# Speaker connecting wire



## ed2000 (Feb 16, 2007)

I'm rebuilding an old ss bass amp combo and want to optimize performance. Which is better in a 14" connecting length - existing 18 gauge speaker wire or 16 gauge electrical cord? Should I use crimped spade connectors or solder directly to terminals?


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

ed2000 said:


> I'm rebuilding an old ss bass amp combo and want to optimize performance. Which is better in a 14" connecting length - existing 18 gauge speaker wire or 16 gauge electrical cord? Should I use crimped spade connectors or solder directly to terminals?


Well, over just 14" we are once again in the area of the proverbial mice nuts, Ed! Maybe even moth nuts!

Also, when you didn't tell us the maximum wattage the amp will send through the wire we are left watching a fisherman holding up one arm telling us how long was the fish that got away!

More watts needs thicker wire. Very few watts can use very thin wire!

18 ga. should be fine. As for direct soldering vs. a crimped connector, again that depends. A properly crimped connection is as good if not better than one that is soldered. However, it needs to be crimped with a proper crimping tool, properly!

If you don't have such a tool or don't know how to use it, you could end up with a poor connection. If someone just uses their sidecutters to crimp, the connection should definitely have been soldered instead!

Wild Bill/Busen Amps


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## ed2000 (Feb 16, 2007)

Sorry, I realized after posting that info was incomplete.

160 solid state watts! (= probably 50 tube powered watts)

Does speaker wire consist of more strands than electrical wire of the same gauge?


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## dtsaudio (Apr 15, 2009)

As Bill mentioned 14" length is not much. The resistance of 16ga is negligible over 18ga. So the loss is not going to be remotely noticeable. However if you're worried about it change the wire. There's no difference in the speaker wire you have now to the lamp cord other than gauge.
BTW - a watt is a watt. There's no difference between a SS watt and a tube watt. The difference is that tube amps distort smoother than SS when they clip giving the perception they are more powerful.


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## ed2000 (Feb 16, 2007)

ed2000 said:


> .
> 
> 160 solid state watts! (= probably 50 tube powered watts)?


Weak attempt at humour.

Thanks for the info re: wire.


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

ed2000 said:


> Weak attempt at humour.
> 
> Thanks for the info re: wire.


Dan's right as usual, Ed!

Also, don't worry about the number of strands in the wire. Who cares?

It only makes a difference if you are trying to snow someone out of their money when selling them wire.

Wild Bill/Busen Amps.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

If you're running long speaker lines (25' to 100') using the heaviest gauge of speaker wire can significantly reduce power loss.

With a couple of feet you're fine with 18 gauge. You won't hear any difference if you go heavier. 

I think that's what others are saying here.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Folks often lose sight of what the amp expects to see. An amp may expect to see a 4 ohm oad, or perhaps 8, or 16 ohm. As others have noted, the series resistance that a connecting wire creates, is negligible over the distance travelled. That said, if the amp expects to see a 2 ohm load, whatever the wire contributes is _proportionally_ greater (relative to 2 ohms) than what is contributed over the same distance to an expected 16 ohm load.

The amp is certainly not going to blow up over whatever series resistance the wire provides, but may deliver less than rated power. Whether that less-than-rated power is ever fully exploited (many folks will likely use less than 10W for all but a few milliseconds during attack transients) is also a whole other thing.

But again, while adding 0.1R to a 2R load is proportionally more than adding 0.1R to a 16R load, whether it amounts to very much is...yet again...and separate thing.

Rule of thumb: the lower the expected speaker load, the greater the current to be delivered to the speaker, and the longer the distance to be travelled, the heavier the gauge of the connecting wire should be.

I suppose if you want to identify a "break-point" where wire gauge starts to matter, get yourself a few hunks of 18g wire of varying lengths, and measure the series resistance each has. Now do the math and examine that as a proportion of 2, 4, 8, an 16R loads. Keep in mind that a "load" can cnsist of multiple drivers, that each share the current. Moreover, one should probably not think too long and hard about any cable that connects from the back of the amp to the jack on a cabinet, since the wire inside the cabinet may have considerably more influence than whatever brings the amp signal to the cab.

RE: Mice nuts

Bill, 35 years ago I worked in a neuroendocrinology lab at McMaster, and one of the things we were studying was a hormone by the name of melatonin, which was known to be an "anti-gonadotropin" (i.e., it suppresses reproductive organ activity). Melatonin is produced by the brain in the dark, and much less during daylight (its production at various times of the year syncs up with daylength, and other things, like how long gestation is and how long it takes for the offspring to become relatively self-sufficient before the bad weather starts again). It is partly responsible for things like "rutting season" in many species. We had hamsters experiencing 10hr light and 14hrs dark, and others getting 14hrs light and 10hrs dark, every day (obviously in windowless rooms). The hamsters getting 14hrs of daylight had testes that were _*10 times*_ the size of the other hamsters. I mean these little buggers were dragging around a couple laundry duffel bags, if you get my drift.

The moral? Sometimes mice nuts ARE "mice nuts", but when the circumstances are juuuust right, mice nuts can get pretty big.


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

mhammer said:


> The moral? Sometimes mice nuts ARE "mice nuts", but when the circumstances are juuuust right, mice nuts can get pretty big.



LOL! Quite true, Mark! Still, the poster was talking about 18"! 

You are quite right when dealing with long runs of speaker wire, of course. As a matter of interest, it was Celestion who invented the 15 ohm voice coil because of this problem!

Back in the mid to late 60's rock and roll was just developing loud, outdoor concerts! They started using LONG speaker cable runs and of course, even with hefty gauge wire began to experience significant power loss. There were no Crown and Bryston power amps in those days. Getting enough power for the PA bins was expensive!

So, they made speakers with 15 ohm voice coils. As you explained, this made the resistance of the speaker wire a much smaller portion of the total load, so that much more power went to the speakers. That's why British speakers in particular tend to be 16 ohm while American speakers tend to be 8.

Wild Bill/Busen Amps


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I would solder the wire myself. I try to solder all connections unless it's an amp I KNOW I'm going to tinker with. I prefer to know that it's one less thing I need to worry about when I've got a properly soldered connection between the amp and the speaker (especially in a tube amp!)


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## ed2000 (Feb 16, 2007)

Thanks everyone for your help. Hey, I learned something... and that's a good thing!


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## GTmaker (Apr 24, 2006)

ed2000 said:


> Thanks everyone for your help. Hey, I learned something... and that's a good thing!


This thread is filled with great info....
I know one thing now for sure...
next time i'm hanging anyone by the balls...I'll need to do some reasearch.


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