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20 foot speaker wires and other recommended speaker accessories


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One speaker will need a wire that will be about 14 feet from the stereo receiver, and the other speaker will need a wire that is about 24 feet. As a rule, should the speakers be just long enough to reach each speaker, or should both wires be of equal length for uniformity of sound?

What is the best speaker wire to use for quality of sound ... and where would they be available? I see that the Klipsch website mentions Monster wires. Is there good reason why Klipsch offers to sell the Monster wires?

I can't really think of any other speaker accessory required, other than speaker wire. But I'll ask: Are there other speaker accessories to consider, besides speaker wire?

Also, when you receive your Klipsch speakers, do they come with very intuitive instructions, as far as how to wire them and how to clean them?

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The speed with which electricity 'travels' through speaker wires makes it a complete non-issue.

Although for a period of time Klipsch used 'Monster' brand cable inside their speakers, most of us here on the Forum abhor Monster's marketing tactics and boycott their products.

Personally I use 16 or 14 gauge lamp or zip cord, available at Lowe's, Home Depot or Parts Express. It makes sound- the electrons don't really care.

Michael

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You guys are nuts! You all very well know that you need Monster XPHP-CI speaker wire with time-correct windings and magnetic flux tube for optimum signal transfer!!

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=4223977&st=monster+cable&lp=2&type=product&cp=1&id=1051384781386

I'm making a new post with some revealing findings on this particular stuff...

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Electricity does not travel in the sense that an atom leaves the amp, travels thru the speaker wires, then thru the speakers, then back to the amp.

The atoms vibrate back and fourth and remain in the same relative position.

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I always use equal length wires to keep everything in balance. I don't think it makes much difference but it keeps the flux capacitor/dilithium crystals in harmonic equalibrium. It's also good for your feng shui and of course your ying/yang and that's critical.

Thanx, Russ

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I always use equal length wires to keep everything in balance. I don't think it makes much difference but it keeps the flux capacitor/dilithium crystals in harmonic equalibrium. It's also good for your feng shui and of course your ying/yang and that's critical.

Thanx, Russ

I can't even find my ying/yang!

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Would that be the speed of light or sound? Devil

Klipsch sound moves at the speed of light.

use the highest gauge that is practical always. I have played with 'correcting' electronics but to my ear less than a 20' difference the electronics made it sound worse.

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I agree with the above.

Let me add that the speed of electrical transmission in wires is less than the speed of light. Technically, that is the velocity factor in transmission lines. Nonetheless, the difference in length is not worth worrying about.

There are two possible aspects. One is "loss". The longer cable will have more overall loss. But again this is miniscule. The second is "delay." Delay will have an effect at frequencies about 1000 times higher than we are talking about. So again, nothing to worry about. It is interesting that some speaker wire manufacturers allude to such aspects and then fail to mention they have minisule effects at audio frequencies.

Maybe there is a third, which is cited to by sellers of expensive wire. That is the capacitance and inductance of a given cable design. These are red herrings too. That is because the speaker itself has much higher inductance and capacitance than the wire, again typically by a factor of 1000.

Like I have said, you can't make things better by solving a problem which does not exist in the first place.

- - - -

As far as accessories. Some of it is just record keeping.

1) You might want to consider banana plugs. They are helpful if you are moving speakers around.

2) Some red nail polish and black (or green) nail polish (unless you buy pre made cables which are marked). The issue here is that it is important to observe polarity so that the red (hot) side of the amp output is connected to the red (hot) side of the speaker. The other is the black or ground. At least so you don't wind up with one speaker wired backward relative to the other because something reversed.

If you take a look at zip cord, you'll see that one of the wire pair is marked with lettering or striations. Other clear wire shows a copper conductor and a silver colored conductor. So it is possible to keep track by these. My mnemonic is that the striations are like grass, grass is on the ground. So I use striated as the ground side. Mark it black or green. The other one is obviously the place for red nail polish.

In the dark conditions behind an amp or speaker, it is far better if you use nail polish to mark things beforehand. That is what I do. It avoids having to wonder what you did last week, month, year.

3) Masking tape. If you've got a bunch of wires for speaker and even the RCA and HDMI interconnects going into the complicated HT amp, it is best to put a tag of masking tape on a wire and use a Sharpie with a description like "from DVD". This may sound silly. But you might start with a simple system, then it grows, and in time, you've got a real rat's nest.

4) The best speaker accessory is "moving them around" You should experiment with placement.

At least some Klipsch literature has a complicated description of hooking up ground first or something. But the better principle is to not play with speaker wires with the amp "on". A short circuit while you're messing with wire could harm the amp.

There might be some description of care of speaker wood, depending on what you buy. If they are "oiled" walnut or oak, you can use what is referred to a lemon oil, it is just mineral oil, aka petroleum. (Another issue.) If they are lacquer or plastic, there is nothing to do but dust them.

Wm McD

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