Thread: What are the Potential Improvements Going from 12 Gauge to 9 Gauge Speaker Cables?

none............

but since you use the word 'expect' you should read this ........

P-640 - The power of expectation bias - ScienceDirect

I was always curious why tiny wire is used inside the speaker and not 10 or 12 gauge like we feed it with.

Complex multi component crossovers eat up a lot of power.
once the frequencies have been divided the load is reduced thus smaller wires are used to the drivers.
Feeding the crossovers with a reasonable sized cable is similar to feeding your system with decent sized main power feed wires.
As per an audible difference between 12Ga and 9Ga speaker cables of the same make, type and length, I would be very doubtful that you could notice a difference.
In my many DIY speaker cables, wire size was one of the least distinguishing traits.

Originally Posted by Shadowfax

I was always curious why tiny wire is used inside the speaker and not 10 or 12 gauge like we feed it with.

Having PAP Trio 15 Horn speakers, I can select the gauge wire from my crossover to driver. My woofers definitely like larger wire. I have about 12 AWG to the woofers and 14 awg to the horn. With 14 awg to the woofers, they loose bass power and depth.

Originally Posted by Speedskater

Well that's not exactly how crossovers work. Unless the crossover has big resistors, it uses almost no power. The crossover would get very hot if it did use a lot of power. Most of the power is to the woofer and that's before and after the crossover.

The difference between before and after the crossover has to do with the total end-to-end resistance of the cable in respect to the impedance curve of the loudspeaker.

I was not aware that ohms law changed, allowing for a "free lunch".
But then it's good to learn something new everyday.

You need heavy gauge wire for long runs and current hungry speakers. Many years ago, when I bought a pair of Magnepan MMG's,
all I had was 18g zip cord and 16g Monster wire that was 15' long. I tried them out of curiosity. Both became hot and the 18g developed charring at the speaker end. No problems when I inserted 10g.

Originally Posted by Tubes

Generically speaking, what improvements (if any) might I expect to hear going from a pair of 12 gauge speaker cables in an 8 foot length to the same brand and length of 9 gauge cables?

Are going to actually test this? Or, is this just hypothetical?

Anyway, it is a pretty substantial difference.

Originally Posted by Tubes

Generically speaking, what improvements (if any) might I expect to hear going from a pair of 12 gauge speaker cables in an 8 foot length to the same brand and length of 9 gauge cables?

In case you're still interested in reading subjective experiences with this, the closest thing you may do is to find reports from people who "double run" their speaker cables, especially among the DIY cable users. Doing a double run lowers the AWG value by 3, i.e. with a double run of AWG 12 you get an effective AWG 9.

There is also a cable company whose Level 3 AWG 9 speaker cable product offering is just a double run of its Level 2 solid core AWG 12 product. So you can read its manufacturer claim of the benefits with this upgrade and user reports.