Cables in vintage speakers are really good?

[jeremyjustic]

to answer the OP's question, If vintage speaker wire was desirable then you would see people buying and selling it all the time , the fact that you dont ever see anyone selling vintage speaker wire would be a great indication that there would be no benefit to using it.

Just think of all the people who have parted out old speakers. you see the drivers,crossover ,grills , cabinets etc for sale but never see the wire out of those speakers for sale. If there was any advantage to using it you would see a demand for it. I dont see anyone harvesting old speakers for the wire happening anytime soon.

 

[terra1]

to answer the OP's question, If vintage speaker wire was desirable then you would see people buying and selling it all the time , the fact that you dont ever see anyone selling vintage speaker wire would be a great indication that there would be no benefit to using it.

Just think of all the people who have parted out old speakers. you see the drivers,crossover ,grills , cabinets etc for sale but never see the wire out of those speakers for sale. If there was any advantage to using it you would see a demand for it. I dont see anyone harvesting old speakers for the wire happening anytime soon.

Doh!

I didn't get the OPs question about "vintage speaker wire."
I was assuming he was still talking about the more expensive cables like AudioQuest, Kimber, and associated terminations.

stereofanboy also made a good point that a lot of the modern boutique cable and wire didn't come out until later.

As I said, I didn't get into more expensive interconnects and speaker cable until they started coming out with newer modern equipment. With the advent of CD players, HiFi VCRs, and audio video components, the time was ripe for cable and wire manufacturers to cater to the audio market and technologies.

Some of the older vintage components couldn't really use the newer cable and wire without damage or even fit very well.

There's no way I could use my AudioQuest with many vintage receivers or speakers.

As I said, it's cheaper today to use regular interconnects and speaker wire on vintage components and change out components. Mostly as bedroom set ups. I still use the more expensive connections for my more "modern" set ups where I do my main listening and recording.

 

[marc mc]

Just think of all the people who have parted out old speakers. you see the drivers,crossover ,grills , cabinets etc for sale but never see the wire out of those speakers for sale. If there was any advantage to using it you would see a demand for it. I dont see anyone harvesting old speakers for the wire happening anytime soon.

The reason for that is its so genaric.

Here is whats in my Delta 15 speakers made in the 70's. And while they are the best speakers I have owned and maybe ever heard, I doubt this wire would fetch a dime. Mirko used brown lamp cord inside the Delta 12's which I also own.

I mean this guy used Baltic Birch, inch thick maple side panels that when laid out together equal a table in size and made a pair of 115 lb speakers that cost $1800 in the 70's that can crush 90% of the speakers on the planet. Do you think he cheaped out on the cables?

 

[jeremyjustic]

The reason for that is its so genaric.

Here is whats in my Delta 15 speakers made in the 70's. And while they are the best speakers I have owned and maybe ever heard, I doubt this wire would fetch a dime. Mirko used brown lamp cord inside the Delta 12's which I also own.

I mean this guy used Baltic Birch, inch thick maple side panels that when laid out together equal a table in size and made a pair of 115 lb speakers that cost $1800 in the 70's that can crush 90% of the speakers on the planet. Do you think he cheaped out on the cables?

EXACTLY! the wie used then was generic and nothing special. the OP asked "If the answer is "these "vintage" cables are great, high quality", I wonder why don't we sell or have auctions of vintage cable as we do with vintage speakers and amps?" I think he answerd his own question, they are not great or high quality.

as far as me thinking your buddy was cheaping out on cables in the 70's many have already said that fancy speaker wire was not available in the 70's so I am sure he used the best wire available to him at the time. lets see I found an inflation calculator and your $1800 1970's dollars would be .....$10,687.69 2012 dollars. I doubt someone spending that kind of scratch on diy speakers today would use hardware store lamp cord. what do you think?

I really dont even know what there is to debate about this, the OP asked if vintage speaker wire was "great, high quality" its not, if it was you guys would be buying and selling it. Since none of you guys , who are supporters of the lamp cord speaker wires are buying up vintage wire you prove the point that it is not high quality or desirable.

 

[stereofanboy]

...........Since none of you guys , who are supporters of the lamp cord speaker wires are buying up vintage wire you prove the point that it is not high quality or desirable.

Think about what you said there, it doesn't make sense. Guys who are supporters of lamp cord speaker wires only want well made wire, suitable to the intended use. These are the guys that are least likely to go out of their way to get specific wires, when they could get something that in their minds is just as good, at a store right up the street.

Plus, you forgot about the length issue. Wires originally used to internally wire a set of speakers are mostly good for internally wiring speakers. They certainly wouldn't be my first choice for the run between the speakers and the amp.

OP, when someone buys speaker parts, it's usually to replace something that went wrong in his existing speakers. Of all the parts in your speakers, I'd think the wires would be the last things to fail. Well, maybe the insulation would last longer, but I don't really know, as they will both outlast most of us. Maybe that's why there's no market for the stuff.

 

[DougMac]

Your Knack

All cables costing $65 bucks are the best. Anything less sounds like crap and anything more is a waste of money.

I was surprised to find some one time that I could not hear a difference in that costed less than $61. That's right!! I was like WTF?? Then I realized they were on sale. Duh!!

You have a knack for putting the discussion into perspective.

For the OP, if it would help put your mind at ease, I suggest you visit Blue Jeans Cable and order up some of their nice speaker wire.

