When 12 Gauge Wire is Not 12 Gauge

[DonH56]

But when I delve deeper there is some plausible basis as to why Teflon coated cables are preferred for speaker cables, related to its dielectric coefficient.

You might want to look up the loss and dispersion characteristics of various dielectrics at audio frequencies. Then you can decide if it matters to you.

 

[amirm]

So what is a common but not too pricey aftermarket headphone cable to test?

 

[dc655321]

So what is a common but not too pricey aftermarket headphone cable to test?

Not too pricey...? I don't think such a thing exists ;-)
Look at these.

 

[amirm]

Wow! I live a sheltered life when it comes to headphone jewelry.

 

[RayDunzl]

So, do you also believe in teapots in space?

I don't know what that means, but it did make me think about how to make tea or coffee on the ISS.

Yuck.

 

[dc655321]

Wow! I live a sheltered life when it comes to headphone jewelry.

Consider yourself fortunate!
It makes me borderline nauseous/angry when I see people on HF discussing how a $1000+ cable "really opens up the presence region", or "adds sub-bass slam".

They are pretty though, right?!?

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

So what is a common but not too pricey aftermarket headphone cable to test?

Depends... why? What are you trying to accomplish. There are lots on Amazon. If you are looking for a more flexible or less microphone cable etc, you need to match connectors on the headphone side. HiFi Man, Sennheiser connectors etc. Also allot of custom cables on Ebay to look at. Amazon is a good place to start as if you dislike it you can return it. I have never purchased one for sound quality, but more for practicality. If you get into iems there are nice replacements for little $$. There is braided silver plated cable that is much nicer than the stock KZ for example (2 pin connector) . Very soft, flexible and nice connectors. About $9 ish on Ebay or AliExpress direct from China, and maybe $18 on Amazon. Same type of cable is also available with MMCX connector used on Shure, Westone and many more.

 

[Speedskater]

Bad wire can act like filters IMO, but that is really an extreme and not going to make a big difference for most people. Headphone cables maybe even less because you are dealing with such short distances.

Loudspeakers and amplifier outputs are very low impedance components. It takes very large capacitors & inductors to do much filtering. Just look at the size of the capacitors & inductors in a passive cross-over.

 

[amirm]

Kevin is right. I did a bunch of computer simulations with a representative load of a speaker with actual measured characteristics of a speaker wire and the impact was negligible. Here is one:

The difference looks noticeable there in the two graphs but if you look at the scale, it is just 0.1 dB or so.

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

Kevin is right. I did a bunch of computer simulations with a representative load of a speaker with actual measured characteristics of a speaker wire and the impact was negligible. Here is one:

View attachment 12269

The difference looks noticeable there in the two graphs but if you look at the scale, it is just 0.1 dB or so.

Although rare some cables can cause amp instability also. Yes in the majority cases wire is relativity benign. Here is an article from Nelson Pass worth a read.

https://www.passlabs.com/sites/default/files/spkrcabl.pdf

 

[Speedskater]

Although rare some cables can cause amp instability also. Yes in the majority cases wire is relativity benign. Here is an article from Nelson Pass worth a read. ...........................................

Cyril Bateman wrote about that way back in 1996-97. It seems that it is possible for a combination of a reasonable amplifier, a reasonable cable and a reasonable loudspeaker to ring or even oscillate in the megahertz range.

 

[tranq]

@amirm

Hello, this thread is pretty interesting, is there any desire to test cable samples that people could send in to you?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0758CSSF2?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title

I have a 100 foot length of the Amazon Basics 14ga. I could easily mail a length to you for testing, no return necessary. I'm having trouble determining if the gauge is off, or if my wife stripper is inaccurate. I have to use the 12ga stripper otherwise strands get cut if using the 14ga stripper.

 

[maverickronin]

I'm having trouble determining if the gauge is off, or if my wife stripper is inaccurate.

Does that remove your wife's clothes or just remove your wife?

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Does that remove your wife's clothes or just remove your wife?

