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Electronics Forum / Electronics / January 2008Amplilfier wiring
I don't know if this is the right NG to ask about the following: I have a Sony DAV-FX500 5.1 home theater now installed which works very well for our fairly medium sized room. I was surprised to see the wire size to four of the speakers as small as it is. The wire size to the two front speakers and the two rear speakers is #22 and to the woofer is #16. I am considering changing out the #22 wire to #18 wire. I am wondering if the benefit would be worth the trouble. Amplifilier output specs are: For each of the four speaker amplifier outputs: 84 watts, with 3 ohms impedance each. Woofer amplifier output: 160 watts, with 1.5 ohms impedance. After thought: Just thinking, would the #22 wire resistance be there by design because of the fairly low amplifier output of 3 ohms? Thanks, Dave C. > I don't know if this is the right NG to ask about the following: > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > After thought: Just thinking, would the #22 wire resistance be there by > design because of the fairly low amplifier output of 3 ohms? This isn't a transmisson-line problem. For speakers, the less resistance between the amp and the speaker, the better. The use of 22-guage wire was just to shave a few cents off the cost of production. Your amp can safely drive 3-ohm loads, but its actual output impedance is much lower, ideally zero. Your speakers are probably rated at 4 ohms. 40 watts (consumer audio amp ratings always exaggerate) in 4 ohms is Sqrt (40 * 4) = 12.65 amps, a bit much for #22 wire if it were continuous. Switching to #18, with more than twice the cross-sectional area, might make an audible difference, especially if you listen at high volume. There is a lot of bullshit slung around about speaker cables. If someone tries to sell you expensive wire, claiming some esoteric technology, make a rude gesture and go to a hardware store. Copper is copper (for this application, at least), so thicker is better, period. For power levels that you can tolerate in you living room, you can't beat lamp cord. >> I don't know if this is the right NG to ask about the following: >> [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > application, at least), so thicker is better, period. For power levels > that you can tolerate in you living room, you can't beat lamp cord. Thanks for the information. We are shortly getting an HDTV to replace our ageing TV and I need to do some room and furniture revisions and is would be easier to replace the speaker wire at th is time. We listen to surround sound (right now via DVD) not at a theater level but a medium level to enjoy the 5.1. No. 22 probably is probably OK as you say, but the better policy would be using #18. Regards, Dave C. > There is a lot of bullshit slung around about speaker cables. You're telling me ! > If someone tries to sell you expensive wire, claiming some esoteric > technology, make > a rude gesture and go to a hardware store. Copper is copper (for this > application, at least), so thicker is better, period. Absolutely and the copper isn't made any better by being expensively packaged and promoted with unscientific gobbledegook. As you VERY correctly say, coppper is copper and that's all that matters. Graham >> There is a lot of bullshit slung around about speaker cables. > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > As you VERY correctly say, coppper is copper and that's all that > matters. Some of the audophools are spending absurd sums for fancy _power cables! _ The companies that exploit these people are careful not to mention the miles of plain old, supplied-by-the-lowest-bidder wire between the wall outlet and the generator. I wonder what would happen to an audiophool who found out that much of the power entering his home is transmitted through aluminum wire? Even if the local grid is all copper, those highlines you see against the sky are all steel wire wrapped with aluminum. One bright spot: I hear that the infamous $485 wooden volume control knob is no longer offered. >>> There is a lot of bullshit slung around about speaker cables. >> [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > aluminum. One bright spot: I hear that the infamous $485 wooden volume > control knob is no longer offered. ROFLMAO!!! Here's one that's sure to make a $3.00 AM radio sound like an orchestra. http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=110-439 And it's a bargain at only $147.72 US!!! But the real value comes from the receptacle being "cryogenically treated". Guess that means the it was on the loading dock when frost formed on the grass. What maroon would actually buy one of these rip-offs?  SignatureDave M MasonDG44 at comcast dot net (Just substitute the appropriate characters in the address) "In theory, there isn't any difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is." - Yogi Berra >>>> There is a lot of bullshit slung around about speaker cables. >>> [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > on the loading dock when frost formed on the grass. What maroon would > actually buy one of these rip-offs? I've got an idea: a crystal-controlled sinewave inverter (built with tubes, of course) driven by an array of solar cells driven by a single- mode laser (gotta use a laser, for truly monochromatic light), for the purest possible 60-Hz power. It would cost a king's ransom, but I bet we could sell it to a few audiophools. The tubes, of course, would be Western Electric type 300B direct-heated triodes, which hardcore audiophools recognize as the Ultimate Tube. Would you believe that the Western Electric tube plant is *still in business* as a division of Lucent Technologies? For a suitable premium, we could replace the crystal oscillator with a hydrogen maser. |
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