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#1
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What size speaker wire for longer runs?
I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an
old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. Maybe upping to 12 gauge will help, but before spending the money I'm just looking for ideas here. Thanks in advance. |
#2
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Hi,
generally cable splicing causes a lot of problems, as I daily experience.To troubleshoot the connection between the receiver, you have to be certain that it's a whole length of speaker cable, not definitely $5/ft. oxygen free cable.Probably in radio shack you can find some cheap speaker cable (30 cent a meter would do).If it were mains wiring I would suggest you hired an electrician, but here the worse could be the receiver relays clicking off load. -- Tzortzakakis Dimitrios major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr ? "glw82664" ?????? ??? ?????? ups.com... I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. Maybe upping to 12 gauge will help, but before spending the money I'm just looking for ideas here. Thanks in advance. |
#3
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On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 05:28:50 -0700, glw82664 wrote:
I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. Maybe upping to 12 gauge will help, but before spending the money I'm just looking for ideas here. Thanks in advance. I'd look for bad splices first. Beyond that, telephone wire really isn't suitable for speaker connections. Each of your 4 wires is (approximately) 22-24 AWG. When you bundle them together, they may be close to 14 AWG in overall size, but they won't have the current carrying capacity of a real 14 AWG wire made if many very tiny strands. 14 AWG should be fine for a 30' run with 8 ohm speakers. 12 AWG would be better. Lamp cord is fine. Don't waste money on expensive crap like Monster cable. BUT, if you run wires inside walls or in conduit, make sure you use wire that is properly rated for that use. There's a chart showing cable loss over distance at various wire gauge & speaker impedance at the Yorkville site. Look about 1/3 of the way down this page: http://www.yorkville.com/default.asp?p1=6&p2=17&p_id=26 |
#4
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Check it with an ohmmeter. You may not actually have a good connection.
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#5
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I'd look for bad splices first. Beyond that, telephone wire really isn't suitable for speaker connections. Each of your 4 wires is (approximately) 22-24 AWG. When you bundle them together, they may be close to 14 AWG in overall size, but they won't have the current carrying capacity of a real 14 AWG wire made if many very tiny strands. My understanding is exactly the opposite -- that separate strands (of the correct total cross sectional area) are better than a single wire. That's because of "skin effect" (tendency of high frequencies to be carried at the periphery of the wire, although that is probably negligible at audio frequencies) and also because of better heat dissipation. Can someone elucidate? |
#6
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glw82664 wrote: I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Three, plus the connectors on the end... That's going to add up to a noticeable load increase on the receiver. Splicing bad. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. I'd re-run it with two pieces of 12 gauge wire. Those 4 pieces of telephone wire aren't 14 gauge, btw. The look like it, but in terms of capacity, they are closer to 20 gauge at best. This is a common problem people make, in fact, with cat-5 and simmilar wires. It takes a lot of them together to equal what one (by then, with the insulation factored in) decent wire will do. Not that it isn't possible, but most people find it cumbersome compared to using plain 12 or 14 gauge stranded electrical wire. Another option might be to get some Romex and run it under the house. Another option might be to go with self-powered speakers. Then you'd just be sending a preamp signal which should be no problem. (Or just get a small amp for the second room - the best solution of all, IMO) |
#7
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"glw82664" wrote:
I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. I have checked, re- checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. Maybe upping to 12 gauge will help, but before spending the money I'm just looking for ideas here. Thanks in advance. I don't know if you'll even see this reply since I removed all the cross-posted groups except the one in which I participate, but just in case... It's unlikely that the guage of the wire is the issue. More likely a problem with a splice somewhere. For a run that short you could use 24 guage and it would still work. Are you SURE there isn't a crossed conductor where you made your 4/4 splits? What else changed when you moved the receiver? You added twenty feet of wire and ______________. Are the speakers all the same as they were before? What's happening is the protection relay on your receiver kicking in (that's the clicking you're hearing). If there was a short in one of the lines I would expect it to kick in immediately at ANY volume, so this is a little confusing. What you're describing sounds like a case of the amp seeing a lower impedance than it would like. That's why I asked if any of the speakers changed. If any of your speakers are less than eight ohms, combining A and B outputs may drop the impedance below what the receiver can manage. Does it work if you run B only and leave A switched off? -- "It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!" - Lorin David Schultz in the control room making even bad news sound good (Remove spamblock to reply) |
#8
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Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice.
