Litz vs stranded?

AuFX

Member
Im looking to buy a silver headphone cable, it will the first and last aftermarket headphone cable I will buy so I want to make sure its as good as possible.

For about 25% extra I have choice of Litz over standard stranded wire, it isnt a huge deal more expensive and if it offers even the smallest improvement over stranded (small even for cables) then I may just go for it.

Does anyone have experience with litz wire for speakers or headphones? Would you recommend it?
 
My Cardas ICs use copper litz wire (basically, enamel-coated wire), and these are the best ICs I have owned so far. Litz wire contributes to the sound in some small way, but since they never made a non-litz option of the interconnect, there is no way to judge what it does for sonics. One claim is that the enamel insulation reduces the skin effect of small strands of wire (when bundled together within a stranded interconnect or speaker wire, for example). For copper, litz makes sense since copper corrodes quickly and the enamel coating ensures oxygen does not touch the copper. Cardas applies their enamel simultaneously with the last drawing of the copper through their dies, in a pure hydrogen environment, so the copper remains pure. Cardas also offers silver litz wire. (Cardas is more a metals company--they supply much of the high-purity copper wiring used in many high-end products, including supplying other cable manufacturers.)

One thing I noticed is that there is a misunderstanding on the Internet of what litz wire is. Litz wire is enamel-coated bare wire. Nothing more. The same type of wire used to wind transformers and solenoids. It has nothing whatsoever to do with braiding, or how wires are arranged within a jacket, yet you see such terms as "litz braiding" out there that only cloud the meaning.

I won't spend your money, but I would just go with the litz version and be done with it. ;) Ultimately you would be able to compare both versions side by side, but that is not possible when ordering online.
 
One thing I noticed is that there is a misunderstanding on the Internet of what litz wire is. Litz wire is enamel-coated bare wire. Nothing more. The same type of wire used to wind transformers and solenoids. It has nothing whatsoever to do with braiding, or how wires are arranged within a jacket, yet you see such terms as "litz braiding" out there that only cloud the meaning.
interesting, that means 90% of cheap IEM/headphones are actually using litz
 
Anticables makes interconnects and speaker cables that I guess could technically be called litz wire, as they are solid copper conductors with an enamel coating. I am actually considering their speaker wire in the next few years once I move somewhere permanent and know how I am going to set up my system in terms of speaker cable length.

It is no surprise that cheap headphones could use it--it can work perfectly well at insulating and it is less bulky and lightweight as well.
 
Something I will say about litz wire in tonearms, don't get the double insulated stuff. It has a thin plastic coating over it, and its a lot less flexible as a result. Did that with an arm and it started binding because the wires weren't bendy enough.

but yeah, its not just varnished wire. Its braided, often made from a foil wrapped over a thread center. The idea is for maximum surface area since the stuff is really designed for RF connections where skin effect is significantly in play.
 
According to the wiki page, Litz is multistrand individually insulated wires.

Anticables makes interconnects and speaker cables that I guess could technically be called litz wire, as they are solid copper conductors with an enamel coating. I am actually considering their speaker wire in the next few years once I move somewhere permanent and know how I am going to set up my system in terms of speaker cable length.

It is no surprise that cheap headphones could use it--it can work perfectly well at insulating and it is less bulky and lightweight as well.
 
My amp is never to be used with litz wire interconnects. It has 1MHz bandwidth and requires the bandwidth limitations of normal wire. Otherwise the audio path can become a big power oscillator. Might be something to consider when using it with headphones.
 
Nelson Pass mentions this in the F5 owners manual.
Exactly right, and that's what I'm using. Litz wire EXTENDS the bandwidth of a length of wire by lowering it's inductance. Normal wire presents a much higher impedance to 500KHz signals and some amps are expecting that damping. I've built cables from individually insulated conductors. It makes a difference, but my cables are nowhere near the size of litz wire.

I'm just throwing this out there because it's an actual problem that crops up. If the whole rig isn't prodigiously grounded, litz wire makes high frequency oscillation entirely possible.
 
Sony used litz for its headphone lines, I generally find the Sony phones to be very good sonic value as a result, whether due to that or the qc that comes with the genuine article. The phones that came with their cheapest entry level pocket radio were suprizingly good, for instance.
 
