Internal Speaker Wire

After reading all the discussions about interconnects, speaker wire, and the big bucks spent tweaking and listening and evaluating, I'm still amazed that most have not replaced the stock 18-guage crossover wires that come inside Most Speakers. I have some runs from the X-overs that are 40" and Polk used 30" runs too. A lot of you guys Spend Hundreds on IC and let the last 30 to 40 inches of Signal travel through 18 guage wire. To those of you that would tell me that the last 30 to 40 " do not matter, Hogwash, they do as I have done this and it will make just as much as a sonic improment as did the 300 dollar cable you bought.

Just trying to raise a stink, P U

That is an interesting topic. I have actually been reading up on that and it makes excellent sense. I guess most people feel that the speaker is the way it is and it's better off left alone but it is a curious thing. Did Polk not feel that an LSI 15 would sound better with thicker gauge wire? Was it a cost cutting method? I would really like to hear feedback from those who have done this upgrade myself.

Don't forget that the voice coil is wrapped with the same quality wire and is usually much longer than 40". Seems like that would make a bigger difference than anything else.

Food for thought.

It is the water main/water hose analogy. The city puts in 6 inch water mains so you can get good pressure at your house even though you only use 3/4 inch garden hoses. You don't need a 6 inch garden hose for your sprinkler to have the needed pressure, you need the 6 inch main to maintain constant pressure/current.

The long runs deserve the higher gauge to minimize resistance or loss.

Thats' might be true, for the most part IF we were delivering water from our speakers but we are not. Everyone is reaching for the holy grail of sound so we do spend big bucks on what most would consider as insignificant to the sound system. This internal wiring is the most overlooked and ignored part of the sound delivery system and dismissed as not even playing a part of the overall factor in delivering the open and transparent sound we all try to achieve by sinking hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars into other wiring aspects. Queer eh?

yet they use $400 IC's that run 2 foot long, maybe if we upgraded the longer wire in the system, (the internal wire) we could get away with cheaper interconnects of only 24" long instead of the 40" or more internal wire.. I feel ya on this one..

i have always thought the exact same thing. Also, it sometimes sickens me to plug in my speaker wire to the back of the Avr, look down through the vents on top and see super thin stuff going from the connector to the board.

Its like running a long marathon really well and passing out a foot from the finish ya know?

i dunno. maybe larger guage wires inside a amp or receiver.. isn't needed.. or everyone would be doing it. I don't know of any electronics makers that do it.. so maybe it's not needed.

it does make sense to increase the guage of wires on all levels though..

email Sony for instance and see what kind of response you get from em. Or maybe a smaller company like Outlaw Audio.

Inside a amp or something like that is not required for larger wiring as it's the electrical tolerances that are making the item work and delivering the performance you are paying for. As for the loudspeakers, thats a different story, Synergy. Yamaha uses monster wire for their internal wiring on their loudspeakers.

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Originally Posted by Drumingman

Inside a amp or something like that is not required for larger wiring as it's the electrical tolerances that are making the item work and delivering the performance you are paying for. As for the loudspeakers, thats a different story, Synergy. Yamaha uses monster wire for their internal wiring on their loudspeakers.

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yeah but which Monster wire? Is it their entry level wires? If so... it may not be any better than any other internal wires from someone else. I dunno. I'd have to rip apart it and compare it to know for sure.

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Originally Posted by danger boy

yeah but which Monster wire? Is it their entry level wires? If so... it may not be any better than any other internal wires from someone else. I dunno. I'd have to rip apart it and compare it to know for sure.

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prob. monster xp. Just like with the $100/pr. Wharfedale surround speakers, nothing to shout about. But saying you're speaker is packed with Monster wire gives off the impression that it's a higher quality speaker.

Ok, here's what happens. The speaker cables run to the CROSSOVERS, not the drivers. The crossovers (PCB's in most cases) have little, thin traces and thin leads for caps, resistors and inductors. The inductors, the largest of which is usually around 18 gauge, can have 10', 25', 50' or more of wire in them. After all that, as long as it's at least 16 gauge, those last few inches really don't matter. Getting the signal TO the crossover is what matters.

I upgraded the chassis wire in a pair of Carver Plat's because they used 24 gauge. In that case, it did make a difference. If you shop around for chassis wire, the largest gauge that I found was Cardas chassis wire at 11.5 gauge. I wouldn't put Monster wire in my speakers for all the tea in China!

BTW, my Polk's use 14 gauge.

Cliff, STFU!

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Originally Posted by F1nut

BTW, my Polk's use 14 gauge.

Cliff, STFU!

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I thought that Polk used higher gauge..........

They might now, but my SDA's have 14 gauge.

I actually was referring to higher than 18 gauge. 14 gauge wire is adequate to deliver power beyond the limits of most of Polks speakers in the small distances within a cabinet.

Mine came from the factory with 18 guage. I never advocated using Monster cable for internal wiring but given the 18 guage existing wire I'm sure it would be an improvement. I would prefer 14 inside my enclosure.

Dennis, my bad.

D-man, which speakers do you have?

R50-Ah, that explains it.

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Originally Posted by F1nut

Cliff, STFU!

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excuse me? what i'm not allowed to make a comment in a thread now? Oh wait i mentioned blowing 400 bucks on a IC, something to close to home for you eh? :rolleyes:

Join the crowd F1 congrats!

