Why does the gauge of speaker wire matter? Options

[mkop]

I've read some things discussing speaker wiring such as speaker reviews and their is always something like "the included cables are ok but you'll probably want to go and get something thicker." My question is why do I want some huge python of a cable? And what principles are used to decide what size is big enough?

[ScorLibran]

[reaching back 15 years to my electrical engineering classes at Auburn]

IIRC, electrons only travel on the surface of a wire, hence to move more electrons you need more surface area of wire.

Braided cable works better than solid because many smaller wires bound together have a lot more surface area than a single cable of the same thickness.

The more current/voltage you need to get to the target, the more "wire surface area" you need, hence the need for heavier gauge braided cabling. So boojum's analogy of water through a pipe is a good one, except instead of "in the wire", electricity moves on the surface of a wire.

This concept (or my description of it) might be wrong because my major was not EE (it was actually aerospace engineering) and I don't consider myself an expert on matters of electricity. [Spent more time with Bernouli's Principle than with Ohm's Law. ] But I'm pretty sure this concept is the right one.

This post has been edited by ScorLibran: Oct 11 2003, 06:16