Two Channel Speaker Cable Runs of Unequal Lengths,...

[NMR Guy]

Hello All:

I think I know and understand the answer but I thought I would throw it out there before I begin to "Make" a pair of speaker cables for a bedroom system.

Strictly because of logistics, i.e. a doorway that I cannot, (or will not) run the cables under some fairly expensive carpet I need to have one of the cables thirty two feet away! The other one only needs to be in the eighteen to twenty foot range.

Is this a serious no no?

I have 10 ga. copper wire so i don;t believe there will be a problem there, but the length.

Thanks in advance,

[Colin]

from the Scott int tube amp to the Paradigms?

[NMR Guy]

Actually this one is going to be a Dynaco ST70, Quad QC24 Pre, to a pair of Audio Physic "Yaras."

What do you think?

P.S. The Scott is now in the basement and has speaker runs of twenty two feet each,..to Klipsch KP301 professional three ways. (sounds GREAT!)

[Colin]

are the amps going to be higher than the sprkr binding posts?

[]

[NMR Guy]

Yes, actually just slightly,...are you playing with my already fragile mind? : )

Length, does the unequal length matter much?

Thanks,

[pauln]

Exectutive Summary: With 10awg wire the difference is infintesimal and won't matter.

With really thin wire the resistance might be a little different with real long runs, but that combination is never recommended. Its not like an antenna that needs to be cut to a precise length to deal with resonant nodes, and the diference in 'arrival' of the signals to the speakers through the unequal lengths will also be small by many orders below detection, The signal through a wire travels slower than light speed, in the 60-80% range - that signal can go around the Earth at the equator 5 times in one second.

It is also interesting to note that the individual electrons may only displace themselves a few inches after hours of listening because there are so many of them and so few of them actually make up the current (some physicists have speculated that the reason all electrons are identical is because there is really only one of them that moves through space-time in order to be everywhere it gets detected, but I guess that's going a little deep for a wire post...)

Anyway, most usually cut the lengths the same for artistic reasons and some actually coil it up behind the closer speaker, which is funny because AC signals do interesting things in coils.

[HarleyMo]

Hey Colin, doesnt current always flow better down hill ?

[Colin]

No, me? How could you say such a thing! I just want to make sure the naturally weak transformers of tube amplifiers are powerfully enough to push the cone loudspeakers, by getting the extra benefit of being uphill from the loudspeakers! :0

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Seriously though, I know of no math yet that can prove that there is any large measurable difference between 10 and 30 feet of sprkr cable.

From the God of Monster amps:

For 10 foot lengths with properly terminated cables and speakers with inductive high frequency characteristics, the differences between low inductance cable and twin conductor are extremely subtle and subject to question. With a low output inductance amplifier and a Heil tweeter (whose impedance is a nearly perfect 6ohm resistive) the difference was discernible as a slightly but not unpleasant softening of the highest frequencies. <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Fulton or Monster cables were a clear improvement over 24 or even 18 gauge, though a little less subtle than I would have expected, leading me to believe that the effort associated with heavier cables pays off in bass response and in apparent midrange definition, especially at crossover frequencies. The worst case load, the modified Dayton Wright electrostatics, presented some interesting paradoxes: the extremely low impedance involved showed the greatest differences between all the types of cables. However, the best sound cables were not necessarily electrically the best because several amplifiers preferred the highest resistance cable. In one case, I had to use 24 gauge cable to prevent tripping the amplifier's protection circuitry.

CONCLUSIONS

Who am I to dispute the feelings of audiophiles who, evaluating any cable in the context of program source, amplifier, speaker, and listening room, decide they can hear the difference? A few guidelines have emerged here, but the final judgment belongs to the user. All the special cables mentioned worked well on the test bench and, given the assumption that series impedance should be minimized, all of them work better than 16 gauge wire. If, like many audiophiles, you have spent a small (or large) fortune on your hi-fi system, money spent for high quality cables and connectors is a reasonable investment.

http://cygnus.ipal.org/mirror/www.passlabs.com/spkrcabl.htm

(1980 )

[H]

[Colin]

BTW, the roll of 14 AWG at HD is pretty hard deal to pass up in sprkr cable, it even has writing on one side only to help ID polarity (which does matter)...[H]

[Travis In Austin]

Pauln

There you go with that rocket science again "only one of them moves through space-time . . . ." That gave me a headache, just like the time my Dad tried to explained to me that DC current really moves from positive to neg., not the other way around.