Did you forget a decimal point in front of those numbers? -John O |
#9
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"Joseph Oberlander" wrote:
Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. I beg your pardon? How do you figure that? -- "It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!" - Lorin David Schultz in the control room making even bad news sound good (Remove spamblock to reply) |
#10
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Joseph Oberlander wrote: Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Three, plus the connectors on the end... That's going to add up to a noticeable load increase on the receiver. Splicing bad. Uh, well... Just to prove my own remaining sanity, I just did an experiment where I took three lengths of 24 gauge stranded wire (4 strands) and "spliced it." I didn't solder it, I didn't use any crimped connectors, I didn't use wire nuts or any other such contrivances. I simply stripped about 3/4" of insulation and twisted it together between by thumb and forefinger, then wrapped the result with about 1" of electrical tape. My crude "splices" added approximately 0.005 ohms to the total resistance of the wire. Now, you're claiming 2-4 dB per splice, let's take the middle and say 3 dB. That means half the power is lost in the splice. That would ONLY be true if the load impedance were on the order of 0.005 ohms, which I suspect is NOT the case. Assuming a nominal 8-ohm load, the 0.005 ohms added would result in 0.0054 dB TOTAL. Either I'm REAL good at making splcies, or you're REAL bad at making splices. In any case, I have seen an untold number of people splice speaker wire by simply stripping and twisting everything together, which makes a very effective short circuit on the amplifier. I'd bet a nickel that we'd find something not unlike this here. |
#11
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"Lorin David Schultz" wrote in message news:xI%oe.33206$wr.6267@clgrps12... "Joseph Oberlander" wrote: Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. I beg your pardon? How do you figure that? And even if that were true, that wouldn't explain the relays clicking in and out, because the splices would be adding resistance which would presumably reduce current draw. Two possibilities. First, something is putting a very low-resistance load on the line, possibly a strand of one of the wires shorting to the other conductor. It's very thin, so it's not a dead short, but it's still enough that when the volume goes up, it draws enough current to kick the amp into protection mode. Second, the added capacitance of the longer wire is causing the amp to go unstable, and the protection circuits are kicking in because of that. I'd rate the first idea as most probable, the second as improbable but not impossible. Go get some 12 gauge wire, enough to do the run with no splices, and when you strip it and connect it, keep an eye open for stray strands. Peace, Paul |
#12
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RAO removed, I suspect that's where Oberlander with "2 dB per
splice" and "load increase on the receiver" is posting from, at least that's where my bias about where such statements would come from. In rec.audio.misc,rec.audio.pro,rec.audio.tech,rec.au dio.opinion, On 6 Jun 2005 05:28:50 -0700, "glw82664" wrote: I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. I suspect one of your splices is shorted, this causes excessive current from the amplifier, and the protection circuitry cuts in, turning off the output. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. Now that you mention that, this extra cable could give a significant capacitive load to the amp, possibly causing it to oscillate at ultrasonic frequencies, causing excess current, and the protection circuitry cuts in. Which speakers are playing? A, B, or both? Some receiver designs put the speakers in series when both A and B are turned on, resulting in a lower load to the amp, reducing the chance of damage. Maybe upping to 12 gauge will help, but before spending the money I'm just looking for ideas here. Thanks in advance. Home Depot has a 100ft roll of 12 gauge for twenty-something dollars, just buy it and cut it in half to get two speaker runs of 50 feet. Or if the distance is actually more than 50 feet, buy two rolls, or even the jumbo 500 feet roll and save more per foot! ----- http://mindspring.com/~benbradley |
#13
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"Joseph Oberlander" wrote in message .net... glw82664 wrote: I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Three, plus the connectors on the end... That's going to add up to a noticeable load increase on the receiver. Splicing bad. S-T-U-P-I-D. Cheers, Margaret |
#14
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On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:58:07 GMT, Joseph Oberlander
wrote: Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Three, plus the connectors on the end... 3 dbm per RF connector PAIR at microwave frequencies was a *rule of thumb* I was taught in the US Navy. We were always supposed to 'calibrate' the cable before taking a critical power level measurment. I can't believe that rule would apply to audio frequencies in any way. Sounds like the OP has a bad splice (or 2) or has mixed up the pairing. , _ , | \ MKA: Steve Urbach , | )erek No JUNK in my email please , ____|_/ragonsclaw , / / / Running United Devices "Cure For Cancer" Project 24/7 Have you helped? http://www.grid.org |
#15
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glw82664 wrote:
