Speaker cable question

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krozyck

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Hello fellow ML owners! My name is Ken and I'm a new member. Let me start off with what setup I've decided to get and I sure hope its the right one. I chose the Theos as the fronts, Motif for the center, ElectroMotion FX for the rears, and Dynamo 1000W as the sub. I'm waiting on the delivery until my receiver gets in which is a Yamaho RX-A3030. Let me know what you think and any changes cause I still have time before the delivery is made. The last thing I need to get is the speaker wire. Any ideas I can use? I'm thinking of getting 10 gauge from bluejeanscable.com but let me know if that's the right decision
 
For a type of cable, Blue Jeans is always at the sweet spot between price and performance. And while 12 or even 14AWG will most probably work just fine. If you get the 10AWG you will never have second thoughts that maybe you should have got the 10's.
 
Hola Krozyck and welcome. And, Speedskater is right. Blue Jeans is a great product. Also DHLabs. I am using the T-14 (Made in America) which it is made of a heavy silver plated over OFC. Martin Logan loves silver, and I think the product is a bargain. It is a high definition speaker cable. You can choose the termination that suits best for you and your speakers. You can read about them at www.silversonic.com
Happy listening!
 
Any ideas I can use? I'm thinking of getting 10 gauge from bluejeanscable.com but let me know if that's the right decision

For speaker wires, there is only one metric that matters, and that is resistance. You can easily look up on the internet how many milli-ohms per foot is the different gauges of wire. Silver coating or extra extra pure copper won't really improve this number. Esoteric wires that purposely mess up the capacitance or inductance are not recommended. All other factors are BS. You heard it here first, LOL.

The Blue Jean cables are ok, but they might be a bit on the stiff side. I bought this cable:

http://www.amazon.com/KnuKonceptz-K...=1396125214&sr=8-6&keywords=knukonceptz+cable

which is much more flexible than the Blue Jeans cable. (You can tell by the number of strands). (Also be sure to get cable that is copper and not some kind of coated aluminum.) Then I crimp and soldered on some Radio Shack gold plated lugs. Then I measured the cables at 18.5 milli-ohms for a 9 foot length (18 foot out and back), which is pretty much what is expected, if you don't screw up the crimping and soldering.

A very long article with some guidelines written by a former McIntosh engineer:
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
 
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As above, for longer cables (10 foot) the number one metric is the end to end resistance of the shield/return. Not that the average bear has a meter that can make this measurement. It takes an expensive 4 terminal low-ohm meter. But the resistance of the center conductor matters not.
 
Anybody who wishes to verify their speaker wire resistance can use a battery, power resistor, and a $7 multimeter from Harbor Freight.

What is special about the shield / return vs the center conductor?
 
Anybody who wishes to verify their speaker wire resistance can use a battery, power resistor, and a $7 multimeter from Harbor Freight.

Let's see, 12AWG wire is about 0.0017 Ohms per foot. Our average bear will have trouble measuring that with a $7 multimeter. (Not that it can't be done, but it's not easy)

What is special about the shield / return vs the center conductor?

Bruno Putzeys, Bill Whitlock, Henry W. Ott and others write about this.
Let's start with Henry W. Ott:

Balanced vs. Unbalanced Audio System Interconnections (pdf file)

http://www.hottconsultants.com/pdf_files/Audio Interconnections.pdf

http://www.hottconsultants.com/tips.html
 
Let's see, 12AWG wire is about 0.0017 Ohms per foot. Our average bear will have trouble measuring that with a $7 multimeter. (Not that it can't be done, but it's not easy)
It's super easy. A $7 Harbor Freight meter measures tenths of a mV. Use a battery and resistor to put one amp thru the speaker wires. Each milli volt measured across the wires is equivalent to one milli ohm. Single milli ohm piece of cake.

Bruno Putzeys, Bill Whitlock, Henry W. Ott and others write about this.
Let's start with Henry W. Ott:

Balanced vs. Unbalanced Audio System Interconnections (pdf file)

http://www.hottconsultants.com/pdf_files/Audio Interconnections.pdf

http://www.hottconsultants.com/tips.html

But we are talking about speaker wires here.
 
For speaker wires, there is only one metric that matters, and that is resistance.

Absent the obvious measurements, how about using your ears as the final arbiter? That would seem, to me, to be the conclusive, appropriate metric.
 
Absent the obvious measurements, how about using your ears as the final arbiter? That would seem, to me, to be the conclusive, appropriate metric.

Ears are subject to all kinds of expectation biases, fatigue, acclimatization, powers of suggestion, wishful thinking, placebo effect, etc. So therefore I only put on my Golden Ears when I suspect that something can make a measurable difference.
 
Suffice to say I totally disagree. But that's fine.

This discussion is older than dirt.

GG
 
Ears are subject to all kinds of expectation biases, fatigue, acclimatization, powers of suggestion, wishful thinking, placebo effect, etc. So therefore I only put on my Golden Ears when I suspect that something can make a measurable difference.

That makes it very easy and inexpensive. Just decide ahead of time you will like lamp cord.
 
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Ears are subject to all kinds of expectation biases, fatigue, acclimatization, powers of suggestion, wishful thinking, placebo effect, etc. So therefore I only put on my Golden Ears when I suspect that something can make a measurable difference.

Respectively disagree, but to each their own. I've heard notable differences in an assortment of cable; some made by me, some made by others. Right now I'm trying out Anti-Cables. They sound different. My ears work fairly well.lol.
 
This was my first post as a new member and let me say it was an interesting one. Sort of got off track but that's ok. Back to speaker wire, I've decided that 10AWG would just be an overkill. Do you have a preference over bananas or spades or plain wired? The guy at bluejeanscable installs all of there systems plain wired and told me that's the best. I have my questions about that.
 
Ears are subject to all kinds of expectation biases, fatigue, acclimatization, powers of suggestion, wishful thinking, placebo effect, etc.

'beans' your above statement I agree with 100%………. and with that being said I also believe in solid engineering fundamentals as it relates to cable construction with respect to resistance, capacitance and inductance.
 
Ears are subject to all kinds of expectation biases, fatigue, acclimatization, powers of suggestion, wishful thinking, placebo effect, etc. So therefore I only put on my Golden Ears when I suspect that something can make a measurable difference.

Actually, ears aren't subject to any of these things; brains are. So if you have convinced yourself that you can't possibly hear a difference if you can't correlate it to a known and measurable variable, then I assure you that you won't hear that difference, even when it actually exists. When it comes to judging qualitative differences in sound, our ears are still the most accurate measuring tool we have.
 

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