Travis

[Colin]

Explanation of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Nelson Pass article: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

1. If a cable has a benign combination of inductance, capacitance and resistance, it will have little effect on measured or audible performance if the length of the cable is short.

2. The longer the cable run, the thicker the cable needs to be to minimize resistance and measurable and audible effects on frequency response.

3. If you mess around with the inductance of a cable intentionally, you may get a different "sound", but you might blow up your amp!

In a book entitled "Installing Home Theater" from 1998, Radio Shack specifically recommend against 18 or 22 gauge wire. Here is what they recommend for runs of up to 100 feet when connected to 8 ohm speakers:

25 watt amp-16 gauge minimum

50 watt amp-14 gauge minimum

100 watt amp-12 gauge minimum

They recommend that you use the next thicker wire if you have 4 ohm speakers.

So from this laymans viewpoint, if you use 12 gauge cable, and your run is less than 100 feet, you've pretty much covered your bases.

The NelsonPass article is really old

I had the brown Fulton and the Monster cables

Thicker cables make a different difference with high current solid-state amplifiers

The different difference may be greater with tube amplifiers [:^)]

[NMR Guy]

Okay guys even though you teased the few neurons still clanking around inside the thing on my shoulders I call a head I did get an answer,...

Thanks, now I can cut and crimp.

I can't wait to get my new little bedroom system online!

[3dzapper]

Pauln

There you go with that rocket science again "only one of them moves through space-time . . . ." That gave me a headache, just like the time my Dad tried to explained to me that DC current really moves from positive to neg., not the other way around.

Travis

Your Dad must be an engineer Travis. Engineers have everything backwards.[]

Rick

[pauln]

Still off topic, but actually it is surprisingly simple. Physicists aren't any smarter than anyone else, they just think about things and do their best to make sense like the rest of us. They often have the help of mathematicians who convince them to consider some very unusual approaches to what 'makes sense'.

Space-time is just a model for the whole universe throughout all time. A path through space-time is just what we are experiencing right now. The trick with the single electron is that when it goes through space-time in the same time direction as you and me, it appears as an electron in various places (like in my amps). Then, it 'turns around' and goes backwards in time. Then we see it as it's anti-particle the positron (or anti-electron). The single electron/positron makes all the possible travels back and forth through space-time sufficient to account for its participation in all the interactions that have, are, and will ever occur in the 'history' of the universe because it basically has an infinite amout of 'time' to formulate all the possible paths. Its like modeling the entire history of the universe as a bowl of noodles, except the whole bowl is just one noodle.

If that makes sense, try this. Since a photon travels at lightspeed, its relativistic time dialation is 100% slowed to zero for the duration of its journey, which may be billions of years as we see it, but because of the local time dialation 'experienced' by the photon, as far as it is concerned the time it took to go from original emmission to absorbtion was instantaneous. Although it appears to us that light takes a while to get from place to place, as for as the photon itself is concerned, it went from one place to another instantly! This means that the 'age' of a photon is zero for its duration - they are all new and stay absolutely 'new' for their whole existence.

Don't even get me started on how gravitons (the mediator for gravitational attraction)escape a black hole to interact with nearby bodies...! No one has figured that out yet.

[Travis In Austin]

Pauln

There you go with that rocket science again "only one of them moves through space-time . . . ." That gave me a headache, just like the time my Dad tried to explained to me that DC current really moves from positive to neg., not the other way around.

Travis

Your Dad must be an engineer Travis. Engineers have everything backwards.[]

Rick

You are right, he is an engineer, he worked at Ampex. I think he would take exception with Paul's one electron theory when it comes to the theory of transistors. I don't know why, and could not even beging to explain it now, but when he tried to explain how transistors worked to me when I was a kid I seem to recall that the theory required multiple electrons in a stream. Again, I don't pretend to even understand it.

Travis

[oldbuckster]

16, 14, 12, 10 gauge all good choices, lengths unequal don't real matter, what ever sounds and works best for your set-up, simple answer.

[OldGuy]

This is great. I am a fan of 12 gauge wire and my question is how do you terminate 10 gauge to fit on amplifier or speaker terminals without reducing the gauge? Besides how many of us can hear the difference?Norm

[thebes]

Still off topic, but

actually it is surprisingly simple. Physicists aren't any smarter than

anyone else, they just think about things and do their best to make

sense like the rest of us. They often have the help of mathematicians

who convince them to consider some very unusual approaches to what

'makes sense'.