Why stop there, but consider the other problem you've now created.
The wire as it stand is creating 2 other possible problems and using larger wire makes them both worse.
If you have insulation within the cabinet, it now cant be put in properly. The second is the stock wire all ready splits the the sound wave in the cabinet making it crash around the wire like lighting creating a thunder boom or sorts and alarger wire would make that worse. My suggestion would be to attach it to the walls of the cabinets and only allow enough in the free space to make connections, made mine sound a whole lot better!!

It wasn't your $400 IC comment as much as the rest of it, which makes NO sense at all. As for the IC comment, like you'd even know what a pair sounds like. :rolleyes:

So, lets say you've got a typical Polk 3-way speaker, like an RTi8. You've got wire coming from your amp to the speaker bindings/crossover, then three sets of wires going from the crossover to each driver. The wire outside the cabinet is 12awg, do you need three runs of 12awg inside the cabinet going to each driver? Of course not. Three smaller wires can match the flow of the bigger wire.

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Originally Posted by Drumingman

from the X-overs that are 40" and Polk used 30" runs too. A lot of you guys Spend Hundreds on IC and let the last 30 to 40 inches of Signal travel through 18 guage wire. To those of you that would tell me that the last 30 to 40 " do not matter,U

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This is what my comment was based from, only you seemed to only not understand it when i said it,




your right, i dont have 400 bucks for an IC :rolleyes:

No Cliff, the rest of them simply ignored it.

So, since you haven't even tried $400.00 IC's, what makes you think you can comment on them?

Jesse,

I have no beef with you, and now all the sudden you have with me.. Ive seen you rant and it doesnt matter what i say, you will have a comeback and a putdown, remind me again, what your problem is with me?

Get in line man, the line starts to the left.

I never said $400 dollar IC's sounded bad, can't recall saying it.
I said if you think a 2 foot IC is important, then why isnt the long wire inside the speaker AS important? It wasn't my statment, but the original posters and i just agreed. and added the IC comment.

No they didn't ignore it, because i just repeated what drumming man said.. Re-read the damm post

Bringing up the subject of wires at any point on these boards is like watching a rabbi and a priest go at it. :)

I thought it was a legitimate question concerning the internal wiring and always wondered it myself. Of course I am too much of a wuss to have brought it up.

*finds another rock to hide under*

I stumbled upon this while searching for reviews of the RT2000i:

Polk Audio RT 2000i -
Hello,
After being through a long period of buying a new set of loudspeakers for my system I finally settled for the Polk rt2000i. This decision was based primarily on my own listening tests of their little brother, the rt1000i but also on your excellent review.
I have had them for only a short time, and so far I'm satisfied with the sound. The problem is that I am of a very curious nature and have a strong urge to find out how everything works. So I decided to open up my speakers to find out what they looked like on the inside.
The first thing I did was to have a look at the amplifier. Here I discovered cheap quality wiring and a physically very small amplifier. ...snipped...
But I still have to say that the sound quality of these speakers is very good.
I hope you can share this information with the audio community.
Keep up the excellent work!
Tom Nikolaisen

LC
Dear Tom,
first of all, let me say I'm glad you're satisfied with the sound of your pair of RT 2000i, this means my review wasn't purely subjective. As I always say, accurate and extensive listening tests perfomed by experienced listeners CAN partially avoid subjectivity and get closer to the real thing (i.e. how a component sounds like).
Secondly, let me point out that you will be surprised to know how many "hi-end" designs (be it a loudspeaker, an amplifier, a CD player etc.) even those costing thousand of dollars, make use of ridiculously poor internal cabling, not to mention cheap and confuse layout and so on.
The real point is: does this stuff sound good? If yes, forget the rest. A loudspeaker is a very complex design, with several aspects (and compromises) that concour to the final result. Actually, fine sounding speakers may even NOT benefit from tweaking (such as rewiring) since you could easily BREAK their equilibrium in an unpredictable way.

...snipped...

Anyway, here's the official reply from Paul DiComo at Polk Audio Inc. I think it clarifies everything.
Enjoy the Music!
Lucio Cadeddu


Dear Mr. Nikolaisen,

...snipped...

As for the wire we use - our goal is to offer the best possible sound for the money. To meet that goal we have to make choices as to where to spend money to get the greatest "bang for the buck".
While we believe that audiophile internal wire can make a performance difference, the difference is small in comparison to the difference made by using a better quality driver or tweeter. If we practiced cost-no-object design and engineering our products would cost more and be accessible to fewer people. People who want (and can afford) cost-no-object products, have many fine brands to choose from.
We are very proud of the performance of Polk speakers and feel they offer superior sound quality for a fair and reasonable price. Reviewers around the world such as Lucio Cadeddu and Richard George of TNT, Robert Reina of Stereophile and dozens of others have attested to the performance and value of Polk speakers despite our use of generic wire. They focused on the result, not the means.

I am happy to hear that you are enjoying the sound of your RT2000i's. As they break in with use I think you will become even more pleased with their sound. And if you want to experiment and take on a little tweak project - by all means go ahead and upgrade the internal wiring of the speakers. If you need any technical advice or if I can serve you in any way, please contact me directly -

Regards,
Paul DiComo
Polk Audio, Inc.

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Just trying to raise a stink, P U[/QUOTE]


Sorry about that, hehehe

Nah! Its a good topic.. just some people can't be diverse in thier subject matter.. ie: one track minds.. :)

And we all know how your mind works. :)