Wiring

BIGECASTILLO

I was wondering about my wiring im using 10 gauge monster wire for fronts but on 1 side i have 5 ft and the other front has 11 ft.Should i make them both 11 im doing this cause i have to run around things thats why one side is 11 instead of 5. Also on my surrounds what wire to use i have 16 gauge now but i heard 14 is better. THANKS TO ALL THAT REPLY

F1nut

Can you hear a difference between the two speakers? If yes, then make them both 11' and if not do it anyway because it's going to bug the **** out of you if you don't.

steveinaz

Sonically you'd be "splittin' nano seconds" using different length cables--has the same effect of sitting about a 1/16th of an inch off-center from your sweet-spot--in other words, in won't matter.

14awg cable should be the minimum for any speaker cable, IMO. There's so little difference in cost between 16 and 14, go with 14awg. You'd be best served with a solid core wire--a very cheap yet good trick is to buy Radio Shacks 18awg solid core wire (about .06 cents a foot) and twist a pair together (twisting reduces capacitance), leaving the insulation on the pairs. If you want a heavier cumulative gauge, you can twist 3 or 4 pairs if you want, whatever your binding post can handle. It even got a mention in Stereophiles' recommended list as a cheap alternative to esoteric cables.

mantis

I'll give you my general rule when itr comes to wiring the front end.

Using the same length Left center and right will keep the timing correct.

So if you have one wire 11 feet long,then all 3 should be the same length.

Same grade,same length is my game.

Dan

John K.

Big, audio signals travel along speaker wire at almost the speed of light(almost 186,000 miles per second, roughly 900,000,000 feet per second), so if one wire was 9 feet longer than the other the signal on it would take about a hundred millionth of a second longer. This is far below the level of audibility and time delay doesn't exist as a factor affecting speaker cables in the home; the difference in cable length would have to be miles.

Your general question about the gauge of speaker wire and speaker wire in general can be answered by studying the information in this explanation by a highly respected veteran audio professional. Unfortunately speaker wire is one of the audio areas which is rife with charlatans preying on the gullible. Education is the remedy.

VR3

My front soundstage is completely off balance and I will say that the left side has 15+ feet of wire running to it while the right only has 4.......

acdds

I would say leave yourself enough slack in the wire to move the speakers around in the future. You never know when something in going to need moved around. I have moved into a different apartment every year for the last 8 years. Especially if you are going to buy expensive wire, I would hate to have to buy a longer piece later on down the road because it wasn't long enough!

dcarlson

Your general question about the gauge of speaker wire and speaker wire in general can be answered by studying the information in this explanation by a highly respected veteran audio professional. Unfortunately speaker wire is one of the audio areas which is rife with charlatans preying on the gullible. Education is the remedy.

Hummm, I guess I'm one of the gullible.

LittleCar_w/12s

Your question on the length of the cables is smart.
The real problem would be resistance, you are running 10Ga, so there is very little resistance in teh wiring to start, but suffice to say that one cable will have more than the other if it is longer.
The person who has a 15+ foot to a 4 foot probably has a serious resistance imbalance problem.
You can solve this in two ways: if the longer cable is twice as long, get the next guage larger to run it than the short cable. (Each guage has twice the amount of wire in it, so 1/2 the resistance.)
15' to 4' person... make your long cable a few guages larger if possible.
Doing the opposite will balance your soundstage, but will reduce your voltage throughput to the speakers (ex: smaller cable 1/2 as long, using 1/2 the guage of longer run)

Yes, it is true, timing on this length of cable is not important, nor even detectable, however longer cable runs can induce some noise back into the amp.

John K.

Although it's theoretically possible that differences in speaker wire length could lead to enough difference in resistance to be audible(compared to the complete insignificance of any time delay), in practice it doesn't happen in home audio using typical wire gauges and distances. As the handy table at the end of this article shows, loss of sound pressure level with the gauges and distances used in the home is minimal. For example, an extra 10 feet of wire to one speaker would cause a extra loss of about 0.1 dB. If the two speakers were supposed at some instant to be playing exactly the same signal at say, 75 dB, the one with the longer wire would be at 74.9 dB. Differences greater than this can be caused by moving your head an inch or so or by putting a cushion onto the couch.

Whatever is causing the imbalance a previous reply mentioned(possibly a problem with one channel of the amp or the speakers being positioned differently acoustically),it has nothing to do with the length of the speaker wires.