wire for crossover networks - time to rewire? looks like klipsch is not using lamp cord any more

[Guest " "]

Yes, more trash, more trash...what else you got....how about those jubs. .just send the jubs to my place, save me the trouble of building a set.

[freddyi]

hey AL K - - IIRC from Roger Russel's pages clear insulation brings on good 'ol Mr. Yuck is Green Scene.

Freddy

[Coytee]

Yes, more trash, more trash...what else you got....how about those jubs. .just send the jubs to my place, save me the trouble of building a set.

ya know...regarding more trash & Jubes... with their front open "wings", maybe I'll use them for a while & use the side wings as my target for when I toss my empty popcorn bags away?

Perhaps empty coke cans? (don't drink beer but I can pick them up off the roadside if you prefer them?)

When I fill up the sides, I can forward them on?

ya...kind of a fancy trash receiver, Roy will be proud! [6]

[Guest " "]

""ya know...regarding more trash & Jubes... with their front open "wings", maybe I'll use them for a while & use the side wings as my target for when I toss my empty popcorn bags away?""

My kids used to do that when they were 2 and 3 years old. I had a set of clone K-horns with false corners attached to the bassbins. They used to put all their toys, my tools, CD's, movies, you name it, in there. When we moved and noticed all the stuff in there...it was like christmass.

[Duke Spinner]

big wire is overkill, any way ya look at it ..

the Home Depot 14g extension cord is fine for Anything .....

[Trey Cannon]

Well its like this,

We got in bed with monstor for a while. Then they started building speakers and we left their bed.

Most of what they do is as you put it, snake oil.

However, a bigger wire is better most of the time.

Now we use a wire made for us. 14awg.

The way I look at it is your network parts has, for the most part, 20 awg leads on the caps and such. If there is a fuse, it has a much smaller wire inside it. SO where do you draw the line?

From what I understand the electrons don't care.

[Al Klappenberger]

Guys,

For what it's worth, I agree with Trey 100% !

Al K.

[Guest " "]

Well its like this,

We got in bed with monstor for a while. Then they started building speakers and we left their bed. 

Most of what they do is as you put it, snake oil.

However, a bigger wire is better most of the time.

Now we use a wire made for us. 14awg.

The way I look at it is your network parts has, for the most part, 20 awg leads on the caps and such.  If there is a fuse, it has a much smaller wire inside it. SO where do you draw the line? 

From what I understand the electrons don't care.

 

Yes, many have noticed that Klipsch does not use lamp cord in side their heritage line anymore.

Intially monster cable was used when the switch was made. Now a cable very simular to monster HP XP is being used .

I have some pictures of both the inital lamp cord and the later specialty made cable early in the thread attached to AL-4 xovers.

[mark1101]

Yeah Trey, it looked pretty silly to me soldering 12 ga. to the tweeter (and squawker and woofer!!!), then directly to the caps on the board, and having all that tiny ga. stuff on the board. The only way to service a driver or the network is to cut it out of the system.

I would guess that Monster got kicked out of the Klipsch bed, rather than the other way around. We change suppliers for various reasons too.

FWIW I have always tried to use 12ga wire thinking that bigger is better, but even today almost nothing supports it properly. I have forever grown tired of trying to make connections on both speakers and components that basically say to you "use smaller gauge wire".

[Guest " "]

The wire charts are intresting. Here's some info at 4 ohm's.

18 guage is good up to 16 feet . There is about 10 feet of wire in a LaScala, so if you have speaker wire runs of 6ft between your amp and speaker you should be fine.

16 guage is good up to 24 feet. There is about 10 feet of wire in a LaScala, so if you have speaker wire runs of 14ft between your amp and speaker you should be fine.

14 guage is good up to 40 feet. There is about 10 feet of wire in a LaScala, so if you have speaker wire runs of 30ft between your amp and speaker you should be fine.

[D-MAN]

This is America, dammit, and Bigger is ALWAYS BETTER!

