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Speaker Wire Help Please

756 views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  DonH50 
#1 ·
I need help choosing wire for my theater. Lots and lots of debates on here. I can't read them all, although I have tried.

Nobody mentions distances when referring to long or short runs. Everyone's case is unique and mine is no different.

I have a dedicated media closet with all of my gear and media library in it. This is across the hall from my dedicated sound/media room. This puts my front wall speaker runs at the longest I believe at 75', at least on paper design. It could be longer by the time I have obstacles to get around.

So I'll have subs and mains at this distance.

Also what is the difference in CL2 and CL3 wire?

When will I want 10ga vs 12ga vs 14ga?

Outside: Should I start a whole new thread on this subject?
My Outside runs are going to be monstrous. I need to go all the way around my pool and hot tub and of course be connected to the house feed. So I haven't finished calculating footage but I'm looking beyond 250ft. Also I have 5 rocks, 4 Nile 6Si Rocks and one 8Si Rock to feed. What wire should I use here?
 
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#2 ·
#3 ·
Don't use speaker wire more than 50 feet or so if you can help it, and never beyond 100 feet. When there are long distances between the source and the speakers put the amps as close as possible to the speakers, using long interconnects from the sources, preferably using balanced lines.
How is this to be accomplished? You're suggesting I put my amp outside? All of my gear is inside the house in the media closet.
 
#7 ·
It requires shockwave-flash. Most computers in a work environment don't have that loaded, to keep employees from goofing off on-line at sites that use it, including gaming. Now get back to work, slacker. :rolleyes:
Does that mean that even an extension chord would work?
Copper is copper.
 
#9 ·
Speaker wires don't need to be equal length, or even close to it. The reason for not using longer than 100 feet is capacitive and inductive losses. Line level signals don't have those issues even to 1,000 feet.
 
#11 ·
So how do you pick or find gauge of wire sufficient for the power to be delivered, with the right length of cable and speaker impedance that still gives you good and low Resistance (Rs) (if Rs is the AC resistance of a measured frequency range plus the DC resistance), say at or below .002 Ohms/Ft; good low Capacitance (Cp) (say below 15 picofarads/Ft); and has a low Inductance (Ls) say below .010 microHenries/Ft?

Is there a cheat sheet somewhere?
 
#12 ·
Finding C and Le specs on wire is difficult, and it's even more difficult to find what acceptable limits are, but you can just go with the assumption that over 100 feet is probably going to be problematic, so don't do that.
 
#13 ·
I'm not sure if this is a tried and tested rule, but I've read that you don't want more than 5% resistance of the highest impedance...so if you're speakers dip to 3 ohms, then you don't want a wire run that has more than .15 ohms. The online wire calculators will give you the overall impedance.

Also if you bi wire then you're effective wire guage will go up.

I used a Belden speaker wire on my 50-75ft runs that's biwire 12/4 and Belden listen most of the specs. I'm pushing 200watts/channel to B&W diamonds and it sounds great.

Blue jeans cable has 2-3 speaker wires they recommend and those particular types are sold all over the web with clearly published specs, but maybe not every one you're looking for.

Another option could be to use a sonos remote amp for the longest set of runs.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#14 ·
The online wire calculators will give you the overall impedance.
The one I linked to also gives what really matters, the insertion loss in dB (less than 1dB is inaudible) and the current capacity, with a warning if the current capacity is inadequate.
Also if you bi wire then you're effective wire guage will go up.
That's part of the bi-wire myth. In a typical 2 way system 90% of the power goes to the woofers, only 10% to the tweeters, so using a separate wire to the tweeters doesn't do anything to improve power delivery to the woofers.
 
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