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speaker tweeks


dantfmly

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On 3/6/2004 10:28:27 PM DeanG wrote:

"I think the piercing sound was because the 16 gauge wire could not handle the load and was causing the speakers to distort, and that is what the piercing problem was..."

Sorry chief, but there ain't no way in Hell -- unless your amp is an absolute POS.

Nice set up BTW.

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well what ever it caused it, the problem has been fixed. the problem did not occur until i really turned it up. and no the amp is not a POS. It is the Yamaha rxv 2090 reciever, and is going great even after seven years. (even though it did have a 3 year light duty break.) I just stated getting back into audio equipment after a long break, i did not even use my stereo that much, ecept for low volumes, and now i am really getting back into it. Especially with all the changes i am making to it. I guess the "BUG" never goes away. 9.gif always have to improve. 16.gif to bad i am on a much more limited budget then several years ago when i was really into it.

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How old was the 16AWG wire you had on the system before making the switch? Even after a short two or three year stint -- most run of the mill copper wire will completely oxidize. Get it green enough, and it will definitely screw with things.

I didn't mean to infer your amp was crap. What I was trying to say is that only the poorest of designs would be impacted in the manner you described.

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the speaker wire was about seven years old. I bought it riht after bought the reciever and the klf-20. I bought all of that and the dvd player, and the two subs i used to have all at the same time, it was about $5,000 in about two months phew.

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Hi dantfmly,

I would not think that changing the gauge has that much effect as you were not changing the diameter greatly from the previous size (16 vs. 12 is not that much of a change). Probably I would guess that you inadvertantly got a better grade of copper wire or alloy and that is the difference.

Now if you went from 16 awg to 8 awg (i.e., twice the dia.) that would be a difference that you could hear even with the same type or brand of wire. Additionally, the size (gauge) of the wire will not actually cause distortion as you mentioned above; there must be another cause for that...

DM2.gif

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the 16 gauge being 7 years old, and being through about 5 moves, 1 from over seas, in that time. That might have something to do with it. Hear in the next month i am going to replace the wires to the rear speakers, but that is going to be a chore. The ones i have right now are under the carpet, but i am going to run the next set into the wall and around my vaulted celing back to the wall to the rear speakers. the distortion i was talking about was only at pretty close to insane volumes, and when i changed the speaker wire it went away, and all i did was change the speaker wires. Probably just old speaker wires? I don't remeber it doing that when i first bought that old speaker wire. I remeber it having the same effect to the system as this new speaker wire. I was useing 20 gauge electrical wire before that though.

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Darn, now Im gonna have to go check my wiring to my mains after reading this thread and see if upping to 12 gauge might change the sound (I dont recall what gauge I have). Luckily I would only need about 15 ft total. Oh well, anything for the sound (including sending my xovers to Dean I think in the next week or 2).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Replying to, Dr Who: I have been an avid Klipsch fan for over 34 years and just purchased a set of KLF20's in which the most courteous original owner suggested that I also get a SPL meter and test disc. What will this accomplish and how easy are they to use and is it something I would buy or rent? Brief descp. of listening area( room dim 16x24 (KLF's at each end of the 24 feet turned in a bit to center sound in middle of room) RC-35 center, KG4's for rears driven by Pioneer Elite VSX33TX, Panasonic S35 prog scan DVD ,Paradigm PS-1200 sub, RCA 32" tube TV (which is on its way out) any help here would be greatly appreciated.

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with your spl meter, run some sort of test tones and use your reciever to match the volumes of all the speakers (usually they play a pink or white noise, or something like that) your test disc should have directions inside the cover. basically though, the objective of using an SPL meter is to get every speaker to be the same volume at the listening position. often times though (and especially for HT), you'll find that you want to crank your sub to be a bit higher than all the rest. even though it's not "correct," sometimes it does sound better.

