Magnet Wire Question

If you're talking about using bare wire and using the painters tape to insulate/separate the negative and the positive runs, I would advise against doing that.

It probably won't behave in as neutral/accurate a manner as a heavier gauge, but you may or may not find the resulting sonics to be to your liking. Some folks even prefer the sonics of 20 to 24 gauge solid core speaker cables, although IMO such gauges are likely to alter the sound considerably when used in conjunction with most speakers, unless their length is very short.

The lower the impedance of your speakers, the greater the departure from neutrality/accuracy is likely to be.

Assuming the wires are insulated, twisting them together, say a few turns per foot, will reduce inductance and thereby minimize any upper treble rolloff that might otherwise occur. The lower the impedance of your speakers is at high frequencies, the more important that will be.

Regards,
-- Al

Rax, thanks, they are enamel coated, thankfully. I read about spacing runs in a thread- may have bi wiring based comment.

Al, the speakers are Usher CP6311. (87 sens and a nominal 8 ohm load)

If thicker gauge would be better, I'll buy it. What gauge do you recommend to insure I give the magnet wire a fair shot?

Also, I heard a suggestion to use an electric drill to twist the wires. Is that the best way you know of?

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help. I tried some solid core in a woven jacket and it opened the sound up over the stranded I had in place. Curious what the minimal coated magnet wire will sound like. I tend to prefer lean over thick sound.

Best-
Gary

I couldn't find an impedance curve on the CP6311, but I suspect that its impedance in the top octave either rises to relatively high values, or at least doesn't decrease significantly below the nominal 8 ohm spec. So inductance is probably not all that critical. I'd suggest simply twisting the two conductors together by hand, with three or so twists per foot, and not messing with a drill.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if the impedance dropped to the vicinity of 4 ohms or so at some frequencies in the bass or mid-bass region, which would tend to increase the importance of having adequate gauge. The resistance of the 20 foot combined length of the two conductors, if they were 18 gauge, would be 0.128 ohms, as can be calculated from this wire gauge table. For frequencies at which the speaker impedance may be in the vicinity of 4 ohms that would reduce your damping factor to 4/0.128 = 31, even if the damping factor of the amplifier were infinite. It could be argued that 31 is more than adequate for this and most speakers, but my instinct would be to increase that somewhat, by going to either 16 or 14 gauge. Those gauges would increase the corresponding damping factor (assuming the amplifier's damping factor is much higher, as it would be for most solid state amps but not for most tube amps) to 50 and 79 respectively.

Enjoy! Regards,
-- Al

Al,

Thanks for the info. Way over my head, but I get the idea.

I'll go with 16ga and make a jumper with a length of the same wire.

Looking forward to giving it a whirl-

Kind regards,

Gary