Coiling excess Speaker cable, is this a problem?

This has been discussed many times before.  You should not coil the excess wire.

Especially not cables that are already bi. They may decide to go trans.

Thanks for the response!

Still a Noob here, where/how can I find the discussion about coiling excess wire? Also, what does it mean if cables are about to go trans? I'm trying to figure out how to best dress the coil of wire and am looking for suggestions.

Most appreciated!

@grm sorry if some of the responses tend to be less than cordial or helpful. Coiling your cable acts like an coil in a crossover and tends to roll off high frequency response. So we would like to avoid that. This is one reason I like DIY cables that I can custom make to my exact needs. Very tidy, sonically better.

If you have expensive cable, Contact the maker and see if they will cut to proper size and re-terminate for you. You may be able to do this yourself but resale value will be affected.

Coiling would have negative effect for single wire, by adding inductance.  Coiling cable is different - it creates common mode choke that has inductance only for common mode signals.  For normal mode (differential) signals current in both conductors has opposite direction, producing cancelling magnetic fields, hence no added inductance.  The best test for it is to try it both ways and let us know.

"Canceling magnetic fields, hence no inductance." Interesting. Just one question. When the cables all coiled up, how does the wire know which magnetic fields to conveniently cancel? I mean they’re all piled together, different lengths, some closer some further away. So how does it know?

Word salad. Easy to write. Impossible to understand. If I was you I’d cover it up with lots of blue cheese and bacon bits and hope no one notices underneath is zero nutrient iceberg lettuce. Trust me. Once they see the bacon bits, forgetaboutit.

Inductance of a single straight wire is already reduced in the cable by bringing return wire close (cancelling magnetic fields).  Twisting wires in the cable together reduces inductance even further.  Coiling speaker cable will do very little to change inductance.  If anything, it might reduce it a little.

Kijanki is correct. Contrary to what many audiophiles believe coiling speaker cables is unlikely to have any adverse effects, assuming the cables are such that the + and - conductors in each run are bundled together as opposed to being physically separate.

Regards,
-- Al

Hello everybody and thanks for the responses!

I am quite new to this hobby and am enjoying it immensely! I especially like Audiogon Forums where I can pose questions and leverage the significant knowledge of others. As far as people being rude, I have run into this a few times, I don't get it and simply ignore them.

I think for now, unless I can come up with something, the coiling of the cables does not seem to be causing an audible issue as some posts have suggested it would not.

Again, thanks to all!

I don’t think insulting other forum participants due to your lack of understanding of a topic is an appropriate way to behave.

I see. And yet its okay for you. You just said I lack understanding. That’s an insult. Pot, meet kettle.

When someone writes a lot of heavily technical jargon laden prose that makes no sense the correct term of description is word salad.

Let’s explain so you will no longer lack understanding.

Inductance is the technical term being misunderstood. The question at hand is a bunch of cable coiled by hand. Anyone ever done this knows the coils are never all the same length, never lay geometrically, but instead crisscross all over the place. Right? Got it? Good.

The inductance in the word salad is talking about stranded cables specifically designed to have the wires maintaining precise geometry such that the magnetic field lines do indeed interact as described in the word salad.

Its word salad because the words are used indiscriminately, out of context, a false application of a useful concept. Its word salad because he does not know what he’s talking about. Which neither did you, or you would be pointing out these same facts. Which goes to prove exactly what I said, that word salad is impossible to understand.

This site is chock full of word salad. Slather on some dressing, bacon bits, like that.

Here’s the meat. Coiling extra wire is just one of many things that are a problem but maybe not a problem everyone can hear, or maybe even not a problem anyone can hear in every given system. They are however a problem. For the exact reasons already explained.

So what happens is we have a choice. We can only eliminate the problems that are so glaringly obvious you can’t stand them, or we can eliminate as many known problems as possible in the understanding we might not notice them right away.

Its one of the harder things to explain to people, that its simply not necessary to spend a fortune to attain great sound. It is however necessary to attend to a great many details. Details exactly like this one here.

millercarbon "Inductance is the technical term being misunderstood."

That is correct and it has been carefully, thoughtfully, and thoroughly explained to you in simple, concise, andclear language that it is not what you think it is and that you do not understand or comprehend how it applies, operates, and functions in the real world so you invent this "salad" and then add in you’re own radishes, bacan and croutons and then exclaim "I have the best salad and no one else’s comes close to my kind of salad".

Just seeing this, what else is there to do but coil the excess....unless you fold it over back toward speaker and then back towards amp. I’m sure someone will find fault with that too...not much you can do when most recommend the same length of cable per speaker. I coiled mine and I have two cables per speaker, bi wired. I doubt that anyone would here a difference if I uncoiled them.

Thats a bad idea cables should be strait only.

I had several feet of speaker wire jumbled in a heap, like a messy coil. I just straightened it out, not perfectly, but no longer coiled. OMG! Huge difference!

Never coil speaker wire.