How about two cable lengths to the same speaker?

[sputnik]

I tagged this question to another thread but I thought I'd ask anew. What about unequal lengths of positive and negative wires to the same speaker?Ê I wanted to try to use a second set of small speakers to accent my existing speakers.Ê A wise forum member suggested to connect them in series.Ê How far can you go regarding the effective difference in length between positive vs. negative connections on one speaker back to the amp.Ê That is if the positive wire going to the first speaker is 8 feet long but the rest of the series is 24 feet long does that cause any problems?Ê Are there limits? Also is there a clean way to bypass the second set of speakers if you just want to listen to the primary speakers?

EDIT: My gut feeling is that the placement of the speaker in the current loop doesn't really matter.

[WMcD]

Very interesting question.

The answer is that that the speaker can't tell. Essentially the speaker (or any two-terminal device) can only respond to the voltage being applied across its input terminals. That is the difference in voltage from the red to the black. That is a drop (difference) of elecromotive potential energy or electro-motive force. (EMF) Then the current though the device depends on its impedance via Ohms law. The ratio of voltage to current V/I = Ohms.

The difference of voltage could arise from any difference in absolute voltages. Absolute zero is almost always from "ground" and that is the potential of the earth. I suppose you can get into another situation of airplanes in flight, where the airframe is the reference zero.

Nonetheless, you could have +2 at the red terminal and +1 at the black terminal. The difference is +1. You could have +1 at the red and 0 (zero) at the black. The difference is +1.

Exactly how much voltage is applied depends on other items in the loop. They could be anywhere outside the speaker terminals. You're question is whether it can tell if they are on the plus or minus (red or black) side. Nope.

- - -

If you have two speakers in series and you want to remove one from the effects of the loop, you put a dead short across the one you want to remove. Then no effective current flows though the speaker.

Another way to look at it is that the dead short (Zero ohms. If V/I = Zero, then V must be Zero.) This alllows no voltage difference across the terminals. Per the above, you have no voltage drop and therefore no power.

Gil

[sputnik]

If I were to insert a dead short and a switch to control it, would I be degrading the signal significantly and/or creating any impedence issues? It seems like one of the most sensitive topics around here is speaker wire and here I am considering cutting, splicing, dead shorting and adding switches. But really, how much worse is that than adding the extra speaker to the loop in the first place. I might try it with cheap wire and see how it goes. What would be a good switch to use? Thanks.

Edit: The other thought that I tried a few days ago was to connect the little speakers as B speakers and run them out of phase to give the impression of more soundstage well to the outside. Any thoughts? All this is just for accent nothing more - I still want to go back to clean single pair stereo for most listening.