CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[WanMan]

I know this has been discussed by some, and maybe even tested in a handful of individuals, but I am curious as to why stranded wire should be used in plenum situations vs. solid core conductors.

I always thought the reason why cowsumer products were stranded was that it made them more flexible. But in plenum application this seems of moot application validity. As such, has anyone tested something like 12/2 or 12/3 electrical-grade (which is 99.99% pure unrecycled copper) against their store-bought 'speaker' wire?

I would like to hear about situations in which folks ran 40-50' cable or wire runs under non-trivial amp conditions (like driving your mains at reference level volumes). And since I am not looking at non-plenum applications in this post, I am really curious here.

BTW, considering where my equipment will be in reference to where my LCR will be, the runs traverse up a 9' wall, across a 26' room length, across a 13' room width (average), and down to the equipment 2' or more. This means a 50' run for LCR!

[ecrabb]

I don't see how there would be any advantage whatsoever to using NM-B (Romex), while the disadvantages would be many. Solid is less flexible and therefore harder to pull and harder to work with. It's more difficult to strip and would be tough to terminate with audio terminations (wall plates, some banana plugs, etc.) and hang on the back of an AVR or amp. Yeah, it's in the wall (not a plenum - you probably don't technically have a "plenum" in your house)... But, it could leave the wall if you didn't terminate with wall plates at both ends. You wouldn't necessarily have to if you didn't use NM-B.

My wire is a straight run with no terminations at the speakers at all, and really good captive Speakon connectors at the amps. I think that's better than a series of connections. Without the Speakon connectors, my setup would look like this:
Amp -> wire -> Speaker

If you use something in the wall, and finish with jacks, you get:
Amp -> wire -> wall jack - wire> wall jack -> wire -> speaker

The most important part of the discussion is why would you? What purpose does it serve? Is there a major cost benefit? From what I can tell, no. 12-2 NM-B is probably going to cost you .40/ft, so say $60 for 150 feet. BJC Twelve White is .61/foot, so $90. There are even some cheaper alternatives to the BJC Twelve. Is it really worth $30 to have more trouble working, stripping, and terminating?

SC

[J Kildare]

Years ago when I was into audio, I read an article on skin effect and frequency (sorry this was a long time ago so I don't have a link). At higher frequencies the signal travels down the outside or skin of the conductor, the more individual conductors, the more surface area, the more bandwidth. So if the article holds true, you would probably notice a flatness in the upper end.

As with most audio cable hype this is probably just another load of crap, so I hope you didn't waste time reading the above.

Jim

[WanMan]

SC, my basement isn't finished. While I provided power at the LCR in case I planned on providing power at the speakers, but before I hang the insulation this week I thought about the difference in marketed CL2 speaker 'cable' vs. an existing supply of 12/2 I have sitting around. Pulling the cable vs pulling NM wire doesn't seem to be better one way or another.

BTW, I'm thinking 200-250' would be needed. Do not think I can wait another week for mail order.

[ecrabb]

Skin effect isn't really a significant issue in any of our home setups, relative to the many, many other factors that ARE relatively important.

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/skin-effect-relevance-in-speaker-cables/skin-effect-relevance-in-speaker-cables-page-3

From the article: