New Altec speaker boxes Part 2

[jmarkwart]

Jim,

I believe you are referencing interconnects and speaker cables - not exactly the kind of thing you wire up the insides of your boxes with. Check under chassis wire on the next page of Michael's Online Catalog PDF and you should find the 18 ga. CCC wire for $1 a foot that I mentioned. See if you can get a roll of it for less, although with the recent rise in the price of copper that might not be possible.

Jeff

[bigjunglejim]

Hi Jeff
OOPs, my mistake. Do you think the 14 or 12 gauge wire would be better? That may raise the price of my cabinets but, only a few dollars per box.

I plan to use the plate shown below (it has ribs to add stiffness) and have the second pair of 5 way binding posts pre-wired so anyone wanting to bi amp wouldn't have to go looking for good wires. I have thought about removing the jumpers on the plate but then I though I might leave them so people could piggyback another speaker right off the back of each cabinet if they're not bi amping the system. I would imagine anyone bi amping would have enough common sense to remove the jumpers. What do you think?


V a m p i r e Cast Copper Wire: Extremely high purity (exceeding 6/9) copper wire, cast as opposed to drawn, single crystal (125 meters per crystal) copper.
20ga stranded (41 strands x 0.13mm) with polyethylene insulation @$1.50 per foot, available in clear or red insulation
1 8 g a (43 strands of three gauges)@$1.00 foot 14ga (96 strands 36ga @$1.25 foot 12ga stranded (420 x 38ga) @$1.50 foot - all 500VAC PVC jacket? black or red
Single strand clear polyurethane coated cast copper ?magnet wire? 50' minimum order per gauge: 26.5gauge ($.25 foot), 21gauge ($.35 per foot), 20gauge ($.50 per foot)

[selmerdave]

Why go as large as 14 or 12 ga? I would think something closer to the 18ga that Jeff mentioned would be better. Heck, I use 24ga.

Dave

[bigjunglejim]

Hi Dave.
Did you ever see the TV program with Tim The Tool Man Taylor. His montra was "MORE POWER". I think like that. I tend to go overboard in what I do. That's why have a garage full of sound equipment I'm not using. Anyway, if I used the larger wire, no one could say I skimped on the project and anyone buying one of these puppies should be a happy camper. As alway, I'm open to opinions. By the way, I do realize these are short run wires feeding voice coils that are made of very thin wire. Perhaps I should use 4 gauge. Just kidding...... Hold the phone... that may not be a bad idea. LOL {I know a shrink, perhaps I aught to give her a call}

[jmarkwart]

Jim,

12 or 14 ga. is a bit on the impractical side for a few reasons:

A significant loss of flexibility compared to the 18 ga. makes it a chore to work with;
Diameter that's too large to fit through the eyes of most Hi Fi wire terminations;
Diameter that's too large to fit through the thumb-screw type terminal on older Altec copmpression drivers;
So much solder heat required to heat the wire that it may melt the plastic of termination cups via conduction through the wire terminal;
Doubtful audible benefit.

Jeff

[bigjunglejim]

Jeff... good input, thanks.

[selmerdave]

Jim,

I would think it would make more sense to go by sound, and bigger is not necessarily better. I have lots of different speaker wire and have tried many different things, and to me 14ga is about the worst of the lot. Bloated and undefined. As I mentioned for me my 24ga is the best, but that works partially because I'm only using a few watts of power. With it I get the cleanest, richest and most defined bass, smoothest highs and purest tone in the mids. IMO of course.

I'm not looking to start a thread about speaker wire, we need that like a hole in the head, but I just think it would be worth considering sound when figuring that stuff.

Dave

[Old Guy]

If you look at a resistance table for wire, it takes a pretty long run for the difference between 18 and 14 to become signifigant.

As far as the rest I consider it personal. Cast is not inherently any more pure than drawn. From a physics standpoint, most claims for wire make no sense at all. If you hear something you like, you are welcome to use it.

Good quality copper wire is 999 fine- same as the gold sold in London and Zurich. Oxygen free is a total BS claim- most quality wire as I said is .999 or better.

I don't have any argument with anyone who likes a specific wire. Use it, by all means. But the wire industry is worse than the patent medicine industry was.

This may well ignite a hornets nest. I don't mean to do that. But I can back up every claim I made here with real research, not subjective trials.

[bigjunglejim]

Old guy What would your recomendation be?

[selmerdave]

Originally posted by Old Guy:
From a physics standpoint, most claims for wire make no sense at all.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think from an audio standpoint, relying entirely on physics makes limited sense.

Good quality copper wire is 999 fine- same as the gold sold in London and Zurich. Oxygen free is a total BS claim- most quality wire as I said is .999 or better.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't know if this is a response to my post, but I don't think paying attention to wire differences necessitates subscription to industry marketing. None of my wire is worth more than $20, it's all DIY and none from an audio company. I've heard $800 speaker wire and it sounds better than a run of stock wire. Why, I don't know. It's not worth $800 to me and I certainly don't think it needs to cost that much for the same sonic benefit, so I don't buy it. I can come pretty close for $2.

But the wire industry is worse than the patent medicine industry was.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This really speaks for the audio industry in general.

But I can back up every claim I made here with real research, not subjective trials.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Old Guy I really like your posts, but looking above this can only be a dig at my "mere subjective trials". Hey, audio *is* a subjective thing, right? It is not a research project. I think research and physics are plenty important to audio, and necessary etc. and I *highly* value those with such knowledge, but there is a subjective side too and ultimately we are subjectively listening to music. So I don't know why it's necessary to put down someone's subjective opinion.

Dave