Internal speaker wires

[Rick Sykora]

Thanks ctrl for this teaching.
As a matter of fact, in my DIY building with the Markaudio chn110 I use 1,5 mm copper cable both inside the speaker and also between the speaker and the amplifier. 1.5 mm is about the right size where you still can solder the wire to the drivers and connectors without any problems.

As I wrote earlier, the weakest point on an electrical view is probably the connectors - I can recommend soldering, and the solid banana connectors from Deltron and stäubli . You drill two holes in the loudspeakercabinet, put some wooden glue around the contacts and use a hammer. Not expensive and a very good connection.

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Edit: I wouldnt buy ( to sleep good at night ) ultra cheap cables where they mix aluminium wires with copper

Those look a lot like GR’s tube connectors but they are about $2 for a mating pair rather than $15.

 

[Tangband]

Those look a lot like GR’s tube connectors but they are about $2 for a mating pair rather than $15.

Thats correct.
In my opinion, these are a better technical solution than cutting a big hole in the box for the usual plastic loudspeaker terminal. Its also very easy to drill two small holes for those.

 

[mhardy6647]

Don't know what jack pads are.

The amps are on stands of some sort.

Wait, what? Jack stands for hifi?! Is THAT the secret to get one's spouse out of the kitchen and drop all of the veils?!?

Amplifier foundations sounds like underwear for amplifiers.

 

[fpitas]

Wait, what? Jack stands for hifi?! Is THAT the secret to get one's spouse out of the kitchen and drop all of the veils?!?
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Amplifier foundations sounds like underwear for amplifiers.

Lol! Well they remind me of a scissors jack like you would use to install a transmission. No idea what magic properties they impart. Other than draining your wallet.

 

[CE790]

1st post...

As perhaps an upper extremes data point I can offer on internal speaker cabinet wiring, I was just inside my PA systems pro audio subs; the EV MTL-4 manifold technology cabinets, each containing four EV DL18W 18" speakers. The cabinets are rated at 1600w RMS per the EIA RS-426A long term power handling standard, and 6400w per 10ms peak.

Metallica only needed 20 of these cabinets in their punishingly loud 1990s arena tours...

Sound Pressure Level at 1 Meter, Indicated Input Power,
Anechoic Environment, Band-Limited Pink-Noise Signal.
50-200 Hz,
1 Watt: 102 dB
1600 Watts: 134 dB
6400 Watts: 140 dB

The details of the EIA Standard RS-426A test as EV applied it to these subs was this: "The EIA test spectrum is applied for eight hours. To obtain the spectrum, the output of a white noise generator (equal energy per bandwidth in Hz) is fed to a shaping filter with 6-dB-per-octave slopes below 40 Hz and above 318 Hz. When measured with the usual constant-percentage analyzer, (one-third-octave) this shaping filter produces a spectrum whose 3-dB-down points are at 100 Hz and 1,200 Hz with a 3-dB-per-octave slope above 1,200 Hz. This shaped signal is sent to the power amplifiers with continuous power set at 800 watts into each of the 3.45 ohms EIA equivalent impedance inputs (52.5 volts true RMS), (my note: the four speakers are grouped into pairs, so there are two speakers per pair of Speakon connector contacts)
resulting in a total of 1600 watts of continuous power being delivered to the MTL-4. Amplifier clipping sets instantaneous peaks at 6 dB above the continuous power, or 6400 watts peak (105-volts peak per input). This procedure provides a rigorous test of both thermal and mechanical failure modes."

They use Essex Royal 14 gauge Copper stranded wire type MTW 105 degree C 600v throughout... and the wires sure didn't melt, (-better not; these can be flown cabinets!) -nor did they shake apart. The insulation shows no signs of discoloration or embrittlement either, so it would appear that EVs engineering was proven sound... my speakers are in excess of 20 years old, with previous owners who were far less respectful of their ratings than I.

14 gauge gets the job done in those cabinets you see flying over your head.

 

[Rick Sykora]

Lol! Well they remind me of a scissors jack like you would use to install a transmission. No idea what magic properties they impart. Other than draining your wallet.

The main magic of a typical jack stand is to keep from being crushed by the vehicle if the jack fails!

 

[mhardy6647]

The main magic of a typical jack stand is to keep from being crushed by the vehicle if the jack fails!

This could easily apply to certain audiophile cabling, as well. Imagine the ignominy of being crushed by one's own loudspeaker cables? Worse even than being hoist with one's own petard.

 

[Rick Sykora]

This could easily apply to certain audiophile cabling, as well. Imagine the ignominy of being crushed by one's own loudspeaker cables? Worse even than being hoist with one's own petard.

Given more extreme audiophile lunacy, would not surprise me to see jack stands deployed as cable lifters.

 

[egellings]

Given more extreme audiophile lunacy, would not surprise me to see jack stands deployed as cable lifters.

I nominate the Tice Clock for the looniest audiophool thing ever. How about those Mpingo Disks? At least the cables, looney as they get, do sorta carry a signal, so all is not lost on them.

 

[mhardy6647]

I nominate the Tice Clock for the looniest audiophool thing ever. How about those Mpingo Disks? At least the cables, looney as they get, do sorta carry a signal, so all is not lost on them.

The Tice Clock is/was from Geoff Kaitt, IIRC (??). I don't think any Geoff Kaitt "product" rises above any other in ludicrousness.
I still think Geoff's more of an Andy Kaufman than an Elon Musk (or an N. Tesla, for that matter), though.