MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
G'day The other day, someone mentioned using mains cable as speaker cable, because its so damn cheap. Is anyone using this setup? I've heard things about the quality of interconnects between amp and CD/MD/other stuff making a difference to sound quality, and simliar things about speaker wire, and 99.9% oxygen free copper wire or some crap. There must be some truth in it, if people are willing to pay hundreds and hundreds of $ for a few metres of speaker wire.. Anyway, does anyone know if there'd be an appreciable difference between reasonably cheap but "thick" speaker wire from an audio shop and mains cable from a hardware shop? thanks, nick __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
Nick, I've heard things about the quality of interconnects between amp and CD/MD/other stuff making a difference to sound quality, and simliar things about speaker wire, and 99.9% oxygen free copper wire or some crap. There must be some truth in it, if people are willing to pay hundreds and hundreds of $ for a few metres of speaker wire.. Sorry, but how much people are willing to spend on a thing is not a reliable guide to its utility or quality, it's more related to the quality of the sales pitch... Paying lots of money for interconnects is the closest you're going to get to "money for old rope". You'll get far more benefit spending the money on some new music. simon - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
My nan used to use mains cable for an FM radio aerial. It worked really well until our cousin visited and saw a cable with no plug on it, so promptly put one on it and plugged it in BANG!!! No more HiFi. If you want to use mains cable as speaker cable can I suggest you label it clearly? :o) Magic -- "Creativity is more a birthright than an acquisition, and the power of sound is wisdom and understanding applied to the power of vibration." Location : Portsmouth, England, UK Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk EMail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: nick [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 9:14 AM Subject: MD: Mains cable as speaker cable G'day The other day, someone mentioned using mains cable as speaker cable, because its so damn cheap. Is anyone using this setup? I've heard things about the quality of interconnects between amp and CD/MD/other stuff making a difference to sound quality, and simliar things about speaker wire, and 99.9% oxygen free copper wire or some crap. There must be some truth in it, if people are willing to pay hundreds and hundreds of $ for a few metres of speaker wire.. Anyway, does anyone know if there'd be an appreciable difference between reasonably cheap but "thick" speaker wire from an audio shop and mains cable from a hardware shop? thanks, nick __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
Shawn wrote: As you may know from physics class, electronics travel along the outside diameter of each of the copper strands. As a result, finer copper strands means more strands fit into a given wire gauge diameter. That equals greater electron flow. The depth to which an AC current penetrates a conductor is inversely proportional to the frequency (called the skin effect). The skin depth at 20 KHz in copper is ~ 1mm, so it has a minute effect. Note that if the fine strands are close to each other, their magnetic fields will interact to some extent, which reduces any skin effect reducing advantage. remember seeing a magazine article quite some time ago where someone tested cheap 18-gauge mains cable against high-quality, oxygen free speaker cable. They used very expensive test equipment, and the result was that the difference was very miniscule and probably inaudible. I can't remember which magazine Douglas Self wrote an article about this in Electronics World a couple of years ago. He concluded that common multistranded 5A mains flex made an excellent speaker cable. simon - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
I wrote: Douglas Self wrote an article about this in Electronics World a couple of years ago. I have located the article in Electronics World Oct 1997. I can scan it if anyone emails me privately. simon - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: G'day The other day, someone mentioned using mains cable as speaker cable, because its so damn cheap. Is anyone using this setup? I've heard things about the quality of interconnects between amp and CD/MD/other stuff making a difference to sound quality, and simliar things about speaker wire, and 99.9% oxygen free copper wire or some crap. There must be some truth in it, if people are willing to pay hundreds and hundreds of $ for a few metres of speaker wire.. Anyway, does anyone know if there'd be an appreciable difference between reasonably cheap but "thick" speaker wire from an audio shop and mains cable from a hardware shop? thanks, nick