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Speaker wire for Long runs


Taz

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Welding Cable By The Foot, Black, red, yellow, green, and blue #6AWG. Then there is Ultra Flex in Orange in the larger cables, Should be good for 150ft or more. Less expensive then some of those snake oil cables too....

Before you jump at heavy guage wire, perhaps a stop at this wire calculator would be a good idea. If I have an 8 ohm speaker, I plug in 6 ohm as the impedance. I also plug in the max speaker output watts rather than the rms, to allow for overhead. For instance, with a LaScala, I plug in 6 ohm, 400 watts. Using those figures, I could run my LaScala 1,000 feet from my power source with #6AWG getting a worst case 1.08db signal loss. On the other hand, if I am only going 150 feet, 14 guage is marginally enough, with only worst case 1.03db signal loss.

Here is the calculator. http://www.bcae1.com/images/swfs/speakerwireselectorassistant.swf

Remember to plug in lower ohms, and max watts to give yourself plenty of overhead.

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Ah, super heavy speaker wire is one of those audiphile myths that unscrupulous dealers use to get your money into their pocket. If you really must, for very long runs try regular romex, either 14 or 12 gauge. (for in-wall applications mainly.) I break it out to a banana connector box and then regular speaker cable to the speakers. Remember, the effect of longer runs is purely resistive and pretty negligible as you get into gauges bigger than 16. Why for the life of me anyone would spend that much money on welding cable to pick up 1db of volume (which is completely undetectable with your ears) is beyond me.

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I had this debate w/ the folks over at the Polk site. To man they subscribe to boutique and generally more expensive cables swearing to death it's self they hear appreciable differences.Me I subscribe to the Rodger Russell school of wire.Depending on your runs your no better off using expensive cables then 16 gu. clear lamp cord. This is coming from a very distinguished engineer,former lead man at McIntosh and prolific inventor. He sold me, and that's what I use Home Depot 16 gu. clear for runs of no more than 15'.I can't imagine except for maybe an outdoor underground run why anyone would go to 6gu .

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nelson pass has some interesting testing and observations;

http://www.passdiy.com/pdf/spkrcabl.pdf

he found that at the extremes of wire configurations there were noticable electrical differences but that he could not conclude they would be audible, etc.

also, there is some indication that too much wire can be worse than the "right" amount, various reasons are given: skin effect is mentioned, though this is usually associated with AC there are indications it can cause effects on DC as well, increased resistance and variations in inductance over distance could both be factors. Another factor mentiones is that in huge cables the quality of the materials and surface of the materials can be of a lower quality than with thinner wires with less material, contirbuting to perhaps negative effects.

I personally would stay away from extreme wires, superthick, flat, etc. but since this is a hobby, I say to each his own. enjoy the music!

warm regards,

Tony

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I had this debate w/ the folks over at the Polk site. To man they subscribe to boutique and generally more expensive cables swearing to death it's self they hear appreciable differences.Me I subscribe to the Rodger Russell school of wire.Depending on your runs your no better off using expensive cables then 16 gu. clear lamp cord. This is coming from a very distinguished engineer,former lead man at McIntosh and prolific inventor. He sold me, and that's what I use Home Depot 16 gu. clear for runs of no more than 15'.I can't imagine except for maybe an outdoor underground run why anyone would go to 6gu .

Lots of good info posted by yourself and others, My situation has conduit that runs under concrete, after wire leaves the house. Left speaker wire will exceed 150' easily.[:S]

That is each way of course, Total of 300' of wire, plus the wire in the house which would have to be #12 or smaller to meet WAF.

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Well there you go .Those are exrtermly long runs and you then should use the lowest gu possible .The only thing if underground even in pvc, or emt I think you should use

what's know as burial wire as a precaution. Good luck on your pulls.If you did not already run pull strings in your pipes an old installer trick I learned years ago was at one have a shop vac at the other attach a real light birdy of tissue paper tied to lets say a good test fishing line leave slack and the vacuum will pull that leader unbelievably fast.

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an old installer trick I learned years ago was at one have a shop vac at the other attach a real light birdy of tissue paper tied to lets say a good test fishing line leave slack and the vacuum will pull that leader unbelievably fast.

I put some 1/2" conduit in and for my pull wire, installed some #6AWG as I knew I'd be pulling on it and wanted it to be pretty strong and not break.

Perhaps that was a mistake... [;)]

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We used a small sandwich bag tied to be like a small delated balloon. The shop vac pulled it through very easily. The former electrician at our college used to keep a pistol crossbow that he would use in attics to shoot a pull string across drop ceilings and attic spaces.

Bruce

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Yes .That reminded me besides the shop vac trick that does work.Also at large stores w/ drop ceilings I saw 2 methods of getting at least a pullwire across the ceiling. 1 was a small cross bow which the company really frowned upon ,the other was an old fashioned sling shot. If you were good 1 shot and the lead was across an expanse that would have taken hours schlepping ladders opening and closing tiles. What great tricks one could come up w/ if resourseful enough.

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Have shop vac with heavy string to pull parachute cord rated at something like 600lbs. No sharp elbows. 2 1" conduit side by side, PVC. But if I don't need that heavy a cable the point is mute. I got a lot of laughs, info, access to calculator to figure wire size needed.............[:D].............Taz. By the way I like to post as Taz at the end of some of my posts cuz someone called me that in what I thought was a attempt to insult. Not easily insulted though. One must laugh at themselves with others to make life fun.

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You don't need quite that stout of a cable to do pull the wire.

Be sure you have someone feeding the wire on the "push" side while you're pulling. It makes the job go alot smoother. There's also a special lube made just for pulling wires that helps also.

Carl

DEVIL GIRL'S PENETRATING LUBE? Or BACON LUBE? I don't think I could Come up with enough of jacksonbart's lube.

My thoughts on reason to use welding cable is due to the tiny strands. Seems the tech I used to use said the smaller stranded wires gave better sound. But what do I know? I don't know if I could hear the difference. But I'm a dreamer. [;)]

Still have to find the speakers for outside. The Bigger and Heavier the better as I would not want someone to carry them away in the night. Maybe some La Scala's or K-Horns that are beat up on the outside. If K-Horns will have to have false corners. Marine plywood exterior for the speakers, and bolted down to concrete. So at least the exterior would have to be redone, and no MDF in the insides. Gortex cover or something like it to cover when not in use. Have Marantz 2500 waiting in line for a rebuild for 250w power. Still in the dreaming stage. What the Heck, one must first dream and go from there, SWMBO is saying not to spend $$$ as property taxes coming up..........Taz

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There's also a special lube made just for pulling wires that helps also.

We get something similar to this in quart bottles. It really helps.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=099-226

Once you get about 75-100 feet of a 3/4 inch fiber (36 strands) going through some conduit with a few bends, you will understand...

Bruce

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