Is thicker always better? Interconnects

[insider9]

Thanks Pedro. They do look bulky. I love it!

 

[Rethep]

I just use cheap plain copper wire. But then again i also use a cheap DAC

.

I don't think there is any other reason to use expensive cables, then to fill the pockets of them who make 'em.

 

[Vladimir]

By default thicker is better in all cable applications, including USB.

What's more important is to have pure copper, not CCA (copper clad aluminium). A smaller gauge pure copper wire will outperform a thicker CCA one.

While I normally agree with Vlad, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with CCA. Sure, if you have two cables the same thickness, then copper wins over aluminium. Use a thicker aluminium cable.

Equally if you have two cables the same weight, then aluminium wins over copper. Where weight really matters (overhead grid cables for example) aluminium cables with a steel core for strength are used.

Some vintage amps have significant limitation gauge wise, and USB is standardised to 24AWG or 28AWG, so going for pure copper is worth the small premium IMO.

 

[Vladimir]

I just use cheap plain copper wire. But then again i also use a cheap DAC .

I don't think there is any other reason to use expensive cables, then to fill the pockets of them who make 'em.

How can you ignore the countless hours of Research & Development invested in making audio cables? Men in lab coats have mouths to feed too you know (mostly cats).

 

[Alantiggger]

Some would argue, that it helps to be thicker, when it comes to believing anything but cheap interconnects make much difference. *unknw*

INDEED ....

IT AS ALWAYS, appears, folks with far too much money and prepared to waste it.

I say let em, more fools then the more educated.

 

[Tannoyed]

Here's a hoary old chestnut!

I fall into the cheapskate camp. Use screened leads with metal (not necessarily gold) phono plugs so that the screening integrity is not compromised-wire thickness immaterial on signal connections.

For speakers thicker is indeed better if you want all of those output stage volts to appear across your speech coils and not the wiring on the way to them. That said there is a thing called the skin effect. You could use welding cable but the higher frequencies would only travel down the outer 0.5mm of the cable (20kHz) or 1mm (5kHz). Low frequencies will pass relatively untroubled. I got these figures from an online skin effect calculator so they may not be accurate nevertheless the effect exists. It is more prevalent at RF frequencies and for audio applications may not be so noticeable however any variation of impedance with frequency will cause a roll off of the higher frequencies.

You could be really extravagant and use Litz wire. This is a multi-strand wire where every strand is insulated from its neighbours. It is used in high frquency inverter transformers to reduce losses effectively by providing a lot of skin! That might and I emphasise might make a difference and boost the HF content but it would be very expensive.

As I said, being a cheapskate and aged 57 with a hearing 3dB down point at something like 10kHz I just use reasonably heavy gauge copper wire-solid or multi-strand it matters not which!