Speaker cable choices

[Jonathan Scherer]

Hello,

What do you like for speaker cable brands? Going from a Jay Ganz Straight Ahead power amp to a Telonics speaker cab, with a TC Furlong 12" speaker.

Is it correct that speaker cable should be used from the amp to the cab, instead of instrument cable?

Thanks for recommendations!

J

[Jerry Overstreet]

Oh absolutely only use twisted pair equal size ea. lead, stranded cable or flat speaker wiring designed for speakers for connections from the amp to the cabinet.

You can spend a lot or a little. Minimum 16 ga. lamp cord works, or for me, quality round jacketed 16 or 14 ga. cabling with good Switchcraft or Neutrik plugs.

I can't recommend a brand, but those high end cables purporting to be superior, I don't see it.

....and you can buy bulk cable and ends if you're handy with an iron and you want to build your own.
Happy pickin!

[Douglas Schuch]

The factors that affect which speaker cable you chose are:
power output of the amp
impedance of the speaker
distance of the cable

Lower ohms require larger cables. The other two are obvious. My speakers are 4 ohm, and my amps are 200 - 500 watts, so I use 16 gauge for short cables, but 14 gauge for longer ones - for example, if I want to run stereo and put one speaker across the stage. And even then, 14 gauge is good for maybe 20 feet.

Here's a basic chart, as well as a more-complex calculation method that is useful. It's for setting up home stereos, but the issues are the same, whether a CD is creating the signal or a steel guitar on a stage.

https://www.gearit.com/blogs/news/how-t ... our-system

I use lamp cord - so long as it is decent quality cord, it should be fine. You can spend money and buy "special" speaker cable, but I question whether it is any better than good-quality lamp cord. YMMV.

[Jonathan Scherer]

Thanks for the advice guys!

Wound up ordering 5' of this 16 AWG, to try out. https://www.daddario.com/products/acces ... er-cables/

Will need some longer runs as the year marches on, maybe try my hand at the soldering with good quality lamp cord, or buy a longer piece of 14 AWG all ready to go.

Currently, will be using an 8 ohm speaker, 300 watts and the Straight Ahead power amp would be 300 watts at 8 ohm. Eventually would like to daisy chain another 8 ohm speaker cab. That would become 4 ohms with two 8 ohm speakers, correct?

Thanks for the chart and article too. Helpful.

J

[Jerry Overstreet]

Yes, if you are daisy chaining 8Ω to 8Ω in parallel that would net 4Ω.

If you are considering DIY cables, check out www.parts-express.com

You can buy round jacketed 13 ga. bulk cable for $1 a foot. They also have a variety of 1/4 mono plugs to solder on.
clickhere

Also, other options in various gauges and brands here.

The round jacketed cable offers a little more protection covering the wiring and looks and fits nicer in the plugs plus it's hardly more expensive than the raw flat wire.

I buy a lot of this kind of stuff from these people. Located somewhere near Cincy. A huge inventory and reasonable pricing. The service is great and shipping is prompt.

Might check it out if you are interested. A variety of ready made speaker cables are available here too.

[Dave Grafe]

Is it correct that speaker cable should be used from the amp to the cab, instead of instrument cable?

Absolutely, shielded guitar cables used as speaker lines will toast your amp but good.
Guitar cables use very thin conductors - 22 AWG or smaller - and are shielded with a grounded surround to protect the very low signal from outside interference, but at higher signal levels the thin wires present a very high resistance that limits volume and causes the amp to run hotter, and the shield itself generates amp-killing reverse voltages with every peak.

I'm not going into the physics of it all here as this information is already available elsewhere, but it's critically important to only use unshielded wires of at least 18 AWG between amp output and speaker. To optimize the length and copper mass I usually make my own speaker cables from 16 gauge copper cord (14 AWG is great for high power use, 18 AWG is acceptable for smaller amps and shorter runs) available at any hardware store or scavenged from old, ungrounded (2-wire) extension cords. In principle fatter wire yields higher volume, lower distortion, and tighter low end compared to skinny wire.

All reputable wire manufacturers print or emboss the outer wrap with the wire guage and class insulation class, the lower the AWG the higher the current it can carry without interference. BTW twisted pair is acceptable but not ideal for this use for the same reasons as shielded wire, best case is to use big, parallel wires not too close to each other.

