Belden ICONOCLAST Interconnects and Speaker Cabling

That is true. Let’s see if @rower30 chimes in with technical details

Here is the “tech” for what it is worth. The HALL EFFECT (look that up and read some) suggest that close wires that carry current can interfere with each other. It is inherent in a current carrying wire. The effect PULLS (same current direction in each wire) and push (opposite current direction in each wire) wires apart. Energy is “used” in this way. Moving stuff isn’t free.

This says a logical distance apart is best to mitigate HALL EFFECT. The EM field is magnetic so it decreases with the distance squared (twice as far apart is four time less coupling). I use 1.0" plastic spark plug wire spaces on my speaker cables more for neatness than the HALL effect but…I address that voodoo too so we have that.

Bi wire takes more advantage of IM distortion reduction by superimposed fewer frequencies at once creating the signature IM distortion artifacts as frequencies create beat frequencies.

It also lessens the back EMF the amp sees from the speaker but this is less than the IM distortion. If you yell at a speaker and put a VOM on the terminals, the driver will move and send a voltage backwards towards the amplifier. Small, true, but gets bigger the louder you play.

Just don’t put your tongue on the end of the speaker cable and push the woofer in and out quickly unless you want a free hair style. But it will get the point (voltage) across!

Best,
Galen Gareis

4 Likes

I have racked my brain and I have no idea what you are referring to.

Care to elaborate or share a picture…?

Thanks in advance.

The spacers are what we’re talking about. Several types. They have no idea they aren’t in a car engine bay. I won’t tell either. A customer sent me their way, same as me to you. Pass it forward.

Best,
Galen

5 Likes

Gotcha!

Very clever. Thank you for the prompt reply.

Scott

A long time ago I biwired a pair of B&W speakers with Kimber 4TC and 8TC. I tried a few different arrangements and the best was keeping them apart similar to Galen’s method. The worst was twisting them together to “make them neater”. Really mucked up the sound.

1 Like

Galen,

I am considering picking up another set of Iconclast Speaker cables to Bi-wire the woofers on my McIntosh XR290s. The XR290s are Line Arrays with 40 drivers per speaker have three taps for triamping with passive crossover s as follows LF 16Hz to 400Hz to qty 4 - 12” woofers, MF 400 Hz to1300Hz to qty 12 - 5” midrange , and HF qty 24- 1” dome tweeters.

My Amps are McIntosh MC1000 with three sets of autoformer taps at 2, 4, and 8 ohms.

I currently have a five foot Large Spade SPTPC wires both ends running from the amps 8 Ohm autoformer taps to the HF speaker tap. They have a gold plated flat bar plate running through center holes of each speaker terminal to tie the HF to MF to LF together. And I found best sound in single wire was to connect to the HF tap then jumper with the gold plate down to MF and LF.

Questions,

1 . Will I run into issues stacking spades off the 8 Ohm Monoblock autoformer tap or would using a spade and locking bananas terminal be better if speaker wires are sharing a terminal.

  1. Better to run a jumper plate or wire from the LF or HF tap to the MF tap when biwiring cables to LF and HF on my speakers based on passive crossovers.

  2. Would you run all the speaker cables off the 8 Ohm autoformer amp tap or try to match autoformer impedance to measured static resistance to the speaker taps based on your recommendation for Bi-wire?

  3. Based on your experience and/or theoretical measurements which Iconoclast copper is best choice engineering cost and sound wise for the LF biwire? The sound is likely my priority factor. In your SFAS zoom meeting you told a user you were not surprised he like OFC better than SPTPC to his LF though user only had SPTPC available. Which copper on the LF will sound smoother given grain structure in metallurgy and experience?

  4. Does BJC make Iconoclast jumpers? If so which copper would you recommend based on performance to frequency/cost/performance jumpering from HF to MF or LF to MF based on my speakers frequency crossovers? Is one better of using bananas or stacking spades and if banana how much can one bend wires coming out of banana terminal since my speakers were designed and voiced for being placed close to front wall for bass response.

  5. Given all these variables and my speakers crossover points any payoff in sound by going tri-wire on paper or in your experience?

I know there are a lot of engineering trade offs in this set of questions but also know you don’t upsell where it is not necessary relative to performance.

Attached are some URL links to my speakers and amps so you have additional info to be able to make an informed recommendations.

http://www.roger-russell.com/xr290.htm

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1100763/Mcintosh-Mc1000.html?page=4#manual

Thanks for your time considering this!

1 Like

Just curious to see if Galen recommends the same what I would do in your case :innocent:
Another set of SPTPC wire with bananas to same 8ohm taps as your current spades are ,connected then to MF drivers.
Then SPTPC jumpers from MF to LF.

Pretty sure you will get nice upgrades by removing those terminal plates,and using good cables instead. Way to go :metal:

1 Like

My only issue is clearance to back wall with wire banana jumpers. Roger Russell took advantage of rear wall bass return and Lyngdorf RoomPerfect likes LF on the wall too.

I get cleanest most defined bass having these monster towers slammed to the wall then letting DSP solidify it even more. I only left two inches clearance terminal to wall. Big difference between 4” and 2” to my ears. Seems odd given the length of LF waves but is discernible in your gut. They still have depth and spatial reference in 3D too.