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Dr Who: is this equip. something someone buys or rents? I can't see buying a meter that you would only use once to setup a system. My Pioneer VSX33TX has something similar for test tones on fronts, rears, center, sub I have the KLF20's (fronts set @o.o db, RC-35 set @ 1.5db ,paradigm PS1200 set @ 3.00db, and KG4"s(rears) at3.5db would I gain anything buy using an SPL meter? Where do you purchase these disc's you talk about. Remeber I'm from the older generation of Klipsch fans where Paul actually told us to use lamp cord for speaker wire 1.gif

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I replaced my old 16 gauge speaker wire from my box-o-wires/connects that every audio geek has in his basement with 30 cents/ft Home Depot 12 gauge wire. A minor but definitely noticable difference. Unless your old wire is in really bad shape, you shouldn't notice a huge difference. The HD stuff seems to be pretty good.

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On 3/22/2004 3:19:34 PM garymd wrote:

I replaced my old 16 gauge speaker wire from my box-o-wires/connects that every audio geek has in his basement with 30 cents/ft Home Depot 12 gauge wire. A minor but definitely noticable difference. Unless your old wire is in really bad shape, you shouldn't notice a huge difference. The HD stuff seems to be pretty good.

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I think mine were in bad shape. I can't wait to get the money to replace the surrouns speaker wires. I also can't wait to get a reciever that has the same power for the surround speakers. My reciever was from when they were just starting to come out of the pro logic dark ages. It is the only second reciever that was outfitted with AC-3 now called dolby digital, via an external decoder though.

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3) Connects: silver interconnects for your source(s); try Kimbers or

such. Judging by the effect of silver interconnects, if I could afford

it, I would get silver speaker cabling too, but I can't feature spending

that much, so I can't recommend that; Get good, fat copper speaker cables

at least 12 awg or better. This can be a very expensive tweak for silver

but gives immediate results. Others on this forum will disagree about

silver cabling, but I have experimented with all sorts of cabling and

have owned 3 types and brands of silver interconnects in various lengths

I will go as far as saying this: the worst silver is clearly better than

the best copper cabling. It also unfortunately cost more, too.

I would be one of those who disagrees with the silver interconnects. While the conductivity of silver is much better, silver tarnishes/oxidizes much faster and you would be removing and cleaning you connections more often. My recommendation would be copper wire with gold plated connectors. Gold is a self-lubricating metal and it will not tarnish or oxidize like silver will and yet has decent conductivity.

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On 3/31/2004 6:24:20 PM J.4knee wrote:

3) Connects: silver interconnects for your source(s); try Kimbers or

such. Judging by the effect of silver interconnects, if I could afford

it, I would get silver speaker cabling too, but I can't feature spending

that much, so I can't recommend that; Get good, fat copper speaker cables

at least 12 awg or better. This can be a very expensive tweak for silver

but gives immediate results. Others on this forum will disagree about

silver cabling, but I have experimented with all sorts of cabling and

have owned 3 types and brands of silver interconnects in various lengths

I will go as far as saying this: the worst silver is clearly better than

the best copper cabling. It also unfortunately cost more, too.

I would be one of those who disagrees with the silver interconnects. While the conductivity of silver is much better, silver tarnishes/oxidizes much faster and you would be removing and cleaning you connections more often. My recommendation would be copper wire with gold plated connectors. Gold is a self-lubricating metal and it will not tarnish or oxidize like silver will and yet has decent conductivity.

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I have moster interlink 200 and 300 for analog interconnets. I have moster video 2 rca interconnects for video. someday i will get better stuff that does cost about the same since now i know moster is overpriced. 2.gif and a tv that has s video on the back so that i can use s video.

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Most interconnects use a gold plated connector, in the case of silver interconnects, I don't believe that you could even buy a set that have silver connectors, only the wires are silver.

However, even so, you are right about silver oxidizing. It does it slightly more than COPPER. Ha!2.gif

DM 2.gif

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