8
The ideal conductor would have negligible resistance, inductance
and capacitance. The table below shows how a few actual speaker
cables measure up.
Cable
Ωs/ft
pF/ft
µH/ft
12 ga.
0.0033
24
0.21
14 ga.
0.0048
17
0.13
16 ga.
0.0079
16
0.18
18 ga.
0.0128
28
0.21
Capacitance is considered insignificant in each cable because its ef-
fect is well out of the audio bandwidth; inductance can be de-
creased (at the expense of increased capacitance) by keeping the
conductor pair closely spaced.
How long would a cable have to be before inductance effects would
impinge on the audio spectrum? Approximately 300 feet of 12 gauge
would be required to establish a corner frequency of 20 kHz with an
8 Ohm loudspeaker. As you see, inductance is not a problem for
most of us.
Hooking Up Cables
