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In Reply to: Mr. Risch, a question on speaker cable resistance. posted by Mantaray on August 04, 2001 at 10:33:44:
I have a 300B PSE amplifier. I require a 15 ft run. I have tried several combinations of Cat 5 braids. Four pairs, (3 for bass 1 for mid/tweeter), twelve pairs (9 bass, 3 mid/tweeter) and 24 paris (17 bass, 7 mid/tweeter). The four pair combination sounded very thin but detailed and clean, with tremendous instrumental separation but limited dynamics. The twelve pair sounded more full, with better tonal colours and richness, with improved soundstaging and dynamics but lacked ultimate bass definition. The 24 pair sounded congested with no dynamics, destroyed the sound staging and had a tendency to clip. I have presently settled on very thin copper magnet wire for the bass (gorgeous slam and bass definition and texture) with a 7 pair braid (two 3 pair braids bound by a one pair). This has enormous "attack" and is the best combination so far, but I am going to thin down the 7 pair to a 3 or 4 pair braid because the mid and treble are a little too emphatic.Now this goes against much of the a priori discussion on this forum but in my system using my ears it works.
Follow Ups:
that your system was sensitive to different ga. of Cat5 per section. Especially when bi or tri-wiring, it is imperitive to find the right combination of pairs for each section. Over-gauging or under-gauging does make a big difference. That's what is so cool about the Cat5 cable- you can "dial-in" until you get the best sound. The magnet wire on the bass baffles me, though..... but you hear what you hear :-) Enjoy.
If he is using thin magnet wire on his woofer input, I would think there would be too much resistance in the wire over a long length. Even speaker wire must obey Ohms law and it seems to me this would be like adding a resistor inline. I would believe the woofers draw enough wattage where extremely thin wire, 14 ft long, would cause a problem, unless the speakers were already bass biased.
I have to say, this is not a conventional configuration. What I understand is that your low end improved when you went to extremely small wire? I may have to experiment with this some. Perhaps making up a three pair cable and bi-wiring it with a 9 pair. Then I can swap the two in high/low positions and see what the effect is. Actually the single 9 pair sounds great but this hobby is like golf, until someone shoots a round of 18 no golfer will ever be happy. We audiophiles don't even have a definative ultimate goal to shoot for! Thanks very much for the input.
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