I think I'll pop up a batch of Orville Redenbacher popcorn and pop the top on a bottle of Fat Bastard Ale and watch the conversation progress.

 

[jeremyjustic]

Think about what you said there, it doesn't make sense. Guys who are supporters of lamp cord speaker wires only want well made wire, suitable to the intended use. These are the guys that are least likely to go out of their way to get specific wires, when they could get something that in their minds is just as good, at a store right up the street.

Plus, you forgot about the length issue. Wires originally used to internally wire a set of speakers are mostly good for internally wiring speakers. They certainly wouldn't be my first choice for the run between the speakers and the amp.

OP, when someone buys speaker parts, it's usually to replace something that went wrong in his existing speakers. Of all the parts in your speakers, I'd think the wires would be the last things to fail. Well, maybe the insulation would last longer, but I don't really know, as they will both outlast most of us. Maybe that's why there's no market for the stuff.

I completely agree with what you are saying , however the OP didnt ask if lamp cord was suitable for use today , he asked if the wire in the back of vintage speakers was good high quality cable and why dont we see auctions for it or people selling it. I think the fact that you dont see anyone selling VINTAGE speaker wire means there would be no advantage to using VINTAGE speaker wire.

he also didnt say anything about speaker to amp runs, he was talking about the internal speaker wire in vintage speakers.

again I stand buy my statement, if there was an advantage to using VINTAGE speaker wire then you would see a market for it and since even you agree that "there's no market for the stuff" I dont really see what there is to debate any further.

 

[RayW]

No, manufacturers ( at least the ones I have worked for ) don't share this type of thing very readily. But there's nothing proprietary about this either.
Easily set up and easily executed given the proper facilities and test gear.

I did that a few dozen times when I was designing in the commercial world, too. It's not really something to publish, just a way of figuring out which way to go with a product. I would set up a couple of speakers with a momentary push button switch to swap between them and hand the button to the listener. He/she did not know which was which until later and distance was set up far enough that it wasn't obvious in listening for position.

I had a VP that couldn't tell the difference between a piccolo and an elephant fart but he was in on all the listening tests anyway. It wouldn't have made for a good published paper.

 

[bluesky]

I guess if the vintage wires in your vintage speakers weren't green or corroded, they would still work fine.

Been wondering about that for many years. I mean, you wouldn't want to change the voicing of the original design.

 

[Tom Brennan]

Since none of you guys , who are supporters of the lamp cord speaker wires are buying up vintage wire you prove the point that it is not high quality or desirable.

It might prove the point old wire isn't desirable but doesn't prove the point that old wire isn't high quality.

 

[mech986]

Have you seen the prices for old or NOS Western Electric wire? I do suspect that wire was used in their speakers and equipment (theatre and telco).

Also, excellent quality teflon jacketed silver plated copper wire, even surplus or NOS aerospace sourced seems to be holding its value, IMO. However not aware of any significant use in the loudspeaker industry, even the high end, nor much in the electronics side either.

IIRC, wire wrap wire was also silver plated copper. It don't know if that was used in some of the wire wrapped connections of vintage receivers.

 

[ev13wt]

Todays TOTL speaker manufactureres will use the "TOTL" premium brands for inside the cabinet wiring for obvious marketing reasons. They would be stupid not to!

The speakers internal winding, wich is many more feet than any amp to speaker or inside the box wiring, is :gasp: PLAIN COPPER OMG.

 

[mech986]

Todays TOTL speaker manufactureres will use the "TOTL" premium brands for inside the cabinet wiring for obvious marketing reasons. They would be stupid not to!

The speakers internal winding, wich is many more feet than any amp to speaker or inside the box wiring, is :gasp: PLAIN COPPER OMG.

And some compression drivers and tweeters use aluminum wire because it's lighter. That thought applied to regular speaker wire would probably cause anxiety among audiophiles.

 

[njcanuck]

I would like to believe that most higher end speaker companies use tested, good quality cables. I'm also willing to believe that upgrading them or the external cabling could make a sonic difference - but only if you have the ears of a dog!

While the differences may be there, I don't think most people can discern them - certainly not me! I recommend to anyone to test your own hearing before embarqing on a cable quest. When I did this, I discovered that I can't hear anything above 14KHZ (although my poor dog sure could!). That ended my cable search - multi stranded high quality copper is good enough for these ears!

 

[frommerstop]

Todays TOTL speaker manufactureres will use the "TOTL" premium brands for inside the cabinet wiring for obvious marketing reasons. They would be stupid not to!

I agree.
BTW I think Acoustat, and/or Martin Logan may have been the first to "brag" about their internal wiring... they used to put little "Internally wired with Monster Cable" stickers on their power supply boxes back in the eighties!

 

[bob s]

Installing large conductors inside loudspeakers may be counterproductive.
Consider that audiophiles using large guage speaker cables then connect them to speakers with big wires, which then go through a crossover and then to a driver with miniscule wires in the voice coil. This makes a large impedence change there.
Would it not make more sense to follow the principle pf a bullwhip, using conductors of gradually diminishing guage therefore forcing the electrons to accelerate, this would make for very fast sounding speakers!
I hope you're not taking this too seriously.
Just use wire apropriate with the power you expect to drive the speakers with plus a little extra for surge capacity.