| Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
July 12, 2007 - 3:01am
#1
Single strand cables
| Loudspeakers Amplification Digital Sources | |
Analog Sources Accessories Featured | |
Music Columns Retired Columns | |
Show Reports | |
Features Latest News Community | |
Resources Subscriptions |
© 2024 StereophileAVTech Media Americas Inc., USA
All rights reserved
Hello DUP,Based on my reading of your other posts,I was not at all surprised at the negative slant of your opinion about using 30g wire for ICs and speaker cable.I will make the assumption that you have'nt tried or even heard said cables.I have been using ICs for app. 18 months and speaker runs for app.15 months. My system is used on a daily basis and left on for days on end when I'm running in a new component etc..Not the slightest hint of heat, just clear, lifelike music.
Michael...
Do you know the current ampactiy of a 30 AWG strand? I also don't try a lot of things...cus' I do just KNOW it doesn't work, nor will it be any benefit. Did you know if you mix water with gasoline it will increase teh octane ratings...try it. Add water to your gas tank, if it doesn't work, well at least you tried, right? I mean that's all that matters right? If your car doesn't run at all, oh well..how else would you know if you didn't try, right? I've also been told that if I jump off a bridge it can hurt, now i haven't done it, but I'll take the word of others that it does hurt and can be bad. Should I try it just to say at least i tried? Negative slant or just logic that says it's not worth the time to do? What won't an audiophile not beleive? If your "opinion" is correct, think of all the wire that can be saved using 30 ga instead of 10-12 for speakers, that need some current capacity. Why fuse my amp speaker's output for 5A-8A if the speaker wire will melt before the fuse? Is there ANYTHING an audiophiles doesn't beleive?
Your amplifier has an eight amp rail fuse? If not, that's the dumbest example of why not to try something so far today.
Come on, dup. You know it's amps over volts. Eight amps will fry 30 A.W.G. wire at 120 Volts. But, if you're thinking your amplifier is producing eight amps of current to your speakers at 120 Volts, then that's the second dumbest idea of the day.
Acutally the line fuse is 15A on the 120VAC in. the 4 internal fuses for the dc supplies to the amp ckts are 10A. ea Each speaker out side has fuses of from 5-8A of course the speaker out is not 120V you dope....Gee, teach me something already. 4ohm speakers that drop to around 3 ohms suck some current every so often, I've popped speakers fues of 5A many times, that's why they are now 8A. anything above that would probably offer no speaker protection. Why is some design expert trying to convince me 30ga wire works on the speaker side?
Why don't you stop with the "you dope" stuff. I'm in no mood to deal with your insults. Either respect other people and other people's opinions or get the hell off the thread where we're trying to discuss an idea. Go post a link to some article that has nothing to do with anything. You are not going to bully your way through this one.
I know what the line fuse is on the incoming AC line, "you dope". That has nothing to do with anything we are discussing here so stop with the patronizing BS. Your evidence is all obfuscation. My refrigerator runs off the same AC line from the pole, so should I fuse my amps to draw the same current as the fridge? No. Say something that means something or say nothing at all.
If you are consistently blowing 5 Amp fuses and you decide the best way to remedy the situation is to replace them with 8 Amp fuses, I don't think you have much room to call anyone else dumb. What size fire extinguisher do you keep in the house in case the air conditioner bursts into flame from your "fix" to its blowing fuses?
A fuse is not a copper wire. Is it? It's a fuseable material. So what's your point with fuses other than you have a crappy systenm if you keep blowing fuses?
If you think we are listening through melted speaker cables, then you've just managed to top the previous dumbest idea of the day. We have first hand reports from three people who use 30 A.W.G. cable to their speakers, one with a 375 watt amplifier, and it hasn't melted in any of the systems. Not even warm after a period of use. The amps aren't even warm. How come? We listen loud, though probably not dup-stupid loud. I've actually never blown a speaker fuse and I'm kind of proud of being smart enough to know when to turn it down, unlike someone else on the forum.
