New BassChat 8"Cab design

[Obrienp]

So it’s not necessary to use some specialist hifi speaker cable?

[Stub Mandrel]

12 hours ago, nekomatic said:

6 A twin core mains cable would also be fine. 

 

I just always seem to have some around when doing speaker things...

[Bassybert]

The only cable I use is ultra low capacitance, oxygen free, double wrapped with Kevlar, a gluten free hemp covering and the copper was mined on a Tuesday. It’s the only stuff I use. 

Edited Saturday at 15:18 by Bassybert

[Phil Starr]

On 05/12/2025 at 11:58, rwillett said:

Solder speaker wire to the speaker <-- What size wire is OK for 250W? I definitely have AWG16 and might have some thicker in a box somewhere in my basement. I've heard AWG 14 should be used

all the answers are good. The thing is that you really don't need to oversize. The resistance of the cable is going to be close to zero because you are dealing with a really short length. As to power handling you hve to remember the speaker is playing music not continuous current. Most of the time there is little or no signal and any note you play decays quite quickly. It's normal to think in terms of a duty cycle of 15-20% but that is allowing for a considerable safety margin, under 10% might be more 'real world' use so 20W for your 225W speaker would be a more reasonable rating. 

 

The voice coil of your speaker is wound with hair thin copper wire only slightly thicker than the strands in your cables and that doesn't burn out in normal use. Like @Stub Mandrel I use a couple of cores from any mains cable laying around most of the time, even 1mm lighting cable is plenty big enough. The reason speaker cables use thicker wire is to keep resistance to a minimum on longer cable runs. That's not relevant for the 40cm wire inside the cab.

[Rosie C]

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

The voice coil of your speaker is wound with hair thin copper wire only slightly thicker than the strands in your cables and that doesn't burn out in normal use. 

 

That puts it into perspective! 

[rwillett]

2 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

all the answers are good. The thing is that you really don't need to oversize. The resistance of the cable is going to be close to zero because you are dealing with a really short length. As to power handling you hve to remember the speaker is playing music not continuous current. Most of the time there is little or no signal and any note you play decays quite quickly. It's normal to think in terms of a duty cycle of 15-20% but that is allowing for a considerable safety margin, under 10% might be more 'real world' use so 20W for your 225W speaker would be a more reasonable rating. 

 

The voice coil of your speaker is wound with hair thin copper wire only slightly thicker than the strands in your cables and that doesn't burn out in normal use. Like @Stub Mandrel I use a couple of cores from any mains cable laying around most of the time, even 1mm lighting cable is plenty big enough. The reason speaker cables use thicker wire is to keep resistance to a minimum on longer cable runs. That's not relevant for the 40cm wire inside the cab.

Phil

 

Thanks for this. I did read an article that said AWG 4 (yep that's not a typo) should be used. Not sure I've seen anything that thick TBH. 
 

My AWG 16 will be fine then. I'll cut a bit off and solder it down. Does the cable need to be glued down to stop vibration at all? I'm assuming not but checking anyway. 
 

Thanks
 

Rob

[tauzero]

12 minutes ago, rwillett said:

Thanks for this. I did read an article that said AWG 4 (yep that's not a typo) should be used. Not sure I've seen anything that thick TBH.

 

I have in the past dismantled a GK 200MB combo, and the speaker wires on that are really thin - what I would think of as flexible hookup wire. And GK probably know what they're doing (although personally I wouldn't go for anything that thin, I use whatever spare mains lead is knocking around).

[Phil Starr]

1 hour ago, rwillett said:

Does the cable need to be glued down to stop vibration at all? I

Because most of my cabs never get truly finished I've a lot of loose wires in many cabs, and vibrating wires do happen but not often. I usually fix one end to the speaker itself with cable ties leaving enough slack to avoid stressing the connections but tight enough not to flap around. I bury the other end under any wadding and that stops that moving. I don't leave a lot of slack though, just enough to be able to remove the drive unit easily

Edited 54 minutes ago by Phil Starr