Speaker Cables

Higher capacitance will start rolling off the higher frequencies

Quit just parroting stuff you read on the web. For normal runs capacitance will never roll off the highs in the audio bandwidth. It‘s marketing BS by shonkies like Blue jeans. Do the basic maths.

And the assertion you made above is incorrect. People do hear a difference: on a regular basis, as many of the previous posts indicate.

My observation was that the Home Depot wire is better than the spools of... what was it 20 gauge? 22 gauge? Two conductor wire that was the only readily available wire 30 years ago. Generally good to hook up a system that wasn’t likely to improve much with a high end wire choice. 

@cakyol
I can GUARANTEE you that NOBODY on earth will EVER be able to tell the difference between that wire and something costing 100s of dollars per foot...

Yes, read all of it and totally disagree with polar opposite experiences, is why I replied.  Tested various (obsessively) many times, all sorts of different capacitance and inductance types, spool, self made, and professional made, single and double runs, bi-wire. In a truly revealing and transparent system, good ears can hear a difference.  Have several colleagues with the same conclusions with more than 50yrs experience each.  Some of which are 40-50 year techs in the industry.   

For your ears you can guarantee anything you wish.  Not for my ears.  Maybe you can get rich if you can convince people otherwise.  Best of luck. You won't sway me, been there and done that too long. Thanks. 

roll off the highs within the audio bandwidth significantly enough to be audible

That Kharma tinned copper wire looks like it's made the same way that Supra wire is. I've tried a couple of Supra's cables and they have that nice, warmish, rounded off sound that's pleasant but not accurate, revealing and life like, to my ears.

Been there, done that, moved on.

All the best,
Nonoise

@nonoise @cakyol @decooney

hey guys, i need some quick advice (apologies for the minor threadjack)

as sort of a mini diy project, i am thinking about changing out the internal wiring inside a lovely old set of spendor sp1’s... got into this as i wanted to swap the old cheapie binding posts for better, more modern ones... i have confirmed all the drivers and crossover components are all fine in the set, but noticed the fairly basic wires that run inside from binding posts to crossover, then c-o to the three drivers

i need what they call ’hook-up’ wire, in that they are just a single conductor with red and black sleeving - not the internally bundled 2 or 4 conductors inside an outer sleeve type typically used e.g., canare 4s11 etc etc... in particular, i think i would like to do thicker gauge wire to feed c-o’s and the woofers, and maybe a sweet sounding silver plated wire to run from the c-o’s to the tweeter and super tweeter

some stuff i found on the net:

https://www.thecableco.com/diy-cables-and-connectors/bulk-internal-hook-up-wire/11-5-awg-chassis-bulk-wire.html

https://silversonic.com/products/hookup-wire/ofh-12/

https://silversonic.com/products/hookup-wire/ofh-20

https://gothamcable.com/en/gothamcables/Hook-Up-Wires/90141-14-AWG

thoughts and recommendations?

@pesky_wabbit2

I do have a PhD from a British university named UMIST in Electrical & Electronic engineering and I have been in electronics & software industry for the past 30 years, currently developing wifi software for Broadcom. I can give you my linkedin page if you want to verify.

So, I am not parroting away like most of YOU do on this forum.

Next time, fact check your findings.

Everyone knows at audio frequencies, picofarads of capacitance do not make much difference, I was trying to make an exaggerated point, since exaggerations are the norm on this forum most of the time.

The crap I hear most of the time on this forum is unbelievable. There are a few people here who actually know what they are talking about and that is the only reason I stay on it.

@jjss49 
IMO whatever you do, recommend NOT using the home depot brown spool wire some people talk about, it's garbage for internal speaker wiring too. Super grainy result from it in my setups.  Not helping you with your color-coded black/red wire desire, I've been using the White Supra for over a decade in my builds (same as Omega does today, reportedly), yes you can go with thinner gauge with the tweeter. Cardas and Analysis Plus use to offer some nice internal wire too, yet I've only stuck with the Supra knowing its signature. As others have said, its not as bright or detailed and its a preference thing I guess.   As for speaker terminal binding posts, it varies for me using the generic ones Madisound sells for lower grade builds and Cardas binding posts for the nicer builds works nicely. Try the junk ones and the good ones, solder them on with silver solder and you may hear a difference.  Your experiences may vary. Good Luck.    