Space-time is just a model for the whole

universe throughout all time. A path through space-time is just what we

are experiencing right now. The trick with the single electron is that

when it goes through space-time in the same time direction as you and

me, it appears as an electron in various places (like in my amps).

Then, it 'turns around' and goes backwards in time. Then we see it as

it's anti-particle the positron (or anti-electron). The single

electron/positron makes all the possible travels back and forth through

space-time sufficient to account for its participation in all the

interactions that have, are, and will ever occur in the 'history' of

the universe because it basically has an infinite amout of 'time' to

formulate all the possible paths. Its like modeling the entire history

of the universe as a bowl of noodles, except the whole bowl is just one

noodle.

If that makes sense, try this. Since a photon

travels at lightspeed, its relativistic time dialation is 100% slowed

to zero for the duration of its journey, which may be billions of years

as we see it, but because of the local time dialation 'experienced' by

the photon, as far as it is concerned the time it took to go from

original emmission to absorbtion was instantaneous. Although it appears

to us that light takes a while to get from place to place, as for as

the photon itself is concerned, it went from one place to another

instantly! This means that the 'age' of a photon is zero for its

duration - they are all new and stay absolutely 'new' for their whole

existence.

Don't even get me started on how gravitons

(the mediator for gravitational attraction)escape a black hole to

interact with nearby bodies...! No one has figured that out yet.

To paraphrase Flounder from the movie "Animal House";

IS THIS FORUM GREAT OR WHAT!!!

re: photons is this theory; or mathematical equation -type stuff; or vetted science etc.

It seems to me that if what you say holds true, if we could turn

ourselves into some sort of version of a photon we could get

around pretty fast. Sure it would take us 11 years to get

to the nearest star, but we wouldn't know it had taken that long.

Of course when we returned one suspects everybody we know would be 11

years older. Or would it? Would we have really left?

I need aspirin my head's starting to hurt.

[pauln]

Thebes, still way of topic for a wire thread (!), but the part about the photons is not only vetted science, it's old science. Imagining what it would be like to be a photon was one of the famous thought experiments that led Albert E. to formulate the Special Theory of Relativity. The General Theory of Relativity came later to account for interactions involving accelerations.

A photon is spontaneously created when an electron jumps from a high energy level about an atom (an outer level) to a lower energy level (a closer in level to the nucleus). The difference in energy is carried by the photon until it is absorbed in another atom by the revese process (which kicks an electron in that atom up to a higher and further out energy level).

If the atom that the photon encounters is part of the molecule Retinal (a chromophore of the visual pigment Rhodpsin in your retina), the consequence will be the isomerization of the chromophore from the 11-cis to the all-trans comformer. That's just classical organic chemistry lingo to say that the molecule changes shape. Energy is used to form the 11-cis shape sort of like setting a mouse trap. Then you wait for a photon to come by. When the photon is absorbed in the right atom of the molecule, the tiny change in energy level springs the molecule open to the all-trans shape, which is a lower energy level, like after the trap has sprung (on a large scale with lots of light this is called 'bleaching' of the retina - same as losing your night vision after looking into a bright light). Night vision is just waiting long enough in the dark for all the Retinal to be put into the cis-11 shape.

The rod and cones in the retina have an internal structure that looks like a stack of dinner plates. These are special membranes waiting to be hit by a photon. The Rhodopsin molecule is a very long chain of many hundreds of components that is actually imbedded in these membranes through which it weaves back and forth seven times. Six loops result, and the cascading effect includes the 'slipping' of the molecular string through the membrane from one configuration to another. Its the differing shapes of the loops that result in changes in how they functionally interact with surrounding structures. Diagrams of this mechanism look a lot like the primative gearbox in the old VW bugs.

This change in shape from cis to tran initiates a cascade of further chemical events that serve to amplify the effect until it is big enought to cause the rod or cone in the retina to depolarize its surface membrane and start a neural signal. The retina has 10 layers of functional nervous structure (just like the cortex of the brain, because the retina is actually an extention of the cortex to the back of your eye!). Within these layers an amazing amount of processing takes place to detect lines and shapes, movements and colors, etc before the signals pass through the optic nerve to additional subsequent processing stages, and then on to the optical cortex under the back part of your head. If about 6 photons are caught at the same time and place, in a dark room you will experience the smallest perceptible dot of light.

The more one finds out about these things, the more one appreciates what a strange and wonderful world this is, indeed.