speaker wire/cable help needed

potem1

hello everyone i'm new to this forum and not very tech savvy. i will be purchasing the polk RM6750 5.1 speaker system in the very near future along with the onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 receiver. please advise me as to what type of speaker wires/cables i will need. i will be hooking up an xbox 360 elite and panasonic bluray player both via hdmi but i'm not sure what kind of speaker wires/cables i will need...thanks for your help.

wutadumsn23

You will probably get many different suggestions on this one, since it is always a topic of debate here, lol. First off let me be the first to say welcome to Club Polk. As far as speaker wires are concerned, in my experience with Onkyo HTIB (Home Theater In a Box) all the speaker wire comes with the unit right out of the box. You can however, buy "aftermarket" speaker wire at any electronics store, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. for an extra fee of course. You will be able to operate the system with the supplied wiring, but as Ben will tell you (if he sees this post) you are missing out if you don't upgrade that crappy wiring. I did so with my old Onkyo HTIB and wow, what a difference. There will be a page included for quick setup with the Onkyo receiver that will explain all the hookups necessary. There also should be a quick setup for the RM6750 as well, and I would go with option 1 and you will see what I am talking about when you open the manual, which involves running all the speakers off the receiver instead of wiring them into the amp. Also this option will allow you the most flexability with listening options. . If you plan on running the 360 via HDMI then you will need 2 HDMI cables, one for the 360 to the receiver and one from the receiver to the TV. You can also run components, but I recommend HDMI for the best picture and sound quality. It wouldn't hurt to pick up a few digital optical, or digital coax cables either, they are relatively inexpensive and they will allow you to choose whether you want to run the sound from your HDMI or digital optical/coax connections. I personally use digital optical, but others swear by digital coax, so it will be up to you to choose. Again, these are not necessary to run your system, the 2 HDMI cables will do both picture and sound, but allow more choices down the road. So basically the only things you WILL need to hook up everything and make it work is 2 HDMI cables, the rest is just upgrades/options. If the speaker wire doesn't come with the RM6750 (which I will be floored if it doesn't) you will need to buy how much ever speaker wire you think you will need foot-wise to hook all the speakers up, and a "Y cord" subwoofer cable since your receiver doesn't seem to have an LFE pre-out for the sub to the receiver. Hope this helps and if you are confused let me know and I will try to clarify.

apphd

I am pretty sure the RM6750 will not come with speaker wire. As wutadumsn stated there is a lot of differing opinions on speaker wire and ICs (inter-connects) so I am only going to comment on a basic guideline.

Some basics: the lower the gauge, the thicker the wire, and the better its capacity to pass an amplified audio signal. Most speaker wire will range in thickness from 12 to 16 gauge.

When choosing wire gauge, consider the quality of your components and speakers, the overall sound quality you're trying to achieve, and the budget you're working with. Also, keep in mind the distance between your receiver or amp and your speakers — long wire runs can cause significant power losses, and thus require thicker cable.

You can use the following chart as a guideline for 8 ohm speakers (again debatable):
Less than 80 feet 16 AWG
80 to 200 feet 14 AWG
More than 200 feet 12 AWG

You may want to consider a thicker speaker cable if:
1.You're connecting an audiophile-quality music system, or a surround sound home theater setup. Thicker wire can help your system deliver fine musical detail or the explosive effects of 5.1-channel surround sound.

2.You can't avoid long wire runs to your speakers. Thicker wire reduces the overall resistance, lightening the load on your receiver. This can mean not only a difference in sound quality, but also in the long-term dependability of your system.

On the other hand, if you're buying a modestly priced system and trying to keep the overall cost down, or if your speakers are located relatively close to your receiver, standard 16-gauge wire may be the way to go. Aside from being less expensive, thinner wire can be easier to work with if you're routing it along baseboards or door frames.

The Onk 606 does have a sub Pre Out (the only pre out it has) so you can run a RCA co-axial to the LFE (if present on your sub) your 606 will manage the crossover or with a RCA Y to the R-L low level input, your sub will manage the crossover or the Polk recommended speaker level input using speaker wire from your receiver L or R channel again the sub will do the crossover. I think this will be all covered in the manuals you get with the speakers and the receiver.
I hope if I have any errors here someone will correct them for you.

sumik

Hey, I just registered to get into this thread.
I also bought Polk RM6750s and Onkyo 606 and I received the speakers yesterday but I run into a problem. I'm about to order cable but what AWG to get ? I want to get thicker just to b safe and just to not need a better cable when I upgrade to some better system but the speakers in the back have very small space for cable. I tried my fathers cable from his system but it was just too thick and the cable didn't want to go into the speakers. I wanted to order 14awg but I'm not sure it's gonna fit.

McLoki

For speaker wire - 14ga or 16ga cable should work fine.

If the 14ga cable will not fit, you can use bananna plugs on the end of the cable, or just unwrap a few strands of the cable until it does fit and then cut off the strands you unwrapped....


For other cables, it depends on what your other gear is and how you plan to hook it up? What else are you planning to connect to your AVR (reciever) and how do you want it to work? (i.e. audio to TV and AVR at same time, just AVR, etc...)

Welcome to Club Polk, both of you...

potem1

thanks everyone for your replies and suggestions, as i said i'm not very tech savvy and you made things very easy to understand...thanks again

wutadumsn23

You won't be able to use banana clips on the back of your speakers because of the type of connection on them, but like McLoki said you can use them on the back of your receiver to make that connection easier to remove/install in case you end up moving it around or something. I can't believe that Polk wouldn't supply even some cheap mass produced speaker wire to go with the setup he is buying just to make it work out of the box, even my Onkyo HTIB came with all the necessary wiring, even the subwoofer cable. That may be in part that it came with the receiver too, and the Polk is just a speaker package. Glad we could help, any more questions feel free to come back.

McLoki

My 6600's would take bananna's - I am pretty sure the 6750's will as well. To expose the hole - unscrew the nut on the back of the speaker all the way off. There is a cap covering the end of the post. Remove the cap, screw the nut back onto the binding post and insert your bananna plug.

Give it a shot and see if it will work...

Michael

wutadumsn23

As for Potem1's question, you guys may be limited in the size of speaker wire you can run since your speakers have the spring clip design for the connectors. You can do what McLoki said and trim them down a bit, but if you trim too much it willd defeat the purpose of using the thicker gauge wire in the first place. Did you only run into that problem with the surround speakers, or with all of them? If it is only the back ones you may be able to run a smaller gauge wire to them and hopefully not lose much since they are just surround speakers anyway.

wutadumsn23

Looks like Loki is the one to listen to on this one so I will shutup, lol. I though since you had the spring clips on the back of the speakers you were doomed, but looks like Loki has a fix to that. Sorry for steering you in the wrong direction guys.

McLoki

wutadumsn23 wrote: »

Looks like Loki is the one to listen to on this one.

Nope - Loki is not....

You were correct. The 6750 does use spring clips. (the 6600 used 5 way binding posts, they apparently changed that with the 6750)

Sorry for the bad advice - the bare wires are the way you will have to go for the speaker end as suggested.

I would edit the bad advice out of my original post if I could but alas - all I can do is try to correct it after the fact here.....

Michael

wutadumsn23

Cool, I was right, lol. The sun shines on a dog's **** when he walking away from it I guess.

potem1

thanks again everyone. i'll be ordering my system in the next few weeks. i'll let you know how i make out and if i have any more questions i'll be sure to ask again...thanks