable analyzers, I'm building a system for my personal enjoyment. In this sense, I think the Krell CAST idea was spot on.

OMG. Not Time Tunnel. Twilight Zone.

I tinned the ends to prevent any stray strands

14/2 Romex is solid core and better sounding. 

OMG. Now we're talking house wiring. Curiouser and curiouser. When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!

My nearby HIFi store (remember those?) had a 40-foot piece of Mogami 2477 OFC copper coax 12gauge that was left as a sample by a sales rep. I bought it for $40 and took it home. Cut it in half, stripped the ends, twisted the core strands together, then the outer strands and added banana plugs. Core strands +, outer strands -. Looked real neat! Two twenty-foot pieces from amp to my KLH Nine electrostats. I kept that in use for over 20 years until I had to move south. I stupidly left the Mogami cable behind - but the movers brought the Nines to me safely in Florida. I thought the Mogami sounded excellent - no urge to change!i

Now I have an amp in the middle between the KLH Nines and a six-foot piece of RCA 14gauge all-copper zip to each speaker. Still sounds excellent!

Well, you are guessing! 
Tire pressure at your car wheels are calculated and given (on the drivers door side, as STD.)
Your speaker cables should be the same. It's not that complicated...
Tell me the Amp's DF and length required, I'll calculate it for you.

Anything thicker, won't hurt, but also won't sound any better.
Anything thinner - should be rectified. The sooner, the better.
It is nothing about 4% silver (sounds so exotic, worth nothing: Silver conducts only 5% better than copper, but costs 130 times more! 4% of 5% is 4/100 x 5/100 =  0.002...)
The Home Depot is as good as Radio Shack or eBay.

It's about VFM or price. 

This is classic case of skin effect, the individual wires on the analysis plus are smaller than the 14/2 conductors allowing more highs through.  Conclusion #5: the gauge of each insulated conductor in a cable dictates skin effect witch in turn affect the tonal response of the cable.

Zavato I sure like your moniker :-)

@zavato - It's not only about the metal in a wire...

I started with a "nice looking" wire with clear insulation. Had it in the system for about 4 years, until one day, I wanted to change the length of the wire.

First thing I noticed - the previously bright copper was now very dull (almost black). When I striped the insulation there was a slimy deposit on the wire - the insulation was degrading

At that point I looked for a better wire and switched to Van den Hul speaker wire
- WOW! - the performance was so much better
- I upgraded to the next gauge size up to achieve better bass performance

Fast forward 20 years later - I go into my old cable box and took out a piece of the first Van den Hul wire for another system - when I strip the insulation - no slimy deposit and the wire was still as bright as the day I bought it 

So that very affordable wire may not be doing your system any favours over the long haul

And that is just the tip of the "cable iceberg'
- different types of metal
- different type of insulation
- different cable geometries
- etc...

Regards - Steve

Rx8man

you do realize that the most important part of every post I’ve ever made is the photo of Ms. Boyd. 
I once changed the photo to something else and responses to my posts after that essentially ignored my posts and wondered why I switched pictures. 
Realizing the errors of my ways Ms. Boyd returned. 

@williewonka 

the Uber cheap 14/2 was a for sh*ts and giggles. 
My Analysis Plus cables are much longer than I currently need so I’m just fooling around with wire now. Fwiw- I do think the oval 9’s are very good. 
The original oval 9’s (mine are a later revision) do have a reputation to discolor 

@tomic601 

she didn’t have much to say 

Just fooling around. Good to know. Because so far this was looking like you're one of these guys who really can't hear any difference. Although personally I doubt I'm strong enough to endure even a minute of listening to my system through lamp cord.  

Actually the best thing about this thread is you put "speaker wire" in scare quotes. What you have is not speaker wire. Its hook up wire. Lamp cord. Speaker wire, someone at least tried even a little bit to make it sound less crappy than lamp cord. Can't say good. Just less crappy.  

When I say takes me back to the 80's, I mean literally. It was like 1989 when I started seeing things about speaker wire being about more than gauge. Because up until then the audio world was dominated by the evil idiot Julian Hirsch. A name I suspect many here do not even know, yet his technical writing in the now thankfully defunct Stereo Review influenced countless audiophiles, convincing them wire is wire and all you need is enough of it (gauge) and nothing more can ever be better. 

The vast majority of people, nevermind audiophiles just people, are monkey see monkey do. So this totally false notion goes on and on living a life of its own. To this very day there's many still duped into it, and you see them here every single day. So when some guy comes along saying he bought lamp cord and its just as good as his whatever, no its not, and its not your system.  

