Enameled Magnet Wire as speaker cables/wires?

[celo]

Few years ago, I got some cheap 19awg magnet wires and doubled them to use as speaker cables, I guess around 16awg when doubled.

The highs were really weird (my speakers were 15 ohm, amp could go down to 4 ohm), I heard like ringing/metallic sound but it was very difficult to explain until I saw this guy's review on Amazon. He exactly explained what I had heard. At the time I immediately removed the cables thinking it would hurt something in my system. However, he says he kept using it and after few days the weirdness went away.

I quote him
"I did notice a slight characteristic noted by other people who have used magnet wire for speaker cable, a slight ringing, like the speakers were set in a metal drain pipe and turned up a bit too loud and the walls gave the sound a slight metallic echo. This has disappeared after a day or two of playing while i was at work."

Does anyone use magnet wire as their speaker wires? The reason why I bring this up because I want to try them again.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LV8Z4GU/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A2TLTYG8U2QKGY&th=1

 

[gamerpaddy]

did you remove the enamel before inserting them?

i know that "sound" from bad quality banana plugs
the springy part that rotates tends to have horrible contact resistance to the body of the plug
this causes that metallic sound, where highs start distorting and crackling in some notes.
i allways solder them tight then the issue goes away for good

there is no "Magnet wire" its just copper wire like the ones in any other cable out there, just coated in a insulating lacquer

 

[staticV3]

as long as you terminate the wire properly, burning or melting off the coating to ensure full contact to the speaker/amplifier terminals, magnet wire will perform identically to generic speaker wire.

 

[voodooless]

A cable can’t develop a metallic sound and then recover. That’s not how copper works.

And why would you do this to yourself anyway? They are a pita as speaker cables!

 

[celo]

did you remove the enamel before inserting them?

i know that "sound" from bad quality banana plugs
the springy part that rotates tends to have horrible contact resistance to the body of the plug
i allways solder them tight then the issue goes away for good

View attachment 508867


there is no "Magnet wire" its just copper wire like the ones in any other cable out there, just coated in a insulating lacquer

Yes, of course I removed the coating. Otherwise, I doubt I'd get any sound. It was easy to remove because it was a cheap wire but this guy I quoted says he spent two hours from start to finish to hook up everything.

 

[celo]

A cable can’t develop a metallic sound and then recover. That’s not how copper works.

And why would you do this to yourself anyway? They are a pita as speaker cables!

I have heard EXACTLY the same thing, so I am not imagining. Not to mention he says it is also heard by other people with magnet. Trust me I am not one of those people who believe cable makes a difference (most of the time but I know what I had heard.

 

[voodooless]

Trust me

This is AudioScienceReview, not AudioTrustMeReview...

 

[celo]

This is AudioScienceReview, not AudioTrustMeReview...

OK, you know better than me what I have heard.

 

[voodooless]

OK, you know better than me what I have heard.

That's not what it is about. It's about data vs anecdote. Had you recorded what was going on, we could have done some analysis and reached some meaningful conclusions. Now we only have "Trust me, bro...".

People claim all kinds of improvements with all kinds of wacky tweaks and equipment that could not possibly make any difference at all. They all say that they really heard it and are not imagining things... And yet...

 

[celo]

That's not what it is about. It's about data vs anecdote. Had you recorded what was going on, we could have done some analysis and reached some meaningful conclusions. Now we only have "Trust me, bro...".

People claim all kinds of improvements with all kinds of wacky tweaks and equipment that could not possibly make any difference at all. They all say that they really heard it and are not imagining things... And yet...

Few years ago, at an audio show I was in this room. The owner was demonstrating these little things. First, let me tell you the owner (forgot his name) is a sleek guy and looks like he sells you snake oil. I personally find him irritating. The room was full of people. Unless he was doing something else in the system, my wife and I were shocked to hear a difference. I am not saying these things made it worse or better but it was definitely different. I don't even know how they work and you could not convince me these dots would make a difference if I did not hear them with and without but I know what I heard.

https://www.synergisticresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HFT-Instructions.pdf

 

[voodooless]

Few years ago, at an audio show I was in this room. The owner was demonstrating these little things. First, let me tell you the owner (forgot his name) is a sleek guy and looks like he sells you snake oil. I personally find him irritating. The room was full of people. Unless he was doing something else in the system, my wife and I were shocked to hear a difference. I am not saying these things made it worse or better but it was definitely different. I don't even know how they work and you could not convince me these dots would make a difference if I did not hear them with and without but I know what I heard.

https://www.synergisticresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HFT-Instructions.pdf

I'm sure they would have been thrilled if you had offered them a before-and-after REW room measurement

... if a company cannot explain how things work, it probably doesn't work...