[Brooks Montgomery]

Over the years I have collected many cables, some for speakers, and some I can’t remember.

Is there a way to test them to know their capacity?

[Jonathan Scherer]

Thanks for more information, always appreciated.

Jerry thanks, I have been looking at Parts Express, they have lots of inventory, good to know prompt shipping too, because the speaker cable I ordered has been in "Label Created" shipping limbo for a few days now, and has not actually been shipped from D'Addario.

In the meantime, I found a Monster Cable that I bought probably 12 years ago, never used, am wondering if it could be speaker cable?

I doubt it, since it does not state the guage on it, but I have an email into Monster about it.

What it does say on the outer wrap is Prolink Monster Studiolink Ultra High Clarity Bandwidth Balanced Studio Patch/Interconnect Cable by Monster Cable

20250319_112030.jpg

My "new to me" speaker cab arrives today, so of course I would like to try it out, haha, need to wait for the speaker cable.

Dave, thanks for your info and advice, will follow up if I start making my own. Douglas, thanks for the chart and your advice. Brooks, I am interested in the answer to your question about testing cable.

J

[Jerry Overstreet]

Always good experiences with Parts-Express.

The cable you pictured is not a speaker cable. It is a stereo (tip, ring, sleeve) patch cable for connecting other electronic devices unit to unit, gadget to gadget etc., not speakers.

Good Luck.

[Douglas Schuch]

Brooks Montgomery:

Over the years I have collected many cables, some for speakers, and some I can’t remember.

Is there a way to test them to know their capacity?

OK, how to tell speaker cables from instrument cables:

The most obvious first: if there is a "Speak-on" connector, it's speaker wire. These are great connectors - except they are still not commonly used.

Next, many speaker cables, and pretty much all that use lamp cord, will have two parallel wires, each coated in plastic. Just look at almost any appliance you own that plugs into the wall - they typically use this type of wire. As far as I know, NO instrument cables will have this configuration.

Third, many cables will have some basic info printed onto the cable. To read it you might need your reading glasses or a magnifying glass - or perhaps the modern version of this - use your phone and take a picture of the printing and then read it on your phone or computer!

Fourth - probably it has a 1/4" "telephone" jack on the end - almost all instrument cables have this, and many speaker cables. Some instrument cables, like for harmonica mics, might have an unbalanced Hi-Z XLR or a Switchcraft screw-on connector at one end, but you probably know about any of your cables of this configuration as you need to them for that bullet mic. So, at this point, open up the 1/4" jack and look at the wire itself where the insulation has been cut back. Instrument cable will almost always have one wire in the center with it's own insulation, and the second wire is like a fish net spread around it. There might also be a thin foil membrane around that central wire between the insulation and the outer wire. Both that foil and the wrap of the outer wire is to screen the inner wire from interference from other electrical wires and components as the signal from a guitar pickup is very weak, and when you amplify it, any interference from other sources will be amplified as well. So this construction tells you it's an instrument cable. And the wire in an instrument cable might look very thin as you don't need heavy wire to carry the current a pickup puts out.

I suppose there could be speaker cables made this way too, but it would be unusual. More common, even if there is a single round outer surface for your speaker cable (works better in the jacks) is two seperate, parallel wires inside without the foil and one does not wrap the other. So if you see two wires side by side coming out of the outer insulation, it's a speaker wire. Speaker wires don't need the protection from interference as they are carrying a strong signal to make the speakers sound - interference would be very minimal in comparison.

When examining the metal wire itself, instrument cables can be quite small as, again, they carry very little current. They ARE designed and built to have minimal resistance (or, I think, more technically called impedence, since it's an alternating current). Speaker wire will have a much thicker metal wire part - how thick depends upon the method of construction and gauge. 14 gauge wire is noticeably thick vs. typical electrical chords, which might be 16 or 18 gauge.

Premium speaker wire is made from oxygen-free copper (OFC) vs copper-clad aluminum (CCA). I think for our purposes CCA, which is the basic stuff, should be fine. The premium OFC stuff is found more in hi-fi audio applications. Perhaps someone here will tell me different, but that is my understanding.

As for testing, you can always put a multimeter on it and test the resistance, which is a component of impedance. I have no idea what sort of value you should get for different cables, but it might be useful for comparing several cables to see which is best.

This should get you into the general ballpark of what a particular wire is good for.

[Brooks Montgomery]

Thank you Douglas.