But seriously, I prefer larger diameter wire, my internal wiring is 12 AWG.

DM

[Guest " "]

I started this post to discuss the Klipsch switch over from what I call mini-lamp cord, to what i would call the designer wire they now use which looks a lot like monster cable HP XP.

When I got home today, I measured some of the original wire used in my older laScala's. The wire easily slides thru the 18 gauge holes of my wire stripper and certianly slides thru the 20 guage holes of my wire stripper. This stuff is very thin.

Sure 14 guage is probally the min, and certainly you can't go wrong using 12 guage.

I'm going for the largest I can get in there, and will use some stress relief clamps where needed. Radio shack has wire on sale that looks exactly like what Klipsch now uses for only 8.99 down 75% from the regular price.

It basiclly comes down to paying less for the designer wire as opposed to the higher price of heavy lamp cord.

Based on the below chart, if you never replaced the wires in your older LaScala's, you are basiclly limited to having speaker wire runs of just 6 feet.

[BEC]

SF,

I think you will find the wire you were measuring from your old Lascalas was 16 AWG. Remember that your stripper is made to remove the insulation and not cut into the wire.

Bob

[Guest " "]

BEC

I pulled out some 16 guage wire that is marked along it's lenth and did the same drill.

The wire marked 16 guade does not slip thru the 18 guage hole the way the original wire used in older laScala's did.

The stuff used in the early LaScala's looks a lot thinner that the the lamp cord type wire I have that is marked 16 guage.

Bottom line, if you have original mini-lamp cord, and have running speaker runs of more than 6 ft, you need to investigate.

[BEC]

SF,

My marked belden 16 AWG off the roll will easily slip through the 18 AWG mandrel on my stripper and will go through the 20 AWG with some resistance. Strippers are of course different and could easily vary some with wear. Also, the old Klipsch zip cord works good in the calibrated ratchet crimper using the mandrel for 16 AWG and 16 AWG lugs.

Bob

[colterphoto1]

Yes Trey, but why is there still bi-wiring terminals on modern Klispch speakers? Are you guys assuming that that many people would biamp a RB35?

Michael

[colterphoto1]

The wire charts are intresting. Here's some info at 4 ohm's.

18 guage is good up to 16 feet . There is about 10 feet of wire in a LaScala, so if you have speaker wire runs of 6ft between your amp and speaker you should be fine.

16 guage is good up to 24 feet. There is about 10 feet of wire in a LaScala, so if you have speaker wire runs of 14ft between your amp and speaker you should be fine.

14 guage is good up to 40 feet. There is about 10 feet of wire in a LaScala, so if you have speaker wire runs of 30ft between your amp and speaker you should be fine.

Good info and thought process, but I think you don't need to include the total length of ALL wire inside the LaScala, just whatever the longest run is (probably about 3 feet to the woofer). That gives you about another 7 feet for the 'external' cabling according to this chart.

[Guest " "]

colterphoto1

I would agree totally if one were using an extreme slope xover which would help "track" the signals exclusively on the woofer track, mid track, or tweeter track.

But in the case of gentle slope xovers like the AA network in which the rolloff is so gradual, that overlap is very high and wide, my water stick tells me that all the cabling are players.

Furthur complicated by higher than average pass-thru values the older capacitors have.

[Trey Cannon]

My electornics book from school states that 1000ft of 16awg wire in 25 deg c temp will have a resistance of 4.094 ohms. (Grob; BASIC ELECTRONICS fourth edition, Chapter 10 "conductors and insulators", page 205, table 10-1 copper wire table)

If you use 10 ft in the speaker, then you have added a whopping 0.04094 Ohms of resistance to your speaker. (that's 4/100 of an ohm) Any 5% resistor will vary more than that.

My point is that the wire in the speaker means almost nothing to the system.

[Trey Cannon]

We use 4 binding post to allow for bi-wiring and bi-amping.

To some bi-wiring makes a difference.

Bi-amping has it's uses as well.