2. cables
  3. 161281-107

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

So I decided to amuse myself and on a recent trip to the Home Depot I bought some 14 gauge speaker wire. 25 ft for under $11.
I have what I think is a good system and my current speaker wires are analysis plus mesh oval 9 terminated in spades. My system is noted in my profile.
I substituted in the 14/2 I picked up- each leg is about 9.5 ft. Tinned bare wire at each end. I did use 4% silver solder.
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. 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. Of course, it’s also possible that my system is so good, any wire will allow that to shine through 
Your thoughts, comments, etc appreciated 

thanks
128x128zavato

Showing 3 responses by felixa

felixa
34 posts
 
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.
felixa
34 posts
 
I would like to see the math.
felixa
34 posts
 
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.
More to discover