I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Shouldn't be a problem. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. Odds are good that one or more of the splices is shorting out. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. More likely - one of the the splices is shorting. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. However, it might not be all copper. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. Frankly, a longer cable run should make the receiver less sensitive to the speaker load. Maybe upping to 12 gauge will help, but before spending the money I'm just looking for ideas here. Well, 12 guage cable is pretty cheap - under $0.50 a foot at one of the home improvement centers for fine-stranded 12 gauge 2 conductor low voltage wire. I paid about $50 for 250 feet, list time I needed some. |
#16
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Joseph Oberlander wrote:
I'd re-run it with two pieces of 12 gauge wire. Good advice. Those 4 pieces of telephone wire aren't 14 gauge, btw. The look like it, but in terms of capacity, they are closer to 20 gauge at best. I believe that doubling the amount of copper per foot drops you 3 wire gauges. The basic wire is 24 gauge so paralleling two strands gets you 21 gauge, paralleling 4 gets you 18 gauge, and if you went for broke, paralleing all 8 gets you to 15 gauge. |
#17
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Joseph Oberlander wrote:
Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? If they were well-made splices, there would be no loss at all. By well-made I mean soldered and taped. Or nicely done with wirenuts or other proper solderless connector. Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Not in this life. If you do the splice well the loss is absolutely positively negligable. If you do it badly enough to have appreciable loss, then the splice will probably fall the rest of the way apart by itself, pretty quickly. |
#18
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Joseph Oberlander wrote: glw82664 wrote: I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Huh??!?!? Are you assuming he spliced it with Elmer's glue? -jc Three, plus the connectors on the end... That's going to add up to a noticeable load increase on the receiver. Splicing bad. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. I'd re-run it with two pieces of 12 gauge wire. Those 4 pieces of telephone wire aren't 14 gauge, btw. The look like it, but in terms of capacity, they are closer to 20 gauge at best. This is a common problem people make, in fact, with cat-5 and simmilar wires. It takes a lot of them together to equal what one (by then, with the insulation factored in) decent wire will do. Not that it isn't possible, but most people find it cumbersome compared to using plain 12 or 14 gauge stranded electrical wire. Another option might be to get some Romex and run it under the house. Another option might be to go with self-powered speakers. Then you'd just be sending a preamp signal which should be no problem. (Or just get a small amp for the second room - the best solution of all, IMO) |
#19
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#20
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glw82664 wrote: I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. This doesn't sound right. I suspect you're comparing diameters rather than area. Depending on the speaker power, even four phone wires might be marginal. Check the current ratings he http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm Add the current ratings of the wire you're using, and you'll see it's nowhere near 14 gauge. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. Maybe upping to 12 gauge will help, but before spending the money I'm just looking for ideas here. Thanks in advance. As I said, your total wire gauge is probably marginal, but that wouldn't cause the effect you're seeing. As others have said, it's probably a bad splice or a short, although you seem to imply that it's both speakers and that would be a really weird coincidence. Did you check with an ohmmeter to see if there was any short between the wires. Of course, don't discount the fact that you may have damaged something else in the process. Try: - switching which outputs go to your external speakers - moving the speakers back inside and see if they still work when they're close. The only other thing I can think of is that you might have introduced a left/right channel short somewhere in the wiring. This might cause odd behavior as you increase the volume. -jc |
#21
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glw82664 wrote:
I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. Bad splice? One strand shorting somewhere? Two suggestions: 1) Rewire with a run of 12-14 gauge wire. No splices. 2) If your deck does *not* require audiophile quality audio, consider wireless transmission to your speakers. More $$, but less hassle. |
#22
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#23
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ric wrote:
glw82664 wrote: I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. Bad splice? One strand shorting somewhere? Two suggestions: 1) Rewire with a run of 12-14 gauge wire. No splices. 2) If your deck does *not* require audiophile quality audio, consider wireless transmission to your speakers. More $$, but less hassle. Good points. This man is probably clipping the signal as the receiver tries to supply enough voltage to get the amplifier gain you require. I suggest going for heavier wire, without all of those splices. Places like Home Depot and Lowe's have 12 AWG low-voltage wire for use with outdoor lighting systems that is ideal for making long cable runs to speakers located as yours are. The wire is fairly cheap and is available in 100 and 50 foot lengths. Another option, since a good receiver should not behave as he indicated (assuming that the splices are good), is to get a more robust receiver, but still change to that continuous-length wire. Howard Ferstler |
#24
