Larry the Cable Guys

A few things the cable designer said that caught my attention.

Size of the conductor wire gauge matters. Well ya...

How you get there without changing the phase relationship between the voltage and the current. Increase the wire gauge be it solid or stranded increases the inductance in the circuit. That will cause a phase shift between the voltage and the current. Ideally you want the two in phase.

Solution, parallel several smaller gauge individual insulated conductors together. That not only limits induction but adds capacitance which combined helps keep the voltage and current in phase. (It should be said most well know cable manufactures design their cables this same way. Also the majority of them, from what info they give I have noticed, the parallel individual small insulated conductors are solid wire, not stranded.

Essential sound Products uses four 20 gauge insulated conductors for the Hot and four for the neutral conductor. Equivalent wire gauge is 14awg. 20 gauge is pretty small. Just going from memory the smallest Audioquest uses is 18 gauge solid wire. Though I am not current what any manufacturers use today. Going from memory some uses different gauge insulated wires in their mix of parallel conductors to get their desired wire gauge.

Another thing the cable designer talked about was shielding. How he approaches the use of the shield spacing it from the Hot and neutral current carrying conductors is similar to other cable manufacturers.

It should be noted he did not mention the secrete ingredients used in his cable. The proprietary stuff.

This is where the professionals need to step in and give their interpretations of the measurements.

The Tests

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@kijanki,

Great post as usual.

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kijanki Said:

Just one observation. Thicker wire has lower inductance.

@kijanki

Da,... right you are. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess my brain turned off when Michael from Essential Sound Products spoke about smaller gauge wire paralleled to equal a larger wire had a lower inductance than one single solid conductor having the same ampere rating. ( If you go to time marker 5:25 on the video you will see Michael talking about wire gauge and inductance. He does talk about higher frequencies but I doubt frequencies in the 20K range would be present in a 60Hz mains power system.

Jea48 said:

How you get there without changing the phase relationship between the voltage and the current. Increase the wire gauge be it solid or stranded increases the inductance in the circuit. That will cause a phase shift between the voltage and the current. Ideally you want the two in phase.

Obviously the above is poorly worded, and false. I Knew better. My bad...

So when you parallel four 20 gauge individually insulated wires, that gives an equivalent wire gauge of 14awg wire, (15 amps), is the net inductance the same for both conductors?

If you get a chance would you watch the video time marker 5:25. Did I misunderstand what the guy said about the inductance?

Also if the inductance is the same for four paralleled 20 gauge individually insulated wires as a single 14 gauge conductor how about the capacitance of the cable? Will it be higher than using a single 14awg conductor?

Thanks,

Jim

@kijanki Said:

I believe that he is simply wrong. Thicker wire has lower inductance.

I agree... I can’t help thinking what else he was wrong on.

@kijanki, I greatly appreciate you chiming in.

Jim

jea48 said:

Increase the wire gauge be it solid or stranded increases the inductance in the circuit.

Still can’t believe I said that... No excuse.

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kijanki Said:

What I said before about 4 wires having the same inductance as equivalent 1 wire would be true if 4 wires fit in the diameter of solid 1 wire - not possible because of added insulation. With larger overall diameter of multiple insulated strands wire inductance should be lower IMO.

@kijanki,

Looking at the picture of the Music Cord Pro power cord then because of the way the Hot and neutral paralleled two groups of 4 insulated 20awg wires are placed around the the green insulated EGC, the inductance should/would be lower.

Technically then Michael, from Essential Sound Products, is correct in his statement in the video, the inductance is lower in his power cable.

Thanks for pointing out why the inductance should be lower. I sure didn’t know why.

FWIW, I have few old audioquest power cords from the 1990s constructed the same way as the Music Cord Pro power cord shown in the picture above. The only difference is the paralleled insulated solid copper wires are 18awg. Equivalent to 12awg solid copper, (20 amps). The green EGC is stranded wire. The audioquest power cords are not shielded though.

Jim

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