@jjss49

For your speaker wiring project look at this:

https://www.mcmaster.com/6276T21/

Especially check the current rating on it. It indicates 124 Amps for 8 AWG wire.

The amperage rating of this wire is a testament to its low resistance.

As for inductance & capacitance, for the very short runs of cable you are likely to have inside a speaker cabinet, they will not be significant.

Its max working temperature of 390 F is also worth considering since it will not be a fire starter should something go wrong inside your enclosure.

You will be hard pressed to find something along the same lines for that quoted price.

@jjss49 
I have no experience in rewiring a speaker and would follow deconny's advice. Both my Tonian Labs TL-D1 and Clearwave Duet 6 speakers were internally wired with Supra and they sounded great.

It's just with speaker cables that I eventually passed on the Supras with.

All the best,
Nonoise

Surely Duelund or Neotech.  Partsconnexion has Duelund hookup wire, Take Five Audio has Neotech.

@jjss49 - I experienced problem using a heavy gauge (i.e. thicker than 18 gauge) solid Hookup wire for my speakers.

I do realize that solid is better than stranded wire, but if your crossover is mounted on PCB like mine, there is the possibility that the copper trace on the PCB could separate from the board and break. I suffered this issue many years ago. I changed to stranded

There are some very good stranded wires out there e.g. my favorite, Neotech UP-OCC copper or UP-OC silver

If the Crossover is point to point wiring then it might not be an issue

Regards - Steve

Tannoys have 5 binding posts, the 5th for ground...did I ground mine? Yup! Did it make a difference? Hell if I know....😁
Biwired with QED Silver Anniversary XT biwire. Saving for 2 pair of Auditorium 23's to biwire in future...$3000.

thanks all for advice and suggestions

@cakyol - what is the significance/importance of tin-plating on hook up wire? the cardas hookup wire spec says it is multi strand ’litz wire’ - won’t that cause termination/issues? ... i am a bit concerned the 8 ga wire you suggested might be a little hard to work with... but they have thinner wire, thinking 12 gauge would be sufficient

also -- point noted on overheating risk to crossover board... spendor thought of this evidently as the c-o pcb connections are using slide-on spade connectors --> https://www.te.com/usa-en/product-640903-1.html?te_bu=Cor&te_type=srch&te_campaign=ggl_usa_c...

will stay away from the home depot wire for sure, the idea is to get some decent wire in there -- but damn, some of that neotech and dueland stuff is pricey for plain ol copper wire! (put audiophile label on it, double the price! 🤭)

@jjss49

The significance of tin plating a copper wire is that it is MUCH MUCH easier to solder it. It makes soldering a breeze.

In addition, ferruling your wire will also make it much easier to work with, especially with 8GA wire since it is a bit tough to bend and also strands will not be straying around with a ferrule.

’litz wire’ - won’t that cause termination/issues?

You can buy a solder pot cheaply off ebay. which should solve your termination issues. Dipping the ends in should remove the coating and tin them ready for termination.

I was trying to make an exaggerated point

It sounds more like you were perpetuating misinformation shady cable manufacturers are using to sell their wares by attempting to sound knowledgeable.

@jjss49 I second twoleftears suggestion of Duelund for your internal wiring. Check out the PartsConnexion site for various gauges. 

@jjss49 
+1 @pesky_wabbit mentioned Partsconnexion, another good option. I had forgotten to mention them as I have not bought internal wire from them in a while. Also It looks like they are selling the Cardas black/red wire again, including Ultra Pure Copper, Multi-Stranded Litz Hook-up Wire if compelled.                                                                                                             

While you are at it, I also recommend you change your crossover capacitors to the following:

https://www.partsconnexion.com/Jantzen-silver-cap.html

These are at a very nice sweet spot of price per performance ratio. There are many more better film caps but they are also much more expensive.

Changing the capacitors becomes a must, if you see any bipolar electrolytic capacitors (note that I said BIPOLAR) in your old crossovers. It is very unlikely that you will ever see unipolar electrolytics in a crossover but bipolars are possible. All electrolytics, unipolar or bipolar, are a ticking time bomb. Spendors are usually great quality but just check if they have any caps which may need replacing.

