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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Deep End DIY - Australian take one Macondo.
Post Subject: It may not be the right time...Posted by anthony on: 10/3/2017
...to obsess about speaker wire.  Thinking about this a little more I realise that my preference for foil cables has always been in relation to speakers with passive crossovers.  DSET is much more simple, the amplifier is driving the transducer directly without any other reactive components in the way so in theory should have a much easier time of it.  

I've just done some calculations for power loss versus cable gauge and I think that with that length of cable that I would be best off with as low a resistance as possible.  It seems to be an absolutely overriding factor.  If my calcs are correct an 18 gauge speaker cable would burn 4dB or 5.5watts and into 1R the 6C33C grid clips at about 9watts...that's half my power gone just by using an undersized cable plus it really destroys the damping factor.  6 gauge wire on the other hand will burn 0.64 watts or about 0.32dB and keeps the damping factor largely intact.  I was missing the forest for the trees!

So super low resistance is my way forward.  There is some Belden 6AWG wire that I have found which might just be the ticket.

EDIT:  It gets even worse...I just realised my numbers above are with a one way  and not return trip from speaker to amplifier.

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