Speaker Cable

Frank11

Hello,
I am wiring my sitting room for 5.1 at the weekend and I have a few questions regarding the speaker cable.

1. I estimate the longest length to the rear speakers could be 13m and the shortest maybe 1m (to the centre speaker which I guess will be under the TV beside the amp). Should the speaker cables be all the same length so I will not get a delay?
2. What is a good speaker cable and where to get it? (I will be going for some like the Yamaha amp RX-V1900)

Thanks.

macnab

lots of debate about speaker quality on here already, do a search to find it. As for cable lengths, any good amp will compensate for distance. My Denon 1910 does in any case.

viperirl

79 strand or 4mm/OFC cable will do the job for any system. The benefits of expensive exotic cable are hotly debated and threads on such usually end up in a science vs hearing debate. (just do a quick eyeball for locked threads here :P)

As for differing cable lengths, its not really going to be an issue unless the differences are very large as in several metres( >10). As long as the cables in question are of adequate gauge I think you'll be fine.

Slaphead07

viperirl wrote: »

79 strand or 4mm/OFC cable will do the job for any system. The benefits of expensive exotic are hotly debated and threads on such usually end up in a science vs hearing debate. (just do a quick eyeball for locked threads here :P)

As for differing cable lengths, its not really going to be an issue unless the differences are very large as in several metres( >10). As long as the cables in question are of adequate gauge I think you'll be fine.

What he said.

The length of cable is usually an issue with Hifi but in reality with AV amps there's so much adjustment/calibration/ synch that can be done a few metres of cable either way won't effect much.

eddiem74

Try Maplins, ask at the counter and don't pick up the 10m rolls off the stand. I got a 50m roll of 12AWG (I think) for a much better price than buying 5x10m rolls. I believe Shark was the manufacturer.

I'm no expert, but its good thick cable, and does the job fine.

kuro_man

You can buy cheap white stranded speaker cable in B&Q in both thick stand (longer runs) and thin stand (shorter runs). I bought the heavy stuff and it works fine, for most living rooms the thin stuff would also be fine.

You can also buy more expensive "hi fi" speaker cable but its very thin so I avoided it.

I am in the camp of not spending large amounts of money on speaker cable - simply match the thickness for the distance required.

Calibos

2 core kettle flex will do for 10m runs gauge wise wont it? Wouldn't have thought cable lengths would be an issue. How quickly does an electron traveling at the speed of light take to cross a 10m v 5m cable anyway? Unless your right speaker is in Dublin and your left speaker is in New York, I wouldn't worry.

viperirl

Calibos wrote: »

Wouldn't have thought cable lengths would be an issue. How quickly does an electron traveling at the speed of light take to cross a 10m v 5m cable anyway?

well it depends on the cable gauge and the amount of current going through it.
For speaker cable lengths of similar gauge its not a problem.

cnocbui

Calibos wrote: »

2 core kettle flex will do for 10m runs gauge wise wont it? Wouldn't have thought cable lengths would be an issue. How quickly does an electron traveling at the speed of light take to cross a 10m v 5m cable anyway? Unless your right speaker is in Dublin and your left speaker is in New York, I wouldn't worry.

You are a spot on.

Electricity travels at roughly 95% of the speed of light in a wire. The speed of light is about 300,000 kilometres per second, so the speed of electricity in a wire would be roughly 285,000 Kilometres per second.

Given there is a 14m difference in cable lengths, the time delay between them would be roughly 4.912 billionths of a second so there is absolutely nothing to be worried about.

AV amps may be able to correct for this delay, but there is not the slightest reason why they should.

Human hearing is so crude it can't even discriminate the individual peaks in a 1 khz tone.

viperirl

cnocbui wrote: »

Human hearing is so crude it can't even discriminate the individual peaks in a 1 khz tone.

Mine can. I guess I'm not human.

cnocbui

viperirl wrote: »

Mine can. I guess I'm not human.

So if I hit you with a certain length 1khz tone, you could tell me how many peaks there were in the sample, or if I edited out, say two peaks, you could tell?

akaSol

viperirl wrote: »

Mine can. I guess I'm not human.

For those of us who have sensitive ears it can be a nightmare.
I can here the pulse modulation from phone chargers , which means my amp is usually up louder than it should.;)
Reasonable mid range speaker cable is fine for surround sound , as concobi and viperirl have stated most people cant hear the difference.

>Sol

cnocbui

akaSol wrote: »

For those of us who have sensitive ears it can be a nightmare.
I can here the pulse modulation from phone chargers , which means my amp is usually up louder than it should.;)
>Sol

Do you mean the high pitched whine they give off?

akaSol

cnocbui wrote: »

Do you mean the high pitched whine they give off?

No that's the feed back from when the batter is full, I mean the difference in pitch as its charging.

The Ritz

Intrigued as I am by the notion of the sensitivity (or otherwise) of your respective ears in terms of what you can hear etc, can we keep this on topic (which it would appear has been answered) ?

I don't really want to see another simple question about cables turn into ears vs. science pi$$ing contest.

If anyone wants to pursue this further, feel free to start a blog somewhere, you can call it http://www.My_Science_is_Better_Than_Your_Ears.com .

Thanks,

Ritz.

jeebahs

Hi Guys,
I'm new here so bear with me, need some advice on what speaker cables i need to connect all my components. I have a Onkyo TX-SR507EB 5.1 Surround Receiver, Panasonic DMP-BD80 Blu-Ray Player, Samsung 40" LCD-TV LE40B650... Cheers

kuro_man

Blu-ray --[HDMI]--> Onkyo amp --[HDMI]--> TV

Blu-ray ---[Component (or SCART)]

---

> TV
(by-pass the amp, good for wife who doesn't want to be messing with it or if you prefer standard def DVD's on component than HDMI)

Amp ---[speaker wire, preferable cheap]--> to speakers x5 (except sub)
Amp ---[RCA phono (sub) cable]---> to sub

jeebahs

Thanks Kuro for quick reply, any suggestions on prefered speaker and sub cables, i'm in limerick so if good store in the city great or else online suggestions would be welcomed. I bought tv and blue ray player from kompleat and jamo from amazon...thanks again

kuro_man

I am not keen on spending money on interconnects/speaker cables beyond what won't fall apart.

I got my speaker cable in B&Q and my sub cable & component cable in Harvey Norman (but any 75ohm phono lead will do the job).
HDMI's are widely available in lidl, aldi, dunnes, tesco etc. for €5 - €15 depending on length, and they will be fine.

jeebahs

I think i can afford decent but not top range speaker cable, would like to have connector jacks on them not too keen on wiring.

jeebahs

just a quick question, the jamos are wired, will the amp accept wired cable or will it need jacks