Speaker wire gauge - Kappa 9's

Ashemo

Member
Running short speaker cable runs (less than 3') from Denon POA-6600 Monoblocks to my Kappa 9's. What is the optimal gauge/type wire for best performance? Running 12 ga Monster Cable now.

Thanks
 
Great. Thank you.

I used the rule of thumb (thicker is better) and the shorter the runs the less drop. I want to do whatever is possible to lessen the load and reduce heat with the amps. It is probably a minor factor at this point.

Those look like real nice cables...
 
Running short speaker cable runs (less than 3') from Denon POA-6600 Monoblocks to my Kappa 9's. What is the optimal gauge/type wire for best performance? Running 12 ga Monster Cable now.

Thanks

You are running 12 gauge now and you are thinking about replacing it with 14 gauge at $28 a foot?
 
Looking for input. Cables are something of a mystery to me.

My son is an Electrical Engineer (recent grad). He says thick wires, short runs 10 or 12 ga. Copper. Monster is good enough. Anything else may be an immeasurable improvement.

I paid a fortune for his college so maybe I should listen to him...

What is the deal with cables? Is there any significant improvement with pricey cables?

Comments are more than welcome.

Thanks
 
Looking for input. Cables are something of a mystery to me.

My son is an Electrical Engineer (recent grad). He says thick wires, short runs 10 or 12 ga. Copper. Monster is good enough. Anything else may be an immeasurable improvement.

I paid a fortune for his college so maybe I should listen to him...

What is the deal with cables? Is there any significant improvement with pricey cables?

Comments are more than welcome.

Thanks
Listen to him and buy more music with the $$$ saved. I have four conductor 14 ga with two conductors paired to make a 12ga cable. It sounds neutral, exactly as it should. I did buy some fancy sheathing and connectors, though: to make it look expensive so my friends don’t make fun of me. :)
D5243EE8-8FBA-42E8-817C-618C9A59FB6D.jpeg
If you want good quality connectors, and custom made cables, look here:
https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm
But your 12ga Monster cables are probably just fine.
 
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Go to Home Deeeepo and gitya sum 8ga copper the solder sum of them their thingy's on da endz. .. .. and call it good
 
Haha...

Looks like I hit the hornet's nest with this one. Thanks for all the info, I think.

From my son the Electrical Engineer:

For low-frequency applications ( Under 500Mhz , or applications in which the wire will be less than 1/10th the wavelength passing through them ), the quality of the speaker wire does not matter. This is the case for audio. The Kappa 9’s are rated at 4-6ohms, and the voice coil windings in the speaker are typically 2/3 that rated impedance -- (2.68-4) ohms for the Kappa’s. As long as the DC resistance of the speaker wire is fairly small, <1/10 for good measure, there will be no degradation of sound. Using the worst-case coil impedance and taking a 1/10 of that means we have a constraint of .268ohms our speaker wire can have before it starts degrading the signal. How hard is it to get that resistance? Using an AWG resistance guide, and noting that we are running 12 AWG on our speakers ( copper wire is 1.588 ohms for 1000ft of 12 AWG) , we would need roughly 84.38 feet of speaker wire ( half because we are running two wires ). Even noting that if the Kappa impedance dips down to .8 ohms (.08 constraint ), you still have 25.18 feet of wire to work with. Note that this is a worst-case scenario, on an already tough-to-drive speaker. Most speakers are rated for higher ohms. My suggestion is to keep it to 10-12 AWG copper, and keep the wires as short as you can help it. As long as your speakers aren’t abnormally far away from your amplifier, you should be fine.

Im going with this...

Thanks for everyone's input.
 
Looking for input. Cables are something of a mystery to me.

My son is an Electrical Engineer (recent grad). He says thick wires, short runs 10 or 12 ga. Copper. Monster is good enough. Anything else may be an immeasurable improvement.

I paid a fortune for his college so maybe I should listen to him...

>>>>>>>>>What is the deal with cables? Is there any significant improvement with pricey cables?<<<<<<<<<<<

Comments are more than welcome.

Thanks

The highlighted part is what has started many a flame war on AK.
Unless your ears are better than average I'd go with what your son says.
 
Thanks. I get a lot of great info on this site and didn't want to start any unnecessary heat. Just looking for answers to questions. Appreciate the input goodolpg.
 
I used to use Monster Cable 12 gauge copper many years ago with my Infinity RS-IIIb's. However, I found that solid core copper cables from Audioquest sounded much better... smoother, cleaner treble with deeper tighter bass. The Monster cables also started corroding and turned green under the clear vinyl sheath after just a year or two.

I've been using AQ cables with all of my vintage Infinity's ever since.
 
I use Audioquest with my RS II's, in fact my whole system is Audioquest except for using Monster for the subwoofer cables.
My system is decent, maybe pretty good, not a great system by any means.
 
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