ProAc speakers have a reputation for being relatively even in response. If you'd like to maintain that honesty I would contact Audio Envy and have them build you a bi-connector set. I believe they're upgrading their SP9 orders to SP11's. The set that they sent me was phenomenal and more even in  response to the point that I no longer used my dirac correction and when I did an impedance sweep it was notably smoother.

Bear in mind that if you put a film capacitors in place of an electrolytic, you will generally be lowering its equivalent series resistance (ESR), and thus altering a fundamental characteristic of the crossover which affects frequency response.

Whether the deviation is sufficient to warrant concern will depend on the speaker in question. One solution is to place a resistor in series with the capacitor to make up the lost resistance. The more capacitors in the crossover, the more significant the issue.

Some people complain that after putting boutique caps in their speakers there are significant gains in transparency, but somehow they sound, ‘all wrong‘. or, ‘completely different‘. Now you have a fair idea why.

thanks again @cakyol @pesky_wabbit @decooney @twoleftears and others for your advice and good points

yes i did check - and the spendor crossovers used high quality box poly capacitors known to stay stable over the years - am glad to stay away from cap replacement given their tricky measured vs listed values, esr’s etc etc - spendor evidently went to great mains to match and select caps way back to their manufacture of the bc1 and successors

tinned ends or solder cups points noted 👍👍

I have been auditioning Kimber Kable’s Bifocals and they sound great - still questioning the dollar value but clearly sound better than other speaker cables in my system. 
Mixed feelings because I was happy using cheaper cables. 

OP, the advice to use 8AWG cable for hook-up wire is simply ridiculous!
I like AWG 21 to 24 solid core pure copper OCC wire for the tweeter with no crimped on terminals anywhere. Solder all connections. If using solid core then provide vibration relief by using cable ties or some hot-melt glue to anchor the wire close to it's termination.

https://www.vhaudio.com/wire.html#vh18hookup : Chris supplies this wire with AirLok insulation which has a very low dielectric constant, even lower than Teflon. I use it inside amps too.

For mids and bass use AWG 14 to 18 OCC copper, avoiding PVC insulation. There are many outlets for good cable.

The advice to contact Audio Envy could work, they are garnering some good reviews. I have not used any of their stuff so have no comment.

With regards to changing capacitors: I do this all the time with great results.
I am sure pesky_wabbit was well-intentioned when he mentioned ESR. This is insignificant in a crossover and can be ignored. In the formula for capacitive reactance there is no 'R" value in the equation.   It is:   Xc =1 divided by (2xPixFxC) If you consider that when caps are chosen for XO duties the closest standard value to the theoretical value is used, then there is the individual driver's response, the overall response and the room's response,you will realise that ESR is a non-issue   : )

Perhaps when rewiring you consider replacing just the cap/s in the tweeter circuit and while you are at if you find any white sand-cast resistors replace them with Mills or similar. Expect a noticeable improvement.

Reflecting back on the Advent of High End Cables, one of the first designers to try and address real issues with signal transmission was Bruce Brisson. His cables and the spin off company founded by their distributors, the Sumners and Smith (Transparent) still stand out from the rest by delivering actual solutions for better audio reproduction and signal transmission more so than all the other “Cable Only” solutions. Wire mostly is wire...the technologies developed by the original two High End Cable Companies actually make a discernible improvement in the home audio listening experience.

This is insignificant in a crossover and can be ignored.

interesting post on Audiokarma 12 years ago:

Last night, inspired by this thread, I ran a bunch of capacitor curves. I tested six different types from my parts bin, ranging from the cheesiest old lytics to fancy film, and including garden variety audio NPE. All the caps were 4.7uF, within a couple of percent. I hooked each one in series, directly to a well-known 1" dome tweeter, then swept the voltage plot across the speaker terminals.

At 2 or 3 KHz, there was about a 1.5dB total spread between the units, increasing to almost 5dB at 20KHz. Interestingly, (or coincidentally?), the curves clustered into two fairly distinct groups. Also, interestingly, the two data clusters each contained both lytics and films. I will post curves and details when I have time, and will run impedance, ESR and DF curves on all the caps.