However,
My Cardas ICs use copper litz wire (basically, enamel-coated wire), and these are the best ICs I have owned so far. Litz wire contributes to the sound in some small way, but since they never made a non-litz option of the interconnect, there is no way to judge what it does for sonics. One claim is that the enamel insulation reduces the skin effect of small strands of wire (when bundled together within a stranded interconnect or speaker wire, for example). For copper, litz makes sense since copper corrodes quickly and the enamel coating ensures oxygen does not touch the copper. Cardas applies their enamel simultaneously with the last drawing of the copper through their dies, in a pure hydrogen environment, so the copper remains pure. Cardas also offers silver litz wire. (Cardas is more a metals company--they supply much of the high-purity copper wiring used in many high-end products, including supplying other cable manufacturers.)

One thing I noticed is that there is a misunderstanding on the Internet of what litz wire is. Litz wire is enamel-coated bare wire. Nothing more. The same type of wire used to wind transformers and solenoids. It has nothing whatsoever to do with braiding, or how wires are arranged within a jacket, yet you see such terms as "litz braiding" out there that only cloud the meaning.

I won't spend your money, but I would just go with the litz version and be done with it. ;) Ultimately you would be able to compare both versions side by side, but that is not possible when ordering online.

Yes, Litz wire does reduce skin effect and proximity effect. It does this by making the bundled conductors smaller in diameter, which reduces the skin effect, by providing an insulating layer which spatially separates the small conductors, which reduces the proximity effect, and by distributing the wires spatially throughout the bundle so that they move from the exterior to the core and back again which reduces both.
Wire of 19 or higher AWG is considered to be fully penetrated in the audio band. Stranded wire individual strands are in largely in electrical contact with their neighbours and are mostly equivalent to a solid copper wire, but more flexible. The more strands the better... However, both skin effect and proximity effect occur.
"Litz wire gets its name from the German litzendraht, which means braided or stranded wire. Litz wire is made by weaving or twisting many thin strands of insulated wire together in a specific pattern".
Normal wire is still insulated and not subject to oxygen corrosion as the molecules cannot penetrate a well engineered, fairly thick insulator.
Litz wire is indeed often, but not always, enameled. The enamel coating is both thinner and more subject to damage/ poor deposition so if anything an individual Litz wire of this type is more likely to be corroded in situ than a conventional multi-strand wire, however in both cases corrosion is rare, except at the bare ends, where it can largely be avoided by tinning...
So, all things being equal, a litz wire is likely to be have lower inductance and more constant resistance over the audio band than a multi stranded wire of equivalent DC resistance. Whether this matters or not depends on a number of factors.
 
Tell that to Nelson Pass.
It depends on a number of things- the dominant one being the frequency response and/or load response of the amplifiers involved.
The lower inductance of the Litz wire can be quite beneficial for some poorly designed power amps that can be driven into oscillation by inductive interconnects and arbitrarily terminated loads (speakers ). None of the preamp/poweramp stages that I have possess bandwidths greater than about 300kHz, and, as confirmed by measurement, all are stable into the loads that are presented to them.
Like TIM this seems to be far less of an issue than it was a few decades ago when design problems were much more common.
Basically, like TIM in opamps/amplifiers this is a solved problem...
 
It depends on a number of things- the dominant one being the frequency response and/or load response of the amplifiers involved.
The lower inductance of the Litz wire can be quite beneficial for some poorly designed power amps that can be driven into oscillation by inductive interconnects and arbitrarily terminated loads (speakers ). None of the preamp/poweramp stages that I have possess bandwidths greater than about 300kHz, and, as confirmed by measurement, all are stable into the loads that are presented to them.
Like TIM this seems to be far less of an issue than it was a few decades ago when design problems were much more common.
Basically, like TIM in opamps/amplifiers this is a solved problem...

I agree, in most cases it's not an issue, but I'm using an amp that's basically flat 1Hz to 1,000KHz, which is also quite suitable as a headphone amp.
 
I agree, in most cases it's not an issue, but I'm using an amp that's basically flat 1Hz to 1,000KHz, which is also quite suitable as a headphone amp.
I probably shouldn't comment on this, but from a technical perspective having a BW that high is not a good thing. I hope that the stages that drive it are frequency limited well below the 1M level.
150kHz-300kHz is my personal choice, although even that is probably pushing it a bit too high.
 
I probably shouldn't comment on this, but from a technical perspective having a BW that high is not a good thing. I hope that the stages that drive it are frequency limited well below the 1M level.
150kHz-300kHz is my personal choice, although even that is probably pushing it a bit too high.

Yeah... Even Nelson doesn't think it's a great idea. The Marantz in front of it tapers off before 50KHz so it's not an issue.
 
I keep reading about skin effect on wire used in audio applications. I was under the impression that skin effect was an AC, not DC, phenomena.

Anyone care to sort this out for me?
 
Forget my very stupid question. And for possibly insulting scroydon unintentionally. Carry on.
 
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