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Hello,
Can any one give a valid technical reason why Solid wire VS the same gauge stranded wire is better for speaker wire. Of course if you think it is the other way around I would be interested in the technical reason. Lets say the gauge is 22g
Thanks for any comments.
Alan
Follow Ups:
Stranded gives the illusion of richness, but this is really distortion.
The thinner the stranded wires are the edgier it sounds like, but when adding more of those thin wires the bass size is increased. This will give the best of both worlds by having both speed and bass size, but there is fatiguing distortion in the music.
Solid-core sounds the cleanest and smoothest of all, but it becomes muddier the thicker the conductor is. It can either sound thin and detailed or heavy and muddy.
Both stranded and solid-core are tone controls.
The best is rectangular conductor because it eliminates skin effect. When making the conductor bigger, both the bass size and detail improves, it's the best of both worlds. However, this comes from the addition of the copper sound signature which sounds this way, heavy and edgy.
When using rectangular silver, it sounds silkier and more open but the bass is gone. Again, a tone control.
The dielectric colors the sound as well. Even thin Teflon film makes it edgy and veiled. Remove the Teflon and keep the conductors bare gives both brighter and silkier sound with more detail.
All cables you use are tone controls. But I have found a way to reverse this by using a secret formula that an alien gave to me.
You left out the IMHO after all the secret information you just revealed, if the bass left with my silver wires someone forget to inform my speakers and my ears, either that or maybe your wrong , guessing or making it up as you go along ....... I see the words but never anything to back up what you say.
I told you to keep that a secret.
Technical reasons abound. Stranded will have a greater surface area which should give it the advantage, but I usually like solid core.
However it all boils down to listener preference in the end.
That being said, I generally choose my cables by their ability to get out of the way. The less I can hear the cable in the chain the better.
It's all in the application and execution of design and how it mates to your system and ears. All the talk in the world will not change that aspect. Choose by ear and enjoy!
dave_b
... sees the role of speaker wire as a service, not as a contributor. It should transmit the signal to the speaker without altering the timbre of the sound or limit the output of the amplifier. The best solution would be no wire. My simple mind also sees two signals, left and right. Why then would I need more than two wires? I know the OP's question circled technical issues, but my ears are the only guage that matters to me.If the wires are of sufficient guage to not limit the amps output, then the only other issue worth examining is the quality of the sound. I have sampled a variety of speaker cables, and many of them leave me with the impression that this one sounds warm, this one sounds bright, and so on. The only ones that interest me are those that to me, sound neutral and natural. Any cable that doesn't sound neutral seems like a tone control, and I don't want it at any price level. I expect that speaker cable will release the intended sound of the speaker, not alter it.
I have found that solid core cable has gotten me there, and at very low cost. I have not preferred stranded appoaches based on listening tests. Solid core simply sounds more clear, more neutral, and with great presentation. I have the luxury of not caring about the way it looks or how it has to be run. Solid core wire is a little less managable than stranded. Oh well.
Edits: 12/08/11 12/08/11
...but 'nothing'. In other words, cables should not sound. But since ALL parts of a music-reproduction system subtract good stuff and add bad stuff, at least IMO, the difficult trick is finding cables that neither add nor subtract anything audible and are within one's budget.
Over the decades, I too have gravitated to solid-conductor cable AND to the most-transparent conductor material. Unfortunately for my bank balance, that conductor material is now, for me, UPOCC silver, insulated with Teflon. My current MR/treble cables are a weave of 6 conductors of 18-, 23-, and 28g. Neotec UPOCC silver, and my system has never sounded better.
And unless one starts that solid-conductor cable with large (12- or 14g.) wire, solid-conductor speakercable is still highly bendable and manageable.
----------
Tin-eared audiofool, former fotografer, and terrible competitive-pistol shootist.
"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted." Albert Einstein.
Well said.
I'm trying to be open minded about things, I'm going to try a few things myself this afternoon.
The main thing to realize is you might be able to find your perfect cable without spending the big bux.
skin effect which occurs in both stranded and solid wire can/could cause the difference in sound. As another poster pointed out, Audioquest has a whole white paper on cable theory and how all this is supposed to work. After having had many Audioquest and Kimber speaker cables that use few to many large solid conductors, I found a simple, inexpensive PCOCC stranded cable sounds infinitely better to my ears.
