[Vintage-Audio] Re Speaker Wire Options

[Robert Nickels]

Well,

There's a lot of personal opinions about speaker wire, and obviously 
some of them come from those who make a lot of money by creating demand 
based on FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt).   I don't buy into any of 
that, and sorry Duane I don't buy that some small gauge  "speed wire" 
has superior properties either, at least without knowing more about it's 
composition, and I have been unable to find any reference to it on the web.

What I do believe is that connecting an amplifier to a load follows the 
same laws of physics that govern every other electronic 
interconnection.  Resistance in series creates a power loss and the 
speaker won't sound as loud.  And if the speaker impedance is not 
constant, then the effect of increased resistance in series will have 
greater effect at those frequencies where the speaker impedance is 
highest, altering the sound.    It matters not whether your speakers are 
connected with  zip cord, lamp cord, coaxial cable or barbed wire spaced 
on vintage glass insulators (see the link below) - as long as the wire 
gauge chosen provides a sufficiently low resistance for the cable length 
required, it will do the same job and sound just fine.  Honest testing 
based on measurable parameters over the years has repeatedly confirmed 
that there is no difference between the performance of properly selected 
"cheap wire" and the high priced audiophool wire.

I don't intend to offend anyone - if you think something sounds better, 
use it!  It's a hobby after all.   For a no nonsense treatment of this 
topic and the data to back it up, see 
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm   OK there's a little 
nonsense there, but it's toward the end of the page!

73, Bob W9RAN