Does it matter the wire gauge used in interconnects?

Unless you are driving properly terminated XLR (110 ohms), odds are you are dealing with source resistances of 600-2K ohms, and load resistances of 10K - 100K. Fairly small wires will work well at the typical lengths used. But then again large wires will work too.


Skin effect is a non issue. A larger gauge wires has more surface area than a smaller gauge wire, so even though it experiences more skin effect, its overall conductance is still lower.

Because of high load impedance, inductance in the cables is a non issue unless you do something ridiculous like the helix construction where you can actually make an inductor large enough impact signal transmission. More concerning is high capacitance due to the high source impedance. Whether exotic insulator really make a difference is up for debate. It sounds good on a marketing sheet.

Twisted pair construction and overall braid shielding will rarely steer you wrong, though overall braid does increase capacitance.

@ozzy  AWG 20 sounds OK.  My Acoustic Zen Absolute ICs have gauge 20 wires.  I assume you're going to twist wires.  XLR are usually twisted.  Twisting exposes both wires evenly to external electric and magnetic fields reducing interference pickup (very effective).  Twisting reduces inductance (not important here) and increases capacitance.  Perhaps light twist?  Twisting is effective when twist pitch is way below wavelength of offending signals.  Let's assume 1" twist pitch is way below 0.3m wavelength of 1GHz signal.  At these frequencies shield works great (skin effect).  I would use insulation with low dielectric constant to lower capacitance between wires (Teflon?).  Perhaps oversized overall tube with low dielectric constant to reduce capacitance to shield?  (my ICs have foam Teflon insulation in oversized tubes).  

With thicker wires you risk skin effect, that starts at gauge 18 in copper at 20kHz, but speakers are usually inductive in character at these frequencies, meaning that impedance gets way higher reducing skin effect (If it is audible to start with).  Good luck and let us know.

twoleftears,
Thanks for the link. It will come in handy.
Perhaps I missed it, but it's still not clear to me how various gauges affect the sound.

ozzy

Read this through to the end.
http://www.image99.net/blog/files/4127b5fe2694586e383104364360373b-74.html
Everything you need to know, and more...

Thank you for the response.
I am thinking the longer the interconnect the thicker the gauge should be. That's why I am considering using 20 gauge for a 10 foot run.  I believe that should lower the resistance / capacitance. But, thinner wire may have other attributes and may be beneficial for higher frequencies.
So any advise on this subject is welcome.

ozzy

Everything matters.

The gauge of the wire in my Darwin ICs are somewhere in the 20s. I believe they get thinner the higher up you go in the line. I'm talking human hair thin (22GA) and was told that it's very labor intensive and part of their secret. 

The same weight reduction can be seen in their terminations: they look like it's all pared down to just what is necessary to get a good grip on the RCA connector. Again, very labor intensive. 

The results are the best see-thru, transparent ICs I've used. Over time I worked my up their line by watching for specials and discounts. Worth a look.

All the best,
Nonoise

I’d recommend a high-quality specialist cable, like Mogami W2549.