How much of a 18 gauge wire is wasted at 20kHz?Another way to ask the question is, what is the skin depth at 20kHz?
Thanks, Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 12/10/11 12/10/11
.
Solid core cannot carry the same current as the same diameter stranded cable.
You could even perform an experiment to see yourself.
The surface area of a stranded cable is much larger the the same diameter solid core.
A stranded cable with more smaller strands will carry more current then the same diameter stranded cable with fewer larger strands.
I think it get's muddy when we gain electrical knowledge from an audio site.
UFO,
I found this on the wiki site, and it seems to contradict what you are saying:
At high frequencies, current travels near the surface of the wire because of the skin effect, resulting in increased power loss in the wire. Stranded wire might seem to reduce this effect, since the total surface area of the strands is greater than the surface area of the equivalent solid wire, but ordinary stranded wire does not reduce the skin effect because all the strands are short-circuited together and behave as a single conductor. A stranded wire will have higher resistance than a solid wire of the same diameter because the cross-section of the stranded wire is not all copper, there are unavoidable gaps between the strands (this is the circle packing problem for circles within a circle). A stranded wire with the same cross-section of conductor as a solid wire is said to have the same equivalent gauge and is always a larger diameter.
See the full link below. Is this site in error, and where are you citing the opposite from?
No one here remembers the bending of our minds
It sounds as if Wiki are saying that the actual diameter would be slightly larger for a given wire gauge in a stranded cable than for a single piece of solid core wire of the same gauge. I believe what UFO is saying is that for two wires of the same gauge (not the same diameter), one solid and one stranded, the stranded wire can carry more current.
The linked website has some interesting articles on cables, some of which I have read over the years in posts and articles by electrical engineers and designers, not much of which I have read in articles by cable manufacturers.
Hi Mitch,
This just sounds like semantics. If I read you right two cables of the same diameter whether solid or stranded will carry the same current??
Audioholics????
You have got to be kidding right. This is some kind of joke.
They are so clueless that they say all powercords sound the same because they are not in the signal chain, and go on to talk about resistance and proper gauge.
Certainly there is no point in arguing that audioholics is of the "all cables sound the same" school.
No one here remembers the bending of our minds
The Audioholics articles do indeed express that issues presented as "significant" by some cable manufacturers, such as skin effect, strand jumping, dielectric absorption, break-in and cable resonance, are negligible to non-existent at audio frequencies. They provide support for their beliefs using models based on principals of electronics and physics. They believe there are benefits to having sufficiently low resistance in speaker and power cables, twisting and shielding to reduce RFI, low capacitance interconnects, and solid terminations. Calling these articles a "joke" IMO is unfounded based on the analytical support they provide, relative to the absence of support provided for the claims made in the marketing literature of some manufacturers.
I do believe that I hear sonic differences between cables, but I am also open-minded that the reasons for those differences may be different than some of the over hyped reasons provided in the marketplace. It is also my experience that the differences I do hear are nowhere close to those resulting from a component change.
Hi Mitch,
That link IS a joke. Especially in context of this thread. I putzed around there and read a bunch of stuff. Almost all of it pointed to zipcord and 10g wire. No where did I see any mention that would help this op, namely why solid over stranded. Please point me to a link I might have missed.
Also they would never use any thin wire (they say that is just silly). Yet if memory serves this poster went from some thick cable to 22g solidcore and is now wondering why solid core sounds better? Audioholics certainly doesnt have any answers on that one that I can see. It is all 12g zipcord and a holier than thou attitude.
And forget about power cords those cant affect the sound according to their analysis. You really think that is true??
No one here remembers the bending of our minds
Well there may very well be a sonic difference.Not to muddy the waters.....If one would use the analogy of water flowing through pipes, which is used to some extent in electronics. One might see the fidelic advantage of "water" flowing through a single, suitably sized conduit pipe or wire rather then multiple smaller pipes of equal total diameter.
This might also explain the need for them to use a larger stranded gauge to overcome the "negative" effects they are creating/claiming? Something to ponder.