 

[somebodyelse]

i know that "sound" from bad quality banana plugs
the springy part that rotates tends to have horrible contact resistance to the body of the plug
this causes that metallic sound, where highs start distorting and crackling in some notes.
i allways solder them tight then the issue goes away for good

On the ones I've seen it's either poor manufacturing tolerances, or the people that copied the mechanism don't understand how it works. There the spring wraps around the rod the ends meet before it's tightened enough to make reliable contact with the rod down the middle. I suspect the spring's not beryllium copper as used in the quality versions of this style either.

 

[LTig]

Few years ago, at an audio show I was in this room. The owner was demonstrating these little things. First, let me tell you the owner (forgot his name) is a sleek guy and looks like he sells you snake oil. I personally find him irritating. The room was full of people. Unless he was doing something else in the system, my wife and I were shocked to hear a difference. I am not saying these things made it worse or better but it was definitely different. I don't even know how they work and you could not convince me these dots would make a difference if I did not hear them with and without but I know what I heard.

Bias works unconsciously. You cannot prevent it consciously. You certainly did experience those differences, yet they (usually) stem from other sources than your ears.

 

[tineared]

I crafted my own antenna for my stereo:

 

[celo]

Bias works unconsciously. You cannot prevent it consciously. You certainly did experience those differences, yet they stem from other sources than your ears.

But I did not believe, expect or want to hear a difference. I'd never want to buy something like that. I still wouldn't because I could not tell if it made it better or worse. It was just different.

 

[voodooless]

But I did not believe, expect or want to hear a difference. I'd never want to buy something like that. I still wouldn't because I could not tell if it made it better or worse. It was just different.

It really doesn’t matter what you think you believe. You don’t control your biases nearly as well as you.

If I would get a Euro for every time somebody posts: “but at first I didn’t believe”, or a variant on “I expected that it did nothing”… it’s probably the nr 1 thing on the subjectivist fallacy Bingo card

 

[Speedskater]

Magnet wire is made out of copper not a magnetic material. It is used to wind electro- magnetics.
As long as your cables have about the same cross section area (or end-to-end resistance) as commercial cables they will sound the same.

 

[Cbdb2]

Few years ago, at an audio show I was in this room. The owner was demonstrating these little things. First, let me tell you the owner (forgot his name) is a sleek guy and looks like he sells you snake oil. I personally find him irritating. The room was full of people. Unless he was doing something else in the system, my wife and I were shocked to hear a difference. I am not saying these things made it worse or better but it was definitely different. I don't even know how they work and you could not convince me these dots would make a difference if I did not hear them with and without but I know what I heard.

https://www.synergisticresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HFT-Instructions.pdf

Are you sure there was no sleight of hand, an accomplice switching in an EQ?

 

[MAB]

But I did not believe, expect or want to hear a difference. I'd never want to buy something like that. I still wouldn't because I could not tell if it made it better or worse. It was just different.

I may or may not believe in optical, audible, or other sensory illusions. But I am still at the mercy of my responses. Ears aren't useful for measuring differences, unless the comparison can be made in a few seconds or less.

You should try for yourself, but measure. The differences you describe are trivial to measure, even with a cheapo mic. Don't trust rando person, don't trust us, don't trust your ear since ears + people saying things like carnival barkers got us to this place of confusion.

 

[DSJR]

I remember one maker of lower cost speakers, hand wired the crossovers using small copper? nails as anchor points and these crossovers were formed on the base of the speakers. The coils were hand wound with the usual enamelled copper wire and the 'tails' left a foot or so long to go straight to the terminals on the one hand, and the drivers on the other. The damping foam was quite stiff as I remember and said wires were run successfully up the spine of the speakers without buzzing or vibration and another layer of said foam was placed on top of the crossover itself.

I'd suggest that wire like this is fine for very short runs inside a speaker enclosure, but using it in several metre runs to a speaker (a la DNM speaker cable and related Cyrus cable of old) adds hugely to the inline resistance and I can assure you from first hand experience, that the 'sound' as perceived will most definitely change (the whole 'solid-core-speaker-cable' nonsense in the 1990s in the UK was almost certainly the way the already compromised amps we favoured reacting and altering their response to the high-resistance loading they were faced with and 'tracking' the speaker impedance curve as a typical valve amp does!