Anyway like I said its 1989 and some guy is saying two runs of lamp cord (shotgun) is better than one. Now this sounds silly but if you have enough lamp cord laying around its cheap and easy to try it and find out for yourself. Which I did. And heard the difference. And the rest is history. 

So that is my suggestion. Take your crappy roll of lamp cord, reel off another length of it and hook it up. It won't be much better. Hardly at all in fact. But it will be better. Which is perfect. Because what we really need to do right now more than anything else is restore your status as a guy who can actually hear stuff. Which so far is still very much in doubt. So please do try it and let us know.

This is classic case of skin effect

The only skin effect here is the one going on with his avatar.

high negative feedback amplifiers tend to exacerbate cable differences.

not because high negative feedback is better, but because the negative feedback network becomes over excited and corrects transient function after the horse has left the barn.

that’s how high negative feedback works at high frequencies.

this mess of over correction leaves a trail of odd harmonic hash, which some misinterpret as signal, and thus ascribe to being cable differences.

all the transistors, the BJT types, and the MOSFET and FET types, are also non linear in their gain, so they also add odd harmonic hash.

Also, since the correction is lower in level than the main signal, the reflection of the correction -into the signal... comes about as a negative non-linear function in the complex harmonic pulse.

Since it is non linear in the gain department and the correction is at different level, then the correction can’t even trace the ’desired to be eliminated’ signal correctly. (it’s done in a different spot in the gain curve)

When we lost the linear gain of tubes and V-Fets ---- it all went to hell.

It has literally been downhill and backward, every step of the way, since then.

Millercarbon

what’s fascinating is that you mis-state what I said and then rail against your revised version of what I said- 

No I never said the 14/2 was indistinguishable from my Analysis Plus cables - or in your own words “can’t hear any difference”

My main point is that the 14/2 isn’t dreadful. And it’s not my long term choice either.  I suggest that if in your system copper 14/2 is something you could not endure for even a minute there is something very off going on in your system and your speakers cables are being used in a symbiotic relationship with other components to fix something. 

Exactly Zavato.

Teoaudii, that is why good engineers design for stability and hence properly applied even with a complex load distortion can be much less (even or odd) with negative feedback than so called linear amplifiers which are only somewhat linear. All comes down to implementation.

Williewonka. 50 years and never once see a slimy deposit on wire and I have stripped a lot of wire. Sounds like Uber cheap offshore or some boutique brand that did not know what they were doing.



Felixa the op stated stranded 14 awg. Most definitely not skin effect classic or otherwise. Inductance would be a much bigger impact at 20khz.

I am running Canare 4S11 @15 foot per side.  Total cost under $120.00 and one of the biggest bargains in home audio. It is 11 gauge cable when you pair each wire in the cable. 

Quite listenable, though perhaps not as extended at the high end. If someone told me I had to use the Home Depot wire I’d get along just fine.

Actual quote. Cut and paste.

Leads me to one of 4 possible conclusions- 1- my hearing stinks; 2- my fancy Analysis Plus cables aren’t anything special; 3- my system isn’t resolving enough to make a difference; 4- given sufficient gauge, cable is cable.

Actual quote. Cut and paste. Your words, not mine. Your choices, not mine. If you really are not sure which of these four conclusions, the only ones you say are possible, then its definitely #1.  

When you get better at it you will know it can't possibly be anything but your listening ability that is in question. You will not be able to get along just fine with crappy hookup wire. And you will not be getting into tiffs like this unless... wait a minute- are you trolling me? lol! Takes one to know one. ;)

I'm not in a tiff- maybe you are, but hey, if that's your deal, so it's OK.  I am perfectly able to thoroughly enjoy music on an FM car radio in a noisy car and a top shelf audio system with equal measure. Sure, better reproduction is better, but enjoying the song? the two are not the same- 

BTW, nice to see you admit you are a troll. I definitely am not- 

Zavato, Im disappointed that pic isn’t you... you ought to be ashamed of yourself for misleading me like that.

You can get your AP cables cut down and Re-terminated.  You can end up with 2 pairs and do a shotgun run.  One with spades the other with bananas...

https://analysis.plus/retermination-services/

After thousands of similar posts not so sure about mc's hearing.