This was intended to be a quick, but very demanding test: the tweeter is 4 Ohms, and no other components were used at all. (EG- no pad resistor.) Eventually, I will test a more typical circuit topology.

The lessons, re-learned:

- changing cap types is perilous, and, will probably change the frequency response.

- Modern NPE’s can hold their own with film caps; there is no readily obvious, consistent advantage to either type, though there are various differences.

ken kantor, Mar 23, 2009

And what I am describing has nothing to do with capacitive reactance. It is called series resistance for a reason.

@pesky_wabbit, interesting article thanks. An increase in resistance in series with a DUT will attenuate the signal I agree but the ESR delta between good film caps will have no noticeable effect. Any slight effect will be completely swamped by the room's response which is why I termed it a non-issue.

Certainly I would never add an extra small resistor to the XO. When I design a speaker I try my best to closely match, if possible, the sensitivities of the drivers so that no attenuating resistance is needed resulting in a simpler and cheaper XO. You may be underestimating the harm extra components do.

Vance Dickerson, Joe D'appalito and Sigfried Linkwitz's work is mostly what I studied regarding speaker design. None of these gentlemen even mention ESR when creating an XO from first principles. I think I will take their teachings before
ken kantor.

Between good good film caps perhaps, but between old design electrolytics and film caps, possibly quite significant. Way back when it was being discussed on this thread in some depth, various speaker manufacturers‘ philosophies were examined WRT ESR and were found to differ. You have found a couple who concur with your own. There are well respected manufacturers who do not.

The point I am trying to make is that Ken’s data confirms that you can’t just. throw in a modern film cap in place of an old style electrolytic and expect your frequency response to remain totally in tact. You may get lucky, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Measured deviations of up to 5db at 20kHz between samples show considerable scope for audible changes.

If you are swapping a modern film with a modern film, your chances of success are far greater.

Hey pesky_wabbit stop chasing carrots and educate yourself.

To get an understanding about XO design try reading articles from the experts I mentioned. You are not arguing with me, you are arguing with Sigfied Linkwitz. Yes it's that Linkwitz of Linkwitz/Riley fame. His filters are probably more widely used than Bessel, Butterworth or Chebychev in crossovers.

You state:  (ESR) "altering a fundamental characteristic of the crossover which affects frequency response"

For simplicity lets look at a first-order XO.  A series resistance will NOT alter this basic function, the position of the XO knee or -3dB point is determined by the VALUE of capacitance, (not the value of capacitance plus ESR)  The XO response has now been established and any resistance in series will merely attenuate the level to match the other drivers.

Now what about speakers with level controls for the tweeter?  Are you claiming that when you adjust the level setting, which just switches different value resistors in circuit and here we are talking 10 or 20 ohms and not milliohms, that it is changing the XO point?

I consider neither your nor K Kantor's unsubstantiated bloviating worth hijacking this thread further.

This issue has already been examined in detail by those far more informed than you: do the legwork yourself. If you wish to ignore hard data because it challenges your beliefs so be it. Your exposition of logic beggars belief. I have no more to say on this matter.

Why not use Proac's own speaker cables? My dealer uses them with all of his Proac's even though he sells AQ, Cardas and a few other brands. It's not that expensive and sounds great with all Proac speakers.

Let’s see if this works. AGOn deleted my DM to you. Apparently they prohibit sending contact info. Ask for John.

https://www.audioconnect.com/

proac doesn't make its own branded speaker cables as far as i know...

ProAc Speaker Cables

$450.00–$550.00

ProAc Signature Black Speaker cable was engineered by ProAc, for ProAc speakers.

Constructed from two 14AWG Oxygen free stranded copper conductors, insulated with PTFE foam.

oh cool... i am happy to be corrected on this

looks like a solid no nonsense product... pure copper makes perfect sense for proac... a little warmth, expansive bass with no added sizzle, which the speakers do not need

couldn’t find it on the audioconnection website though... maybe it is buried somewhere i missed

No, John doesn't advertise it but he likes it for his Proac customers. For everything else he likes AQ.