odd to me speaker wire

I picked up an amp wiring kit, and talked the salesguy into including a decent length of speaker wire. However when I got home and tried to strip it, I discovered that each strand appears to have concentric conductors?

The outer conductor appears to be ~18 gauge, and then there's an insulating layer, and then there's a thin bundle of strands running through the center.

Have you encountered this? Do I just strip to and use the outside layer? I don't really see a way to remove the sandwiched insulator, so I don't understand what the inner bundle is for...

Should I just get different speaker wire?

Thanks!

Spyderbyte

Whoops, I forgot to mention that it's stamped "dei directed connection ofc audio cable". It was from a bulk spool at ultimate electronics.

Thanks again!

Spyderbyte

It sounds like the wire you have might be intended for LINE level audio transmission, not SPEAKER level. Most likely the outer layer is the ground/shield and the inner cable is what actually carries the signal. You would use this to make interconnects, like RCA's, not for use as a speaker wire. I could be wrong here, but this is what it appears to be from your description.

I was having similar thoughts, I can certainly understand the idea of a grounding outer layer. However the inner cable is very thin and I wouldn't feel comfortable using it (I always try to err on too much copper over too little)

Am I misinterpreting the "audio cable" part? At first glance looks like every other speaker wire I've ever seen or used. It was only when I went to strip the ends that I discovered that it was unusual.

As I see it the possibilities are:

1- I'm supposed to use the outer layer, the inner strand is some harmless gimmick.

2-I'm supposed to use the inner layer and maybe strip away the outer layer at the ends, the outer layer is supposed to be shielding.

3-Somehow I'm supposed to strip away the inner insulator at the ends and run my signal through both conductors (I like this idea the most, but I'm not sure how well I can manage it or why it would have this design

4-The salesguy was trying to unload some unpopular (for good reason) cable on a customer that was being kind of a pita.

Thanks!

Spyderbyte

Use it. Wire is wire is wire... We've beaten THIS horse to death as well! Strip all the insulation off, even the inner one, twist everything together and use it as speaker cable. One side of the septum as positive and the other side of the septum as the negative. (There might even be a red and/or white insulator around the center insulator... Easy to identify positive and negative that way.) Don't ground anything. Use all the wire for each half of the speaker level circuit. The original Monster cable was EXACTLY this same configuration. Supposedly the "inner conductor" was for high-frequencies, and the outer conductor was for lower frequencies. My call? BS, but as a basic speaker cable, it worked just fine, as this will for you. There is nothing special, but you can use it in this application.

There will be more than enough wire to transmit up to several hundred watts at 4-ohms. It'll work just fine.

Here's the calculator for figuring loss...

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."