[Gai Pan]

Searched on this but didn't find a definitive answer.


Just moved and want to run B speakers to rooms in the back of the house and zone 2 speakers to a different part, all from the living room. Wires in each case could end up being 60 feet or longer. Is this OK? Any caveats?


Hoping to be able to play music to all speakers simultaneously.


Thanks!

 

[DMF]

At 60' try to use 14 AWG or larger. Otherwise no problem.

 

[Gai Pan]

great, thanks. so would you say that if i keep it to 50 feet, i can go smaller gauge? i assume awg stands for gauge?

 

[bpape]

Required wire guage is determined from a combination of amplifier power and distance. Personally, I'd use 12 ga and you should be fine.

 

[JorgeLopez11]

Speaker impedance is also very important when determining wire thickness.


For example, using 16 AWG wire would cause a 0.5dB SPL attenuation if wire length is 50.1 ft for 8 Ohm nominal speaker impedance. If your speakers impedance drops down to 4 ohms, then 25 ft would cause the same SPL attenuation.


IMO 0.5dB is the minimum figure when stating "sound differences".


So, use 12 AWG wire and you'd be safe in 99.9% of all possible situations.

 

[Chu Gai]

That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

 

[BasementBob]

Gai Pan


You might want to have a glance through these

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire.htm - talks about distance vs guage vs ohms of speaker (as well as wire comparison).

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=455838 - is my own recent experience with wire guage questions. I ended up using 12 guage for a 41' run.

 

[Gai Pan]

Great, thanks everyone! I have 8 ohm speakers, and my receiver I believe puts out 110 wpc. I'll have a look at the resources you recommend. Thanks again --