ADDENDA
Speaker cabling: Prepare speaker
cabling for the high frequency horns only from multiple twisted pair Spectrastrip high-speed computer data ribbon cable. You can parallel as
many conductors as you like to obtain the equivalent of a 14, 12 or 10
AWG. This method produces the finest performance available from wire-of
any kind, at any price! You may also use pairs of single 10-gauge
stranded wires which you can twist using an electric drill motor.
Twisting conductors around each other places the current paths (and
resulting surrounding magnetic fields) closer to right angles to each
other which in turn reduces inductance-the main property of speaker
cabling that can cause a loss in high frequencies in the
amp-cable-speaker system. You can use any 10 or 12-gauge wire pairs for
the mid and lower frequency drivers or even as small as 16-gauge if
cables are short.
Terminate the three pairs of wires into a
screw-terminal barrier strip mounted on top or on the back of the woofer
chamber. From there, continue with the same wire to the amp. Place the
amp nearby (it happens to be the same width as the speaker cabinet) and
keep speaker cables short to minimize resistance and capacitance. This
is the best you can do to insure that wire is not playing a degrading
role in your audio system.
It is essential that good connections with low
contact resistance be made at each connection. Use of crimped lugs is
recommended if the certified crimp tool is used to install the lugs.
High-cost gold-plated hardware which offer good mechanical connections
are acceptable if they can be made to provide a low-resistance
connection to the wire itself, and may offer additional benefits in
avoiding contact "poisoning" due to the molecular migration of
dissimilar metals across the connection. Periodic checks of connections
will, in any case, avoid chemical connection problems.
This project is expensive
enough already. Don't listen to any hair-brained morons who may try to
tell you "special" speaker wire will make any difference. It's not
true - it's only mysticism. If there were any actual advantages, such wire
would have found its way into the engineering mainstream for large
military projects, and satellites where billions in research would
surely have revealed the benefits and resulted in at least some
documentation. PERCEIVED benefits are exactly that-perceived as a direct
result of psychological inclination to rationalize and justify the
absurd expenditure of money for what amounts to nothing more than
prestige.
Lastly, if you're totally into perfection, I can
highly recommend the Sigtech AEC 1000 Acoustic Environment Correction
System. It is a serious engineering tool developed from the technology
of radar image enhancement. The box (and a PC) measures and stores the
total transfer function of the loudspeakers and the room, convolves huge
DSP filters (2470 filter poles) from the stored measurement, and
processes your audio at 250 million operations per second to produce
corrections from up to four listening positions. You are left with
smoother frequency response with a vastly closer match between left and
right, and smooth phase response in the bargain since the correction is
done in the time domain. No other device even comes close to the power
this thing provides. You could turn one of your speakers toward the wall
so that its output is reflected back to you later and with wider
dispersion and added absorption, and the box is capable of correcting so
thoroughly that the stereo image will be pulled right back to the center
as if everything was normal! I used this thing at Disney to make Hi-Fi
through tubes! And it worked!! It will cost you between $6500 and $8500
depending on whether you want the whole analysis system or are content
to have an engineer set it up for you. For more information about the
Sigtech, e-mail me at
[email protected]