Speaker Cable: a crucial factor for your sound?

by S. Herpich

As the first "overall" rule we know: the lesser the diameter of the cable, the higher will be the compensating resistor of the cable. The lower frequencies, the Bass, will suffer under that.

Fingerthick cables on the other hand won't make it better.

If you imagine the way the signal travels; over the tiny layer of copper on the circuitboard, through the 10m - 15m of laquer insulated copperwire from the outlet coil in the amplifier, through your humble cable, into the next coil, the one of the bass speaker.
Low frequency speaker coils are made with very thinn laquer insulated copperwire. This is to keep the mass of the swinging coil low and the unwanted airspace between coil and magnet as small as possible. This leads to a significant increase in temperature under maximum performance input into the speaker.
Thats why speakers sometimes "blow" or "burn out".
That's surely some way to travel till the electronic signal is sound. And 3 to 10 meter of $3000 high end speaker cable in between are not going to make a difference that you or me could hear.

Leading guideline for your cable purchase should be: nothing thinner than 1.5mm\2 and not bigger than 4 mm\2. Obviously the item should be made of copper. If the copper is enriched with silver, it's power resistor decreases. But who are we people to judge the silver content in an audio cable in any given shop?
Furthermore do shielded cables have a significantly higher capacity than unshielded cables, though flat webbed wire (two wires running parralel in their insulation) have far less cable induction than a coaxial cable.

Don't pay for the name on the cable, and if you don't have cable hiding issues than even a solution from the home improvement market would do.

Rather invest the money you save in future decent speakers, your best way to increase the quality of your sound output....