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Joseph Oberlander wrote:
glw82664 wrote: I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Yoiks. I have done a lot of wire connecting over the years and have never seen that kind of power cut due to splicing. Howard Ferstler |
#25
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glw82664 wrote:
I'm far from an audiophile and need help with some wiring. I have an old pioneer receiver that has an A/B switch. I use B for satellite speakers on my deck. Until recently, they worked fine having run about 30 feet of wire from where the receiver sits to the speakers. Yesterday, I moved the receiver to a room farther away and had to splice in about an extra 20 feet of wire. There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking. I presume the extra wire I added is the problem. The wire I have been using, with success in other parts of the house, is using a load of telephone line that I came in to for free. It has eight wires in each run so I split 4 positive and 4 negative. It adds up to roughly 14 gauge. I have checked, re-checked, and re-checked again all the connections and they are correct so I presume the runs are simply too long for the wire I am using. Maybe upping to 12 gauge will help, but before spending the money I'm just looking for ideas here. Thanks in advance. You are possibly clipping the signal as the receiver tries to supply enough voltage to get the amplifier gain you require. It is also possible that the configuration of the wire is causing some capacitive artifacts. A splice may also be shorting together, although if that were happening you would not be getting sound even at low levels, let alone at moderate levels. I suggest going for heavier wire, without all of those potentially problem causing splices. Places like Home Depot and Lowe's have 12 AWG low-voltage wire for use with outdoor lighting systems that is ideal for making long cable runs to speakers located as yours are, especially outdoors. The wire is fairly cheap and is available in 100 and 50 foot lengths. Howard Ferstler |
#26
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I suspect one of your splices is shorted, this causes excessive
current from the amplifier, and the protection circuitry cuts in, turning off the output. Given the reported symptom, that's what I'd expect. Home Depot has a 100ft roll of 12 gauge for twenty-something dollars, just buy it and cut it in half to get two speaker runs of 50 feet. Or if the distance is actually more than 50 feet, buy two rolls, or even the jumbo 500 feet roll and save more per foot! Or just buy however many feet you do need off their big roll. There's nothing inherently wrong with a properly done splice. But wire's so darned cheap that there's rarely any good reason to splice for anything but the most temporary solutions. |
#27
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mc wrote:
I'd look for bad splices first. Beyond that, telephone wire really isn't suitable for speaker connections. Each of your 4 wires is (approximately) 22-24 AWG. When you bundle them together, they may be close to 14 AWG in overall size, but they won't have the current carrying capacity of a real 14 AWG wire made if many very tiny strands. My understanding is exactly the opposite -- that separate strands (of the correct total cross sectional area) are better than a single wire. Unfortunately, yetther old wife's tale. (1) Speaker cables aren't generally large enough to have appreciable losses in the audio band due to skin effect. (2) Stranding the wire doesn't reduce the diameter of the conductive part of the wire. Even insulating them makes no difference, because skin effect is based on magnetic coupling, not conductivity. |
#28
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"Mike Rivers" wrote in message news:znr1118087922k@trad... In article xI%oe.33206$wr.6267@clgrps12 writes: "Joseph Oberlander" wrote: Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. I beg your pardon? How do you figure that? Maybe he doesn't strip the insultation off the wires when he splices. LOL! Literally! :-)) |
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#31
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#32
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On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:32:23 -0400, mc wrote:
I'd look for bad splices first. Beyond that, telephone wire really isn't suitable for speaker connections. Each of your 4 wires is (approximately) 22-24 AWG. When you bundle them together, they may be close to 14 AWG in overall size, but they won't have the current carrying capacity of a real 14 AWG wire made if many very tiny strands. My understanding is exactly the opposite -- that separate strands (of the correct total cross sectional area) are better than a single wire. That's because of "skin effect" (tendency of high frequencies to be carried at the periphery of the wire, although that is probably negligible at audio frequencies) and also because of better heat dissipation. Skin effect isn't an issue. But I wouldn't consider 4 strands to be a *real* stranded cable. When you've only got 4 strands bundled together, you've got a pretty high percentage of air to copper. And air's not a particularly good conductor. |
#33