Mr. V.,

I usually try to keep copper type the same as there is a cross-over that BOTH are carrying the same frequencies at a set slope based on the cross-over. To keep issues at a minimum it is safer to match copper. But, given the time, we all know that every instance isn’t immune from special improvements based on trials. That said…The SPTPC is a higher frequency “improvement” and in no way can it benefit the real low-end as much. SPTPC won’t hurt anything, you’ll just not hear a difference between TPC and SPTPC as you go lower and lower. The OFE, most report, a warmer sound than TPC and this will carry over in the bass for sure. If your bass is LEAN, OFE may be of benefit to you. Want more attack, the TPC or SPTPC will be better based on how the upper harmonics sound.

TPC on the bass and SPTPC up high is a likely OK mix as the silver is seen WAY up top and the core TPC is seen far lower and is the same copper structure.

I’d try the 8-ohm tapes for BOTH cable sets and compare them to a 8-ohm and 4-ohm set. Do you have the impedance sweeps of your speakers? The higher end is usually a LOWER average impedance so less than the woofer section in matching impedance is typical. A day spent @ 8+8 and 8+4 and 8+2 will answer itself, I think. The cross-over will handle what frequencies go where based on the filter “impedance” being too high for low frequencies to use the mid/tweeter restive path.

The banana option will be tough that close to a wall. I’d use spades at the speaker end. You can see that the spades will naturally allow a near wall entry better where the banana are awful and like some space. Each connector definitely has an advantage.

Best,
Galen

3 Likes

Galen,

I appreciate the insight, I had assumed the LF branch would lower impedance more than the HF branches. Unfortunately I do not have any impedance curves on the XR290 let alone for each branch nor the owners manual.

Do you think stacking spades at the amp terminal is ok or go one set in locking bananas? Also is the plate or iconoclast jumpers best to jumper mF and LF or maybe just do a tri-wire if stacking spades works.

The one concern I noticed earlier in comparison of TPC versus SPTPC is TPC sounded more forward in your face. But that seemed to be more MF related flap my pant leg if I recall my sonic memory. I wish I had thought of trying a biwire or triwire at that time. But then it was a stretch to go full loom iconoclast wires and interconnects.

I am at the point now of being able to afford more fine tuning.

I do have the wiring diagram and crossover schematics and parts list. The drivers are a series of parallel networks. Given that the HF, MF and LF drivers are in parallel and at 8 ohm they all must be fairly high impedance to keep the combined result at 8 ohm. One can also see the resistors Roger used in his design to help balance the impedance between and within the driver branches.

But I agree sound with cables may give a different result as to which auto-former or copper is best.

I will reach out to Bob and place an order after setting on what is my best option to optimize system sound.

These are low impedance drivers in series / parallel to up the presented impedance. Hard to say exactly where they are designed to end up. Some designers do go as low as 2-ohms on the top end. My CLX drop to 0.5 Ohms @ 20 KHz. That seems extreme but little current demand is drawn that high. It is more the amps ability to be stable into that low impedance load. But series drivers usually are a higher load, I agree.

Can you take the X-over to a tech shop and have it measured?

Always send the current to the highest current point in the series first. That would be the mid driver (more power) and then the jumpers draws lower current up to the the tweeter. That usually works best. There is less voltage drop as E= I*R and R is the same since the jumper is unchanged and we drop the current going from the tweeter the voltage drop across the jumper is low.

If we put the max power at the tweeter and jumper to the mid driver that draws higher current, we see MORE voltage loss across the jumper by the nature of the current level. So the math my answer. Minimize the signal loss.

We did design high quality 10 AWG JUMPERS and as these are usually going to higher frequency drivers (woofer to mid/tweeter or mid to tweeter they are all SPTPC as higher frequencies are on the assembly. Makes sense, same as where to put them, mid to tweeter, not tweeter to mid.

A spade with banana jumper is used. The spades are pretty thick to check to see about clearances with your current leads. Just double on up and see what happens. Not all WBT type have the same spacing opened up. The WBT type posts do make an easy banana jumper assembly to use.

1 Like

Thanks Galen,

I don’t recall if I did try spades at MF tnen plate jumper to tweeter. I did like tweeter connected by Spades and then jumpering down to LF with the plate versus opposite.

My amps have no current issues and will deliver 160 amp peaks. The speakers each branch has poly switches to save drivers from being overdriven and will shut down any or all if exceeded longer tham momentary. I have experienced that on occasion with mids or highs dropping if total watts hover above 1200 too long say five or ten seconds continuous.

I will try a MF hook up for less signal loss. I always learn from your theoretical analysis If I recall because terminals are recessed i had problem bending the iconoclast spade leg since cabinet case is hogged out and the crossover is bolted internal. No chance of easy crossover removal and at 350lbs speaker is not portable to get impedance sweeps.

Galen - pardon my ignorance if that is what’s happening here, but what are the green (XLR?) Icono’s feeding the speaker - or amp? in your pic above? That is a color of Icono I haven’t seen, so…color me curious🤔

Left over from a custom run for Kermit.

2 Likes

Looks part passive and part active. A frankenbeast.

Deeply Confused by both of those responses.:man_shrugging:t2:

Oh - Kermit the Frog…hahaha

2 Likes

The green is a UPOCC XLR driving a subwoofer amp possibly class D in the left speaker white band on XLR.

Or it is his mono amp with two soeaker terminals.

Ah - that 'splains it. The one flavor and type of Icono I haven’t tried. Thanks!