Edits: 12/15/11
Thats just it UFO.
That water and the pipe analogy doesnt seem to work.
For instance I replaced some Kimber Kables with a 28g strand of solid core and the resistance was much higher (smaller pipe in the analogy) yet the sound was much better. This isnt an isolated thing. Many inmates have heard improvements with thin solidcore over bigger stranded cables.
This flies in the face of what audioholics says, and most engineers.
And I am a bit more scientific than you think I am I bet. I once made some speaker cables with 28g magnet wire. I thought perhaps I was off on the gauge and perhaps what was more important is using solid core. I bought into the lower resistance argument and tried adding a 12g THHN wire for the one of the conductors. 28g for one and 12g for the other.
It was dramatic. I couldnt believe how bad it sounded.
All I know is that the propeller heads say the math points to 12g stranded cable and that a 28g solid core wire should not sound good, yet my ears hear it just the opposite, and I am not alone on this. It has to be more than what the theories say, or that they just dont fit.
Here is one recent post out of several from inmates who have tried magwire.
No one here remembers the bending of our minds
I might not have expressed myself properly, sounds like we agree.
OK, I really must have misread your post.
Well I guess we agree.
Though dont ask me WHAT we agree on :)
No one here remembers the bending of our minds
I don't know about all the solid vs. stranded cable differences but I do know that DR got me to go with the small gauge solid mag wire stuff ,then I went with 22ga solid silver and they probably will stay in my system for many years to come. Now I have to get the new MMG's and do the DR razor as a starting point.
Hey IE,
Did you ever try anything thinner than 22g?
Anyhow enjoy your razor time, it will be well worth the work.
I'll have to see about some silver for my system. Though it is very pricey I think given the design I want to do. Maybe a hybrid cable is in order.
No one here remembers the bending of our minds
.
----------
Tin-eared audiofool, former fotografer, and terrible competitive-pistol shootist.
"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted." Albert Einstein.
Theories abound, but linked below is a top cable from a top manufacturer and it sounds great. Each leg uses 6 bundles of 20 strands each of 0.18mm diameter (or 33awg) PCOCC wire for a posted aggregate size of 12awg per leg (actually just less than 12awg).
I have had other cables that also sounded very good to me including Harmonic Tech Pro 9+ SE (individually insulated solid strands in 20,22 and 24awg) and Cardas Golden Cross (enameled litz wire in Golden Section), to name two. Therefore, I am unable to offer a conclusion to your question. I will say IMO, with wires of this quality, I would rather invest my money in improving electronics and speakers.
•FURUTECH FS-ALPHA Speaker Cable (Open in New Window)
The thing that bothers me the most about stranded cable is the idea that the signal must jump between strands countless times while traveling "through" the cable. The signal doesn't see the strands as individual, and follows the path of least resistance, so the entire bundle is "seen" as one strand.
It is my opinion that the only advantage of stranded cable is flexibility.
Best regards,
Waxxy.
Thanks for the reply Waxxy,
I haven't actually take out an OHM meter yet to verify this but I understand the resistance of Stranded wire is less than that of Sold wire.
And we all know the definition of resistance in an electrical circuit is "the opposition of the flow of current." So it would seem to me that Stranded wire would present LESS of an opposition to the electrons moving through the cable, making it easier to travel through the cable.
This is pretty much what I am trying to reconcile. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Alan
Yikes. My humblest apologies. I didn't know you would try to FIGURE OUT why magwire sounds so good! It IS counter-intuitive, but it works and there are many inmates that use it and once you do it is hard to let go. There is a cleanliness in the sound that other wire doesnt quite capture.
I am not sure stranded wire is less resistant, and actually I think the same gauge should have the same resistance regardless of its construction.
My 2 cents is that the strand jumping is not a good thing and not having to do that can make a difference in the sound. Another thing is that the insulation on magwire is really thin and usually good so that helps a bunch.
Thin gauge is also a win in terms of smearing, and IMHO current is overrated. On maggies one would think that some high resistance wire like 28g would mess with damping factor and muck up the bass. It is not the case, bass articulation increases and this flys in the face of 2 accepted audiophile notions...namely that damping factor is important and in indicator of bass control, and that maggies need current. My listening and others challenges these notions and I am comfortable saying that they are just not true. Also that the idea about thick gauge wire smearing the bass does appear to be true in my system.
