Speaker Cable

[Scratch Music]

Mechanically, old T&E easily breaks if amps are moved e.g. in an office.

anything that interrupts the crap shoved through the airwaves by the likes of radio 1 has got to be a good thing.

Hmmm...yes there is THAT view of course....

 

[davesparks]

NEVER use T&E. For distributed music systems 1.0mm strandard double insulated. Good for up to say 30m runs 100v line with a 120w amp. 1.5mm if you are using lo impedance up to 500 watts and less than 20m

100V line system in a house?

 

[Scratch Music]

Not really. We have done a few where the guy has wired himself (10 rooms with one cable in each) then plastered and painted, and THEN comes in for the amp/speakers. Most systems we do for Sparks are 100v as they are commercial. But same applies to domestic. A good OFC 1.omm will do most systems. The hifi fanatics do believe in 6.0mm harvested at midnight gold dipped 2000 strand 'one way only' cable marketed in expensive magazines, but what else do they spend money on? Plebs like us can't hear any difference. If it needs to sound great, spend dosh on the speakers. Yamaha do amps good enough for most of us.

 

[Scratch Music]

1.5 two core flex or T&E will do the job just fine.

NEVER use T&E. HF travels on the surface area of the stranded copper so using T&E limits the surface area.

 

[davesparks]

NEVER use T&E. HF travels on the surface area of the stranded copper so using T&E limits the surface area.

There is really no need to shout, can you back up your point with something more than just a brief description of the skin effect?
Whilst the skin effect exists you won’t hear a difference in a home audio system.
Doing a quick bit of research I’ve found that generally the limit of human hearing is around 20kHz, at this frequency the radial skin depth in round copper conductors is around 0.4mm which coincidentally approximates to the diameter of 1.5sqmm solid conductors. So the effective depth of the conductor used by the audible frequencies is all of the conductor.

 

[davesparks]

scratch music is correct

much in the same way as we use braided or better still braided strap and not solid for RF grounds as it travels the surface and Braided wire has more surface area than solid

It’s not the same as RF is at much higher frequencies than audible frequencies so the skin depth is far less and braided cables become necessary, for audible frequencies the effect is negligible

 

[Octopus]

FYI - I did the cabling in the spring of 2016 - not found any money to add the surround sound as yet...

 

[Squid]

I will check with my AV guy,

 

[Octopus]

^^ is you AV guy the one sitting on the sofa?

 

[Squid]

No he's in the comms room scratching his head as we can't get Gardeners World up on the screen....

 

[gnuuser]

that would depend on the power specs of your amps and speakers.
generally you want to go with heavier cabling to prevent voltage drop,
preferably with a higher strand count and tinned or gold clad contacts to minimize oxidation
You can also tin your conductors using a good quality silver bearing solder.
https://www.procosound.com/download/whitepapers/Understanding Speaker Cables.pdf

 

[Strima]

that would depend on the power specs of your amps and speakers.
generally you want to go with heavier cabling to prevent voltage drop,
preferably with a higher strand count and tinned or gold clad contacts to minimize oxidation
You can also tin your conductors using a good quality silver bearing solder.

Yeah, all this tinning and gold connection stuff made a huge difference to my 30 year old two channel stereo system...

In a domestic set up there's no requirement for expensive wiring systems unless the audio equipment runs into the £1000's...

 

[static zap]

Amps have changed since my Mosfet days ,have digital amps made it yet ? ( or are they just a way of upsetting your local HAM) ... any differences in speaker cabling ...

 

[gnuuser]

I know the digital gear messes with my pager (fire department) so it sits in the charger base while at home.
I use regular scanner in those areas.( or rather centralized scanner and remote speakers)