At the voltages your amplifier is delivering to your speakers, what guage of copper cable would be sufficient to pass the five amps of current into an eight Ohm load? Certainly not 10 A.W.G. Not even 16 A.W.G. So why use such heavy guage cable? What's the advantage? None! You just spent more money than you needed to. But you want me to believe you hear an improvement by hanging more copper off the back of your amplifier than you could ever require to do the job. Who's stupid with that idea?
You've bought into something that is audiophile snake oil, dup. Is there anything you won't buy into? There is no technical reason to have thick cables as speaker wire. If you're using heavier than 22 A.W.G., explain to me the electrical advantage to such cable guage at the amperage and voltages being handled into the speaker load present. Gee, teach me something already. Surely it can't be to lower the output impedance of your amplifier. So what's the technical reason for the guage of speaker cable you use, dup?
Have you ever MEASURED the current on speakers playing LOUD at around 105dB? There is nothing DEFECTIVE. If there was, the 8A would also pop. Did you ever pop a ckt breaker by turning on one too many things on the same ckt? Duh, that's why the lines are protected!!! For some reason, even the manufacture details the different size fuses used under certain conditions!!! Anywhere from 2A-10A is possible!!! The max size fuse for full power TESTS is 10A speaker fuse, this of course doesn't protect any speaker at all. When a 4 OHM speaker wants current to drive to realistic levels, it gets the current from the amp. 8A allows the amplifier to deliver what's needed...the 5A would, every once in a while during extremely deeeeeeeeeep bass while CRANKIN would pop. That's not a defect, that's it's PURPOSE!!!! Ain't popped an 8A ever, that means it's not defective. Basic electrical stuff. When I pop 60A ckt breakers on the equipment I work on, and it pops each time I energize part of the system, that says, yes, there is something DEFECTIVE. I learned that.....long time ago. I must be SMART. People pay me to know that stuff. Where we wire, there's fire. 30ga speaker wire, that's a HOOT.!!!!!!
Checkout the fusing on some pro amps, etc. Matter o fact they need so much power they are usually on 208-220 supplys for the in house systems at large venues. This isn't your father's 20W Philco.
Speakers are 4 Ohm, dip below that. The DC resistance of the speaker wire could possibly maybe have an effect on damping factor and effect overall CONTROL of the drivers, and can have an effect on the impedance teh amp sees. How audible, probably slighly negligable. Didn't say I continually pop 5 A fuses, occasionally when deeeeeeeep loud bass is present. 8A is the correct size for the current needed. If you plug a heavy motor into a 15A ckt and it pops teh breaker on turn on, does it mean teh motor is defective, no if you read the lable on teh motor, you would find it needs a bigger breaker to drive it. If you plug it into a 20A ckt and it runs, what does that prove, that teh 15A was undersized for what the motor needed. Same with driving speakers. If you have a 375W amplifier and it's not even warm, it must be off. Or did you find the 100% efficeint power supplies? No loss, no heat, impossible. Being fan cooled my amps gets warm, not hot like some recently tested device in teh mag which was HOT to teh tocuh, that's the otehr extreme, mine get very warm air blowing out of them, certainly not hot, great room heaters, too bad it's 90 outside and I don't need the heat. Gotta come up with a water cooled heat sink liek on some stuff I work on, then ya need a chiller, then more wasted energy...audio grade chiller of course..
dup, you go on and on and on about things that don't have anything to do with what you're being asked. This is your typical BS. You don't come here to discuss, you come to berate others. First the wire's too thick, then the wire's too thin. Either we spend too much or we spend too little according to dup. Anything that isn't what dup sees as correct gets an insult.
I've got better things to do than waste my time with you. Like I said, if you think we're listening to our systems with melted speaker wires, you're the dope. If you think replacing a blown fuse with a higher amperage is smart, you're dangerous and you shouldn't be paid to touch anything electrical. If you can't answer why you need more than 30 A.W.G. cable to handle the amperage and voltage a consumer audio amplifier produces into an 8 Ohm load, you've once again proven your worth to the forum.
