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Author Topic: Question about speaker lines Tom Wienholt Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Towson, MD, USA Registered: Dec 2002 posted 09-08-2010 11:00 PM                     Is it possible to "pair up" two 16 gauge wires for the positive and two 16 gauge wires for the negative speaker wire runs? Obviously, 16 gauge is not sufficient for stage speaker line runs but I was curious if pairing up the smaller gauge wire would work. I have plenty of 16 gauge speaker wire to do the job this way in order to avoid buying new. Any thoughts?  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 09-09-2010 01:19 PM                     Is it possible? Yes. Will it work? Probably. Is is wise? No freakin way. Several issues come to mind: Keeping the "pairs" together properly. Cross up on any of the pairs and you can easily fry an amplifier. Same if you accidently cross the polarity on any set. It will be a bitch to pull in those pairs (remember that for a basic, passive crossover system you'll have 8 wires or four sets. Bump that to 14 wires or seven sets for bi-amp. And what are you gonna do about spares?) Unless the wires in a "set" are EXACTLY the same length you can end up with measurable and perhaps audible artifacts. Besides, the NEC (National Electrical Code) prohibits the use of parallel sets of such small conductors. Your local building inspector/fire marshal may red tag you for this. Do you want to be shut down to change it out and pay even more money to have it done in an urgent situation? Finally, a roll of 12/2 speaker wire can be had in 1,000' length for around $400-500. And if you're running conduit and buy regular THHN wire it'll cost less than that. If you have that much 16ga laying around, either sell it on fleabay or take it to the scrapyard and help defray the cost of getting the right wire and doing it right.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 09-09-2010 01:38 PM                        Bi-wiring is common in high-end home audio setups, though what they're trying to do isn't exactly the same as your scenario. quote: "Bi-wiring uses two separate sets of speaker cables to connect a single pair of loudspeakers to an amplifier. Coupled with a crossover designed specifically for bi-wiring, it offers many of the advantages of bi-amplifying the speakers with two separate amplifiers without the cost and complexity of two amplifiers."  |  IP: Logged Richard Hamilton Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1341 From: Evansville, Indiana Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-09-2010 01:53 PM                     The way I read it, he's not talking about Bi-Amping the system.  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 09-10-2010 11:06 PM                     Richard, I agree. David, I hope you don't buy into that malarkey of "biwiring" as there would be NO audible or measurable benefits to the method as described. It most definitely will NOT offer "many of the advantages of bi-amplifying the speakers with two separate amplifiers.... " The "High-end audio world" are the same crackpots who brought us $400 gold-plated cyrogenically frozen AC receptacles and other such expensive nonsense.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-11-2010 12:42 AM                     There was a method used by a person who's name and system cannot be mentioned that used 12/3 Romex with cross pairs used  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-11-2010 03:32 AM                        quote: Tony Bandiera Jr The "High-end audio world" are the same crackpots who brought us $400 gold-plated cyrogenically frozen AC receptacles and other such expensive nonsense. I just came from a fellow's listening room --very sweet man and an accomplished piano player/tuner -- and he truly believes that covering all his AC cables with sheets of magazine paper (it must be the clay coated type) improves the sound of his system. He has built a kind of cardboard and shiny magazine paper maze around his components which sit in the middle of his livingroom floor. He uses cinder blocks on top of his preamp and amps which are buried in this maze of paper goods. You should see the machinations he has to go thru just to get at the controls of the components. He has some standard PVC pipe of varying lengths standing about the room around the maze; I am assuming in his mind he thought he was mimicking the REAL tube traps which are used in studios and listening rooms, but which, of course, are not anything at all like 3 inch PVC pipe. Tube traps have defusing material on the surface and attenuating material inside and they must be placed strategically at standing wave nodes and pressure zones along the walls in the room. You can't just stand ASC tube traps up willy nilly in a room, you have to do some serious testing with MATT burst test tones in order to figure out where precisely to place them so they will function as they should and produce positive results. Place them incorrectly and you can do more harm than good. But an ASC Tube Trap -- PVC pipe definitely it is not. He also believes that when certain metal weights placed on (or under....I am not sure which) his CD player, they will enhance its ability to decode the data stream. These same blocks of brass and stainless steel (some in the shape of a pyramid) also enhance his beautiful grand piano when they are placed on the plate and sounding board. Again, I didn't point out the obvious -- if this actually did improve the sound of a grand piano, one would think Steinway, Yamaha, Weinbach, Bechstein, et al, would put blocks of metal on their plates and sounding boards long ago. Even though this man has turned his living room into what looks like some frightening modern sculpture gone bad, and has made it so that even turning components on or off becomes a major chore as they are buried there in, I still hesitated to dishearten him by telling him that not any of it has one iota to do with the precision or clarity of the sound he is listening to. I figure, if he thinks he can hear a difference after he lays down magazines over his extension cords, more power to him....I just hope that power never shorts and sparks or his whole place will go up like a tinderbox.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-11-2010 09:57 AM                     I once had a guy come to me at work and ask all sorts of questions about the kind of speaker wire he should use to hook up his new home theater system. He spent all this time telling me about the things he bought and how he wanted to arrange all the speakers and things. He gave me a look like I had just killed his puppy when I told him to go to Lowes or Home Depot and buy 12 AWG. wire off the roll.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 09-11-2010 03:28 PM                        Yes, but. . . . the loonies make the rest of us seem sane! Louis  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 09-11-2010 04:31 PM                     A former boss of mine asked me to go into an auditorium. He told me he would replace the MAIN cable of CP650 with a special one, that came from Sweden, shielded with graphite. He pretended that the sound would improve, just replacing that cable (not all the amps, crossover...). I was downstairs listening to a CD played back by a cheap CD player through a below the average sound system, but I was not actually listening. I was actually thinking "what can I say! If I say he's right, I'm not telling the true. If I say he's wrong, he'll be angry with me"! I went for the latter one. But then he made the same test, and he told everybody that the difference was huge (he explained me that this cable would cut "noise" over 40.000Hz. I wish I could be able to hear 20.000!!!)  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-11-2010 05:34 PM                     My usual answer to people who insist that expensive cables make a difference is to offer them $500,000.00 if they can prove it in a double blind scientific test. You see, the James Randi foundation has had a standing offer of a $1,000,000.00 prize to anybody who can substantiate such a claim. I would simply submit the person's cables to James Randi for testing and, if they won, I would split the million dollar prize with the person. I have never had a person take me up on the offer. Neither has Randi ever had a serious contender for his prize.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 09-12-2010 11:02 AM                        I use #12 stranded building wire up to 150 ft, normally and then go to #10 for individual subs, all in conduit.. Getting good connections on each end is a bit more troubling. At home, almost anything will do if over #16. Louis  |  IP: Logged Richard Hamilton Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1341 From: Evansville, Indiana Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-12-2010 11:43 AM                     here you go Have fun!  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 09-12-2010 12:27 PM                        quote: David Stambaugh Bi-wiring is common in high-end home audio setups, though what they're trying to do isn't exactly the same as your scenario. I clearly said "they" not "me" and was merely pointing out that what was being described by the OP is similar to bi-wiring. Sheesh.  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 09-12-2010 12:41 PM                     David, why are you getting your panties in a bunch? No one was arguing with you at all. If you're referring to my post after yours then you need to quote what I said if you think that was the problem. I wasn't arguing with your statement but rather the belief of "they" ("them") who think it has any kind of benefits.  |  IP: Logged

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