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<blockquote data-quote="TJ Cornish" data-source="post: 31645" data-attributes="member: 162">Re: Does damping factor have any noticeable effect?Richard - it seems you&#039;re overbuying your wire, both from a cable gauge standpoint (3m cables aren&#039;t very long) and from a &quot;quality&quot; standpoint - there&#039;s no need to pay for &quot;ultra-pure oxygen free&quot; or whatever other junk is sold as &quot;premium speaker wire&quot;.&nbsp; Regular power distribution cord of appropriate gauge (what we call SJO cord) is just fine.&nbsp; As several folks have said, you want your cable resistance to be &lt;5% of your load impedance.&nbsp; If you are running 4ohm loads, then you want your cable resistance to be .2ohms or less. Here&#039;s a table of resistance per foot.&nbsp; Units are American AWG and per foot:4&nbsp;&nbsp; .0002926&nbsp;&nbsp; .0004658&nbsp;&nbsp; .00073910&nbsp; .0011812&nbsp; .0018714&nbsp; .0029716&nbsp; .0047318&nbsp; .0075120&nbsp; .011922&nbsp; .019024&nbsp; .030226&nbsp; .048028&nbsp; .0764Assuming no connector loss, you can accomplish a damping factor of &gt;20 with 18-ga wire (.823mm^2 area) for your 3m lengths.&nbsp; I&#039;m not suggesting you do this, but as you can see, you have a lot of headroom.&nbsp; Most US pro audio has standardized on 12 gauge cable (3.31mm^2 area) for runs of up to 75&#039; or so as it is cheaply available and relatively easy to work with.&nbsp; Longer runs are minimized to the degree possible - amp racks on each side of the stage, etc.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TJ Cornish, post: 31645, member: 162"] Re: Does damping factor have any noticeable effect? Richard - it seems you're overbuying your wire, both from a cable gauge standpoint (3m cables aren't very long) and from a "quality" standpoint - there's no need to pay for "ultra-pure oxygen free" or whatever other junk is sold as "premium speaker wire". Regular power distribution cord of appropriate gauge (what we call SJO cord) is just fine. As several folks have said, you want your cable resistance to be <5% of your load impedance. If you are running 4ohm loads, then you want your cable resistance to be .2ohms or less. Here's a table of resistance per foot. Units are American AWG and per foot: 4 .000292 6 .000465 8 .000739 10 .00118 12 .00187 14 .00297 16 .00473 [B]18 .00751[/B] 20 .0119 22 .0190 24 .0302 26 .0480 28 .0764 Assuming no connector loss, you can accomplish a damping factor of >20 with 18-ga wire (.823mm^2 area) for your 3m lengths. I'm not suggesting you do this, but as you can see, you have a lot of headroom. Most US pro audio has standardized on 12 gauge cable (3.31mm^2 area) for runs of up to 75' or so as it is cheaply available and relatively easy to work with. Longer runs are minimized to the degree possible - amp racks on each side of the stage, etc. [/QUOTE]

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