No, eight feet of this cable isn't going to change the damping factor or the impedance the amp sees. Not even a good guess, dup. But how much do you think 8' of your 10 guage cable changes the impedance the amplifier sees? About the same as the 30 A.W.G. At that length there's no significant difference. You just believe the snake oil the cable companies want to sell you when you buy more copper than you need. And, guess what, my cable has lower inductance and capacitance than yours. What's more important, a milliOhm of Dc resistance in an AC circuit or a bunch of capacitance and inductance? Looks like you loose.
I'm not going to go around in circles with you. Believe what you want to believe, you never change an opinion, just the insults you throw. Why don't you move on to another thread, dup, where you can do more harm?
Hello all, I could accept that a confirmed skeptic like DUP would'nt believe that 30G speaker wire could sound "better" than macho python cable - but - he's convinced that it can't possibly work??? So the Beethoven soundwaves that I'm listening to at the moment are a figment of my imagination? At present powered by a Trends TA10 running off a 12V sealed Lead/Acid battery?
Reminds me of a caption I recently saw on the net
NO TRESPASSING
Beyond This Point
Lies My Existing Beliefs!
PS: For Jan : I checked the continuity of my CD player as you recommended,and got a reading of .2 when one probe was on outside of RCA jack and the other touching any of the screw heads securing through the rear plate of CDP - does this also confirm Chassis ground?
Thanks Michael..
Wires too thick, wires too thin....exactly. That's why ya use the correct wire guage for the purpose. Ever wonder why they make different guages, is you house wired with all teh same guage, do you have different ckt breakers at different ratings? Ya don't use 30 ga wire for speaker wire, and ya don't use 10 ga wire to power a CD player. holy moly. Ya don't use phono cartridge guage wire to run a speaker, and ya don't use 10 gauge capable of 30A ampactiy to power a device that uses .5 A Electrical wiring is NOT subjective. What else do you do just because someone says to? Is there anything an audiophile won't beleive? If the 8 feet of ultra thin wire doesn't screw up the damping factor, then why bother changing it at all with magic wire that is sometimes extremely thick, and for other listeners ultra thin. How can wire that is at both extremes be somehow logical and correct? Speakers need the guage correct for the length, and current. Any speaker recomendations ALWAYS recomend the size based on length, and speaker ratings. But that too has been washed into the land of insanity. 30ga speaker wire, you gots to be kidding. I'll try it, which end will burn first, speaker end of amp end. How can 2 people get two exact opposite results? Don't be starting with that subjective synergy, blah blah blah. some things are stuck in reality. Wire guages, current capacity (ampacity), damping factor etc. Is there anything an audiophile won't beleive?
30 ga speaker wire only works in Bizzaro world, where everything is backwards. Why would replacing a 5A speaker fuse with an 8A one be wrong, when the mfg, says this is what to do? Holy Moly. Each of my amps can do about 1200-1400W RMS into 4 Ohms. That would seem to be using some current every once in a while. I can guarnatee, I can MELT 30 gauge wire...keep experimenting with audio absurditys. Rewrite basic rules on electrical stuff. You seem to think capacitance and inductance matter so much in audio range, when in fact more so teh DC resistance plays more into haw the amps functions, in the real world. In bizzaro world, might be different. Is there anything an audiophile won't beleive?
Hello DUP, I don't know why these 30g cables work or sound as they do, but after 15 months of continuous use with 4 different amps(none of which have suffered any damage) I can only trust my own hearing- which tells me that they do sound "better" in every area than the huge Monster cable they replaced.Try them yourself or not -I know what I hear.
P.S. for Jan,yes, thank you -touching the MM probes together gives exactly same reading-I intend to try asap-Why bother with a complete RCA plug-will try the single strand lightly soldered to just the centre pin which has been removed from the plug-better still ,may get a machinist mate to turn down some 10mm solid copper rod that I have lying around !
Michael...