Speaker Wiring anyone?

I would think you would want a larger guage stranded wire if these are speakers driven off an amp. If the speakers have built-in amps, you might be ok otherwise I'd say no.

 

for hometheater purposes get dedicated speaker wires

what kind of power (RMS) will you be putting out?

what kind of distance are we talking about?




CAT5 is not what you want to use


here's a link with some general rule of thumb

http://www.the12volt.com/info/recwirsz.asp

 

You can do it. 50W rms and i bet it is a low current receiver at that. Sure, no worries. If you want to 'pair up' wire to double the effective wire gauge that is fine too.

 

Steve is right, there are as many schools of thought on cables as there are on most conspiracy theories. I remember one movement for a while that involved bell wire, and another that liked really cheesy radio shack zipcord, so knock yourself out. The only way you'll find out that it sounds ****ty is to hook up a different set of cables, and compare, which you won't do, right?

 

Front speakers on a home theatre system? Just about anything will do. Save the Monster Cable for the Klipsch Horns, you won't hear any difference on those little speakers.

But as whart pointed out, you can easily compare and make your own decision.

 

Am sure you are using them as a generic term as Monster Cable is a very evil Empire according to quite a few. In fact some people call them MOBster Cable due to the company's apparent strong-arm tactics. It verges on MOB-style 'taking a cut' of a small company's income so that Monster Cable does not send out 'their boys.'

See http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=boycott+monster+cable&sp=1&fr2=sp-top&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&SpellState=n-1084623861_q-SAC6elN9B.CeDufWUfrS9wABAA%40%40

 

So, I guess the way 'round it is simply to refer to it generically as 'McCable.'

 

Dude, you can't "fish' the wires to where you want them under the carpet???

There's always a way!!!!

"Sorry, mam, that sheetrock's gotta come OFF!!!!!"

*sawzall running, dust flying everywhere*

 

If it's only 10-15 feet can you use the cat 5 to pull the speaker wire through?

Many times when I pull wires I leave an extra "pull wire" in case I need to run more.

 

I don't see you 'frying' anything: in fact, if you have the 'horn' version of a Klipsch, those are ridiculously efficient, and could shatter eardrums with a few watts, not much current draw. Wire in the days when Klipsch first manufactured his horn was not very esoteric, or even much of an issue. (I suspect, even the monkey coffin style speaker made by K are efficient, but don't know for a fact. I fooled around with old Klipsh speakers, back in the day when he largely made the big corner horn).

 

Report back how it goes......

Good luck

 

Might just work if you combine as many wires in parallel as you possibly can.

Cat6 is 22gauge, pretty small even doubled/quad-d up. Keep the volume low.

 

A 6-page article by Laurence Greenhill titled "Speaker Cables: Can You Hear the Difference?" was published in Stereo Review magazine on August 1983. It compared Monster cable, 16-gauge wire and 24-gauge wire. The price at that time for a pair of 30-foot lengths of monster cables was $55.00. The cost for 16 gauge heavy lamp cord was $.30/foot or $18.00 and the 24 gauge "speaker wire" was $.03/foot or $1.80

"...So what do our fifty hours of testing, scoring and listening to speaker cables amount to? Only that 16-gauge lamp cord and Monster cable are indistinguishable from each other with music and seem to be superior to the 24 gauge wire commonly sold or given away as 'speaker cable.' Remember, however, that it was a measurable characteristic--higher resistance per foot--that made 24 gauge sound different from the other cables. If the cable runs were only 6 instead of 30 feet, the overall cable resistances would have been lower and our tests would probably have found no audible differences between the three cables. This project was unable to validate the sonic benefits claimed for exotic speaker cables over common 16-gauge zip cord. We can only conclude, therefore, that there is little advantage besides pride of ownership in using these thick, expensive wires"

In order for speaker wire impedance to be less than 5% of the load impedance (4 or 8 ohm speakers), the following wire length limits for copper wire should be observed:

WireGa 4Ohm 8Ohm
22AWG 6ft 12ft
20AWG 10ft 20ft
18AWG 16ft 32ft
16AWG 24ft 48ft

Doubling up the wire will be halve the wire impedance for the same length, so you can double the distance to maintain 5%. Quadrupling, 1/4 the impedance for the same length and 4x the distance to maintain 5%. For those wondering if 5% is too much to allow, remember 5% of 4Ohms is 0.2Ohms; I've seen contact resistance variations higher than that due to oxidation and other minor issues at contact interfaces.

If the wire is limited to 5% of the load impedance, using this table, then 5% of a continuous 50W, specifically 2.5W, will dissipate in the wire rather than the load. But this is only at peak excursions, which is almost never continuous. With the volume control turned up but not clipping, then the 50W amp probably delivers a continuous 1-5W, depending on the character of the music. 5% of 5W in the wire would be 0.25W. Not terribly significant if you're concerned about wire heating.