Mr. felixa

Skin effect in audio, is about misunderstanding of the fenomena. The  Skin effect, is mostly about two criteria that do not apply to speaker cables:
1. High power at high (audio high) Fr. with full power BW. 
In Audio, the last two octaves are mainly harmonies. They are 20 dB or less of the average SPL. Most thicker cables, that can handle power as high as 20A @ 8 ohms = 3,200W need to handle way less (32W!) and the -20 dB is 100 times less, so it's about 0.32W of 0.2A
If you check on the AWG table: 
https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm
A #12 AWG wire has a BW of  4150 Hz @ 9.3A or 107 KHz @  0.361A
Actually, the skin effect fenomena DO NOT exists in audio FR. and cables. It is an Audio daler/dealer BS to have an outstanding product over snake oil advantage. Bringing it up again and again' doesn't make it true.

@b_limo 

Sorry for the disappointment !

Skin effect appears to be the phonomenon in play in this situation. Laws of physics such as the skin effect apply at any frequences. It is a gradual effect. Skin effect dictate that as the frequency rises the singal si moved towards the outside of the conductors. The skin dept is defined as the dept, from the surface, at which the current density is about 37% that of the surface, for copper at 20 hz it is about 50 mm and at 20kHz it is about .6 mm. The effect at audio frequency is that as the high frequencies are traveling in a narrower regions than the low frequency the high frequency are submitted to a larger resistance that the low freqencies and thus suffer more attenuation in the cable.
Hence with regard to the OP, the Analysis Plus cables appears to have conductors of smaller diametres than the 14/2, such that there is more skin effect in the 14/2 than the Analysis Plus cables witch translate to the OP comment where the 14/2 lack a bit of the high end compare to the Analysis Plus. Skin effect applies to audio frequency as it dictates the frequency balance of a cable.

Math is your friend.

9.5 feet of 14awg solid core, skin effect at 20khz adds about 0.01 ohm of added resistance. However the wire was stranded so this will be quite a bit less.

20khz zip cord speaker wire 14 awg, 9.5 feet, inductance would add 0.3 - 1 ohm AC resistance at 20khz.

For the 3rd time it's not skin effect it's inductance.

FYI skin effect is not impacted by magnitude of current until exceptionally high currents.

I would like to see the math.

How about you do the math and show my results to be wrong .... I am confident the numbers are more than close enough to accurately portray the situation not to mention that virtually every reputable cable vendor that uses actual engineering concurs that inductance is the issue.

The room is all the better for the print of “Ansel Adams, Moonrise over Hernandez New Mexico,”

It real, I hope it’s insured and you have the special plexi Adams was a proponent of. 

One of the all time great images; the second being your one you use!

Moonrise is indeed special 

This may have already been noted but that Home Depot/Lowes type speaker cable has one side made of aluminum.  That's why its so cheep.  

I switched to 10 gauge speaker wire around 1984, it was spec'd out by an
electrical engineer friend of mine and avid audiophile.  He needed to purchase at least 1000ft (I believe) to have it custom made. So I went in for 300 feet.  Been using it ever since in varying lengths. First was cut six 50 foot lengths and terminate them with soldered pin connectors (tri-amped system).  And (horror of horrors!) I coiled all the extra cabling and just stacked it up, coil over coil!  Then figuring this has to be doing something to the sound, at least inducing some voltage.  I turned off the mid and high amps, left the bass amps on and blasted some tunes. Much to my amazement not a peep, nothing, nada coming out of the mid range or tweeter.  Maybe this was not a good test, but that is what happened.

As far as listening is concerned, I'm sure we all listen to our systems in different manners at different times.  My rig sounds the best to me when it just disappears, by that I mean I'm not listening to the equipment, just the music.  The older I get the more the music wins. Regards.

Stay safe,
barts

 

#4

Hello all- I started this trouble! And now, I’m glad to say that I have put back my Analysis Plus speaker cables. Yes, it’s better but I stand by my original comment- the 14/2 was not a horror. It was livable but not optimal (assuming anything can be optimal of course)

i thank all for their comments and observations 

-Z-

http://www.canare.com/ProductItemDisplay.aspx?productItemID=65
As mentioned before
Used on my Joesph Audio Purars with a Mac 275 and am very happy. Low cost too.

For what it’s worth...
I get satisfaction from using 
underground landscape wire
for speaker wire.  Lots of copper 
and insulation. Been at this since
1966 and keep high end systems .
I don’t believe in the Easter bunny
or Santa Clause or fancy wire.
Curmudgeon 

Way back in the 70's we ran Romex 14/2 for a while out of curiosity. It works better than the 18/2 we gave away with a pair of speakers. You say the Home Depot wire was "quite listenable." Sorry, that doesn't tell me much. It seems to me that you're saying it degraded the sound from your system but rather than admit it you'll stir something up here.That'll work! Just watch!