Me and about any other sensible person that I know. Speaker-cable is based upon the fairytale that is called: 'People believe'. And one other `Quality costs money`. Ie, most people don't know anything about cable materials. So there are some manufacturers that play with that. Take standard mains cable and market it as special speaker wire. One thing is for sure here, a 2.5 mm2 mains cable will give 'better' sound than a 1.0 mm2 speaker cable (which cost probably the same as the 2.5mm2 mains). Cheers, Ralph - needing some oxygen. -- === Ralph SmeetsFunctional Verification Centre Of Competence - CMG Voice: (+33) (0)4 76 58 44 46 STMicroelectronics Fax:(+33) (0)4 76 58 40 11 5, chem de la Dhuy Mobile: (+33) (0)6 82 66 62 70 38240 MEYLAN E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] FRANCE === "For many years, mankind lived just like the animals. And then something happened that unleashed the powers of our imagination: We learned to talk." -- Stephen Hawking, later used by Pink Floyd -- === - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
MD: Fw: Mains cable as speaker cable For my $.02 I changed from box issue interconnects to low/mid price custom cables. The old guy who sold them to me said the improvements (which I am pretty sure I hear) were to do with shielding in the cable from other cables, the quality of the connection from the wire to the plug and the quality of the plug (for connection to the deck). Apart from that I got colour coded so it helps me understand what cable goes where Alex - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
I don't think it has ever been scientifically proven that any cable is better than another... The main thing is that if you think it has made an improvement then that's all that matters... Psychologically, the aim has been achieved. 25 years or so, back in the UK, the hi-fi 'golden ears' brigade discovered that solid core copper mains wiring that electricians use to wire up buildings with, was the 'perfect' speaker wire - many of them threw away their expensive speaker cables and replaced it with solid core mains cable... I'm not sure if this is still popular - I got pretty much sick and tired of the whole thing, along with green dye for the edges of CD's I know some hi-fi nuts that have gold plated mains plugs on their valve amps etc FWIW, I have some quite nice heavy duty multi-stranded copper speaker cables and I love the look of them - and I BELIEVE they make the sound better...:-) GB - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Mains cable as speaker cable
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not sure if this is still popular - I got pretty much sick and tired of the whole thing, along with green dye for the edges of CD's I know some hi-fi nuts that have gold plated mains plugs on their valve amps etc Hmm, There is something true in those plugs. Using gold-plated plugs with gold plated outs/in, is probably best. (Best contact. Best would be copper, (copper is a better conductor than gold.), but copper can't stand oxygen!). Using nickel-plated plugs with nickel outs/in is les, but still good. (Nickel is a worst conductor than gold) Using any combination of nickel plated with gold in/outs or visa versa will introduce troubles. Especially with your PC where gold plated DIMMs give problems with cheap nickel plated DIMM slots on the main-board. How this relates to audio/md, I don't know. All I know is that you get some strange physical effects using two metals pressed together (like gold with nickel). Is it hearable? I don't know, my MD-deck cost(ed) as much as my stereo, so it's not that high quality. Cheers, Ralph - who's working to hard.. grin -- === Ralph SmeetsFunctional Verification Centre Of Competence - CMG Voice: (+33) (0)4 76 58 44 46 STMicroelectronics Fax:(+33) (0)4 76 58 40 11 5, chem de la Dhuy Mobile: (+33) (0)6 82 66 62 70 38240 MEYLAN E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] FRANCE === "For many years, mankind lived just like the animals. And then something happened that unleashed the powers of our imagination: We learned to talk." -- Stephen Hawking, later used by Pink Floyd -- === - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: Mains cable as Speaker cable
The largest improvement, especially at low frequencies, come from low resistance. Since the speaker itself is only a few ohms, series resistance added by small gauge cable and normal connectors will quickly destroy the high damping factor of modern solid-state amplifiers. The PA rig I built several years ago used 12 AWG rubber covered mains cable with 277V twist-lock power connectors. (I chose 277V since that power voltage is used only for industrial lighting and is never present elsewhere so the speakers would not get plugged into the power mains by mistake, although the woofers would have withstood this, very loudly! :-) - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
