Speaker Cab Cable

[HiGain]

Hi Everyone,

Haven't been around much lately. But, I am now (one year after moving) getting a little time to play around again with amps.

I did a search and didn't find much on speaker cable. Ken Fisher is known to have suggested a long speaker cable to roll off highs. I'm sure that was also taken into consideration by the big man himself.

For my Non-HRM into a 2X12 open back: What are some good choices for speaker wire in terms of: 1. Type, and 2. Length?

Thanks, and happy holidays!

[Structo]

I believe it is a long guitar cable that will roll off the high end due to the capacitance of the cable.

I don't like to use anything less than 14 gauge speaker cable myself.

If you are talking about the cable from the amp to the speaker cab, I have a nice 6 ft Canare 4S8 Speaker Cable cable I bought from Lava Cable that has four conductors with two wired for each side but to go cheap you can use zip cord or any other large pair copper cable.

Don't use instrument or coax cable because usually the inner conductor isn't large enough to carry the current.

You can run as many feet of cable as you want but try to keep it as short as possible for low resistance.

[guitardude57]

I wire my cabs, and make the speaker cable out of Monster XP zip type cord. I have other types that are older, I still use..........but anything new is the Monster stuff. Personal preference.

I'm sure you will get several opinions on what is the best gauge and brand. Some like 18 gauge, I like something a little larger personally.
For the most part we are dealing with a 100 watts or less.

In a SR type set up with thousands of watts, the speaker cable is more of an issue than guitar amps. Same for high end home stereo. Better grade speaker wire is noticeable in imaging and dynamic range.

In a guitar amp..........heh..........tubes and loop and fx are going to be more of a sonically noticeable thing, than speaker wire.

I think there would be little to no sonic difference using anything good quality.... better than regular lamp zip cord that is.

Since we are dealing with guitar amps anyway, efficient speakers are more important than the wire going to them. IMO.

[ericlee]

Hi Everyone,

Haven't been around much lately. But, I am now (one year after moving) getting a little time to play around again with amps.

I did a search and didn't find much on speaker cable. Ken Fisher is known to have suggested a long speaker cable to roll off highs. I'm sure that was also taken into consideration by the big man himself.

For my Non-HRM into a 2X12 open back: What are some good choices for speaker wire in terms of: 1. Type, and 2. Length?

Thanks, and happy holidays!

I think you are talking about passive FX loop’s high capacitance shielded cable for cutting down high frequency.
Speaker cables won’t do that. You would need high voltage, big capacitor to reduce highs on the speaker.

[Bob-I]

Welcome back HiGain...

I've done some experimentation with speaker cables. I've tried some zip cord cables from 4' to 10' with switchcraft jacks, some Carvin 20' PA cables, and some 12 AWG Live wire cables in a direct comparison. Other than the 20' Carvin (color me junk) I didn't hear a noticeable difference. The Carvin cable actually causes some early break up on the clean channel and not in a good way, the zip cord compared to the 12AWG is not noticable but when cranked for some time the zip cord gets warm.

My conclusion was that the 12AWG is preferred. For internal wire in the 2x12 combo I use 18 AWG stranded.

[David Root]

Minimum 14 ga. in purchased cable. Inside cabinets 14 ga or 12ga, in my experience that depends on whether or not you can get 12 ga to fit. I use mainly old speakers, Altec and JBL, and I cannot get 12 ga into those little holes.

My 4x12 with Delta Pro 12As accepted 12 ga and I managed to wire and switch it series-parallel/parallel series too.

If you have high end problems using 12 or 14 ga speaker wire, you need to look inside your amp.

[HiGain]

Thanks, guys. (Hi to you to Bob )

I made a 2 foot 14 awg chord from monster cable hi fi wire. And for an express clone I made a 14awg 20 foot chord from hardware store wire.

To me the longer length smooths off the top end and even affects the perceived mids.

Anyone know what length robbens cab chords are (his tones are the one I try to emulate)?

Thanks again!

[Structo]

Again, I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish?

The main property that is going to affect a speaker cable is resistance per foot.

Not sure how capacitance in a parallel, zip cord type construction affects a high power signal.


Robben's amp is pretty well documented here. He uses a 68 pf bright cap on his master volume pot which makes it really bright, but he is also using a Dumbleator which is known to cut the highs some, so the cap compensates for that a bit.
It also depends on where that pot is set, in regards to how much that bright cap influences the tone.
Above 11:00 or so the bright cap doesn't add a great deal of brightness.