Oh and ask yourself what gauge you think the voice coil is in your speakers. How does all the current in a fat 12g wire make it through that?
Another thing is that magwire is designed for certain applications like transformers and perhaps those characteristics are well suited to audio applications.
And do keep in mind that there are a bunch of factors in cables. Strand v. solidcore is just one of many things....
No one here remembers the bending of our minds
Hi,
Thanks every one for their input so far. I still have not had a chance to measure for myself but will do it tonight. I'll use both my Fluke 111 digital meter and my Simpson 260XL analog meter as I think the Analog meter is more sensitive at lo resistance. however further research indicates the difference in resistance is negligible and should not be a factor.
So the question remains, if both type of cable present the same resistance to the flow of current why is solid better, technically I mean?
Alan
There are a multiplicity of theories in wire design. There's no way anyone can cover all the theories floating about.
As previously stated, one is that the fewer strands the less chance of signal jumping between conductors and thus you achieve better phase coherency. Signal jumping can be eliminated in stranded designs by using litz wire, where each strand is individually insulated, usually by using a lacquered or polyurethane type finish.
Some use the theory that the conductor forms a waveguide and the cross sectional dimension(s) determine the optimum frequency. Kimber, for example, makes an oval cross sectional wire and manufacturers like Nordost make a ribbon design with rectangular cross sections simulating the waveguides seen in military communications.
And then, of course, there are practical considerations. You want some flexibility for ease of handling and you do want a smaller mass to lower costs and to also make a length of cable look more presentable in a normal home.
Stu
Hi, I know nothing about physics, etc., but recently (thanks to you'all at this forum) bought a pair of Morrow audio speaker cables. I'm very happy with them as they are much more detailed and involving than the cables they replaced. He has info at the Morrow website which promotes the use of solid wire, so, compared to what I was using, I'm a believer. I was also impressed with Morrow's plain packaging--no fancy boxes, just the cable.
I'm not affiliated, just a happy customer.
Stranded wire has benifits in carrying DC farther with less voltage drop then solid core.
A/C overcomes these problems, thats why we use it in the power "grid"-A/C can travel hundreds of miles on thin cable.
A D/C grid would need a "booster" power plant every couple of blocks and need huge cables.
Stranded wire can carry much more current then the same diameter solid wire due having a much larger surface area.
Is this needed for speakers? No.
Example: feeding a car amp with 12DC needs a fat stranded cable. Flexibility is a nice side effect.
Look at it this way, the 14awg solid core wire in your house can deliver 3600watts for hundreds of feet without breaking a sweat, there is no reason to think you "need" stranded wire for your speakers.
Also note that ALL of the power for your amp runs through a very thin solid strand in your fuse with no problems.
If one sounds better then the other to you, go for it.
solid core and stranded wire of the same gauge present the identical cross sectional area to electrical signal. There is no electrical difference between solid core and stranded in that respect.
The difference in voltage transmission between DC and AC is a completely unrelated factor ( at least in terms of resistance). AC can be pumped at much longer distances but with extremely high voltages and still be down converting with a transformer present a decent amperage. DC simply drops with the increased length due to the internal wire resistance. However, remember AC voltage is akin to a push-pull situation where input voltage "pushes" electrons down the conductor creating a pressure at the output end.
The push pull nature makes it more efficient at transmitting voltages over a long distance. DC is like pouring water down a hose; you can see the effects even with a garden hose as the pressure drops over distance.
Stu
To be perfectly honest, my opinion is based more around ideas I have floating around in my head, than any actual electrical rules. For example...I work in the telecom industry, and when using copper data cabling, solid core cable is preferred over distance rather than stranded, which is normaly only used for patching due to its flexibility.
In my audio system, I have tried to eliminate as many breaks in the signal chain as possible under the assumption that fewer is better. The idea of my precious delicate music signal jumping from strand to strand thousands of times just seems plain wrong to me. Just one audio dork's opinion.
Best regards,
Waxxy
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