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"Howard Ferstler" wrote in message ... glw82664 wrote: You are possibly clipping the signal as the receiver tries to supply enough voltage to get the amplifier gain you require. **Nonsense. Utter, banal nonsense. Read what the poster typed. He said: --- "There are actually three splices in each wire now due to obstacles and such. Now, when I turn up the volume to even a moderate level the receiver stops transmiting the signal and starts clicking." --- What is happening is now obvious. The key words a "moderate" and "splices". It is also possible that the configuration of the wire is causing some capacitive artifacts. **Possible, but extremely unlikely. A splice may also be shorting together, although if that were happening you would not be getting sound even at low levels, let alone at moderate levels. **Wrong! The protection systems in many amps rely on the current flow through the output devices. At low levels, little current will flow and the amp will not shut down. I suggest going for heavier wire, without all of those potentially problem causing splices. Places like Home Depot and Lowe's have 12 AWG low-voltage wire for use with outdoor lighting systems that is ideal for making long cable runs to speakers located as yours are, especially outdoors. The wire is fairly cheap and is available in 100 and 50 foot lengths. **On that we agree. CONTIGUOUS lengths of cable will probably solve the problem. -- Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au |
#34
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Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? Every
time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Huh? If every splice in a wire had a resistance of a few ohms, our houses would burn down. Think about the number of splices between you and the power generating plant. A soldered splice has no more resistance than an unbroken wire. A good tight solderless splice can also be very good. If you are losing 2 to 4 dB per splice, adopt a different splicing technique! Or are you thinking of VHF cables where there is an unavoidable impedance mismatch? That doesn't apply at audio frequencies. |
#35
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Agent 86 wrote:
Skin effect isn't an issue. But I wouldn't consider 4 strands to be a *real* stranded cable. When you've only got 4 strands bundled together, you've got a pretty high percentage of air to copper. And air's not a particularly good conductor. Pretty high percentage of air to copper? What does this mean? And there would be nothing wrong with 1 strand! |
#36
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My understanding is exactly the opposite -- that separate strands (of the
correct total cross sectional area) are better than a single wire. That's because of "skin effect" (tendency of high frequencies to be carried at the periphery of the wire, although that is probably negligible at audio frequencies) and also because of better heat dissipation. Can someone elucidate? Skin effect is really really important if you have any real program content you care about in the upper radio end of the spectrum Like I said, "negligible at audio frequencies"... I mentioned it because it's not a reason to *avoid* using multiple strands. |
#37
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Trevor Wilson wrote:
**On that we agree. CONTIGUOUS lengths of cable will probably solve the problem. I would tend to agree. But the problem isn't with splices, in general. The problem here is likely how the "splices" were made. I have never had a problem with splices. A speaker cable with 50 "proper" splices would make no difference. |
#38
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Joseph Oberlander wrote:
Eek. Three splices and you expect it to work properly? Why not? Every time you splice a wire you loose 2-4db per splice. Three, plus the connectors on the end... That's going to add up to a noticeable load increase on the receiver. Splicing bad. BULL! |
#39
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On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 20:18:15 -0500, Joe Sensor wrote:
Pretty high percentage of air to copper? What does this mean? And there would be nothing wrong with 1 strand! Maybe not the best way to say it? Try this... Agreed, there's nothing wrong with 1 strand (solid wire). The OP mentioned 14 AWG, so we'll go with that. A solid piece of 14 AWG wire will have a certain current carrying capacity, and also a certain resistance and impedance for a given length. If you're going to permanently install it from your house to your deck, It'll do fine. If you need to move it around from time to time (get your speakers out of the snow, for instance), you probably want something a bit less stiff. So you run down to Home Depot (or Radio Shack, or Best Buy, or Tweeter) & get some 14 AWG zip cord (or speaker cable). If you look close, you'll notice that it's made up of lots (and lots) of teeney-tiny strands of wire that fit really close together so there's not much air space between them. The air's not particularly important, but the implication is that if you use enough strands so they fit together tightly, you have *almost* as much metal in a stranded wire as in a solid wire of the same gauge. But the OP made his *approximately* 14 gauge wire from only 4 strands of telephone wire. Since circles don't fit together very well, there's gonna be a lot of air space in the middle. Again, it's not the air that's important, it's the metal that's *not* in there, because it's the metal that carries the juice (lightning notwithstanding). |
#40
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Mike Rivers wrote:
In article writes: Bad splice? One strand shorting somewhere? Since he said he's paralleling conductors in a multi-pair cable to get a lower resistance, I kind of like the suggestion someone made that he got them mixed up. He may have a short between the leads going to a channel, or have the hot side of one channel connected to the hot side of the other channel. You don't need to be an audiophile to work this one out, but it helps if you have some basic electrician skills. I simply would not use the cable he describes...too much margin for error, and too little money saved. jak |
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