So it really depends how your amp sounds turned up.

The best way I have found with my 100 watter is to control the over all volume with the output pot on my Dumbleator.
I run short pedal type interconnects between the amp and Dumbleator so those cables don't affect the tone much if at all.

My amp utilizes a 47 pf bright cap on the master volume.

[Bob-I]

I'd double if it's capacitance of the speaker cable changing the tone. I measured a 3' 12AWG cable and it came out to 165pF. With an 8 ohm cabinet 1uF would roll off at 20kHz so it's unlikely that even a long cable would be high enough capacitance to cause a change in tone. These must be another factor, such as the resistance of the connectors or the cable itself.

Just a thought.

[HiGain]

Again, I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish?

The main property that is going to affect a speaker cable is resistance per foot.

Not sure how capacitance in a parallel, zip cord type construction affects a high power signal.

Well, my ears have been known to play tricks on me before. But I could swear I hear a difference between the longer and shorter cables in terms of high end. Less harsh highs... more of a smear of treble in a good way.

I'm pretty sure I read that Ken Fisher recommended a longer speaker cable to tame the harsh highs in an express. I don't know on what electronic property this was based. I thought it was capacitance, but you know I'm more of a tweaker than a EE (by far!). And my mind could be playing tricks on me too! (':roll:')

I'll try to dig up the reference... I believe it was in the trainwreck pages, or maybe in Weber's book, http://www.amazon.com/Tube-Talk-Guitari ... pd_sim_b_7

-J

[talbany]

I know Ken was a advocate of using power cords off old vacuum cleaners and other high amp draw appliances.. Old Belden's to be exact..as this may have something to do with the skin effect.. They seem to be directional as well..Pretty weird..

Tony

[Bob-I]

Well, my ears have been known to play tricks on me before. But I could swear I hear a difference between the longer and shorter cables in terms of high end. Less harsh highs... more of a smear of treble in a good way.

I don't doubt your ear at all, my comment was in hopes that someone will have a better understanding of the tonal change. Like I said, the Carvin cable that came with my old PA cabs KILLS the Dumble tone where the zip cord sounds just fine. I've yet to find a cable that improves on the amp's sound.

[Normster]

I'm sure I've read somewhere that thinner cables tend to attenuate bass, but haven't read anything about taming treble. For a while, Moss was using Geoge L speaker cables because they tended to be less boomy for some amps. (GL is some pretty thin stuff.) Problem is, they were unreliable because of the screw-in pin connector.

[groovtubin]

Again, I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish?

The main property that is going to affect a speaker cable is resistance per foot.

Not sure how capacitance in a parallel, zip cord type construction affects a high power signal.

Well, my ears have been known to play tricks on me before. But I could swear I hear a difference between the longer and shorter cables in terms of high end. Less harsh highs... more of a smear of treble in a good way.

I'm pretty sure I read that Ken Fisher recommended a longer speaker cable to tame the harsh highs in an express. I don't know on what electronic property this was based. I thought it was capacitance, but you know I'm more of a tweaker than a EE (by far!). And my mind could be playing tricks on me too! (':roll:')

I'll try to dig up the reference... I believe it was in the trainwreck pages, or maybe in Weber's book, http://www.amazon.com/Tube-Talk-Guitari ... pd_sim_b_7

-J

totally agree, i use a 20 foot speaker cable here in the room with a 4 x 12 electric cab, and LOVE it, that and the 8 ohm cab are SAWEET! Get ALOT of great comments on this cab, 2 x eminence man o`wars, 2 x NOS 70`s G12M70`s Lot more roll-off with longer speaker cable for SURE! I won`t leave home w/o it!

[ericlee]

I‘m very sorry guys but SPEAKER CABLE length has no audible effect on speaker frequency response! Period.
The typical 12AWG zip cord has about 3.4 Mohms of loop resistance per foot, .200uH/ft of Inductance and about 20pF/ft of capacitance. As the cable length increases, these three parameters increase proportionally. However, it takes very long lengths of cable to cause measurable, let alone audible differences.

If you are really interested, here is a good info about that
http://www.audioholics.com/education/ca ... s-debunked
Cheers