Ah, don't you just love spell checkers? Every word was spelled exactly correctly, but only in isolation regardless of meaning or context, of course. But, maybe he really did mean "wife strippers".

It happens in newspapers, too, occasionally, but it seems more so than the old days with more careful proof readers.

 

[RayDunzl]

I'm having trouble determining if the gauge is off, or if my wife stripper is inaccurate. I have to use the 12ga stripper otherwise strands get cut if using the 14ga stripper.

Stranded wire has a greater "diameter" than solid wire due to the airspace among the strands.

Note this tool.

Same holes, labeled for solid and stranded, with different values.

You would use a 12AWG (solid) stripper for 14AWG stranded copper.

 

[amirm]

@amirm

Hello, this thread is pretty interesting, is there any desire to test cable samples that people could send in to you?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0758CSSF2?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title

I have a 100 foot length of the Amazon Basics 14ga. I could easily mail a length to you for testing, no return necessary. I'm having trouble determining if the gauge is off, or if my wife stripper is inaccurate. I have to use the 12ga stripper otherwise strands get cut if using the 14ga stripper.

Hi there. Unfortunately I have torn down my measurement fixture so no way of repeating those results right now.

 

[watchnerd]

Kevin is right. I did a bunch of computer simulations with a representative load of a speaker with actual measured characteristics of a speaker wire and the impact was negligible. Here is one:

View attachment 12269

The difference looks noticeable there in the two graphs but if you look at the scale, it is just 0.1 dB or so.

What about the cable sensitivities of a typical 2V line-level out?

The reason I ask:

I'm powering my headphones out of the preamp out of my Devialet (seems thorougly goofy, but it has no headphone jack and this is actually recommended by Devilet themselves). The cable is a Blue Jeans Cable (Belden) MSA-1, with male RCA pair at one end and 1/4" female TRS at the other, 10 feet in length. Headphones used so far are HiFi Man HE-400i, AKG 7XX, and Senheiser 6XX. All seem to work more than fine so far.

But....the paranoid side of me is wondering if a 2V line out really has enough 'ooomph' to drive headphones, especially given the long 10' cable (plus whatever 4-6' length attached to the headphone itself).

 

[andreasmaaan]

What about the cable sensitivities of a typical 2V line-level out?

The reason I ask:

I'm powering my headphones out of the preamp out of my Devialet (seems thorougly goofy, but it has no headphone jack and this is actually recommended by Devilet themselves). The cable is a Blue Jeans Cable (Belden) MSA-1, with male RCA pair at one end and 1/4" female TRS at the other, 10 feet in length. Headphones used so far are HiFi Man HE-400i, AKG 7XX, and Senheiser 6XX. All seem to work more than fine so far.

But....the paranoid side of me is wondering if a 2V line out really has enough 'ooomph' to drive headphones, especially given the long 10' cable (plus whatever 4-6' length attached to the headphone itself).

All those headphones you have should be able to get to about 110dB+ off a 2V amp. That's loud enough for most people.

Anyway, the Devialet preamp should be able to output a very low distortion signal right up to that 2V I'd imagine, so if you can turn the amp up to levels louder than you'd want to listen at, and you don't hear any distortion, you can probably assume that you have enough power.

I can't imagine a cable that length could make any kind of difference in your circumstances, but others might be able to answer this question more authoritatively.

Do you know the output impedance of the preamp section of the Devialet?

 

[Soniclife]

But....the paranoid side of me is wondering if a 2V line out really has enough 'ooomph' to drive headphones

You can put that up to 4V in the configurator.

 

[watchnerd]

All those headphones you have should be able to get to about 110dB+ off a 2V amp. That's loud enough for most people.

Anyway, the Devialet preamp should be able to output a very low distortion signal right up to that 2V I'd imagine, so if you can turn the amp up to levels louder than you'd want to listen at, and you don't hear any distortion, you can probably assume that you have enough power.

I can't imagine a cable that length could make any kind of difference in your circumstances, but others might be able to answer this question more authoritatively.

Do you know the output impedance of the preamp section of the Devialet?

I haven't been able to find the output impedance of the pre out, unfortunately.