I am working on a 5.1 setup, I've bought speaker wire from HD 14 guage. I've seen a reply here saying that I need even length for all 5 speakers, is it true? My rear speaker wire needs at least 30'!
And is 14 guage too much?
Thanks

There's no reason to match the lengths of the speaker wires. Electrons zip through the wires pretty quick, so they should arrive at the speakers about the same time, regardless of differences in length The only 'matching' of length I would bother with is between sets of speakers, like the main left and right.

It really depends on the impedance of your speakers what the best gauge of wire is. 14 gauge is OK for that run if your speakers are 8 ohms rated, if they are lower, like 4 ohms, you might consider 12 gauge. Contrary to opinion in the audiophile community, the most important characteristic of speaker wire is it's that it's gauge is high enough so that the resistance of the wire is minimal compared to the impedance of the speaker. I wouldn't spend a fortune on
'designer wires'.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited January 30, 2003).]

Why bother with that?

I've done as you suggested, but I'm wondering why. :-) Doesn't the current travel at speeds approaching the speed of light?

I would only defend matching speaker wire lengths on the basis of matching their resistances (although it should already be very small) so that there will be identical speaker interaction (and thus, better frequency response matching) for each side. I know this is a very minor effect, but if it only costs a couple bucks more, why not eliminate this potential (again, albeit very small) problem?

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited January 30, 2003).]

In regards to speaker wire length, it has been my experience that if the length of the speaker cable is less than the distance between the speaker and amplifier, no sound will come out of the speaker.

Seriously, engineering esthetic considerations tell me to make that speaker lenghts the same but I know that I might be being retentive and a few feet difference in length of speaker cable, especially if the cable conductor gauge is low enough, won't matter.

Paul

[This message has been edited by Paul J. Stiles (edited February 05, 2003).]

I made my speaker wire lengths the same for my front three speakers, and the same (longer) for my two rears. And, recently, I was VERY glad that I did. Here's why:

I used to have my component rack to the left of my TV, just to the right of the left tower speaker. The excess cable ran out to behind the TV and then back to the speaker.

I bought a taller component rack a few months ago, and as a result had to move the rack to the right-hand side of the TV, placing my sub where the rack used to be. I did this because there is a cutout on the wall to the right of the TV that the taller rack would have blocked.

So, now, it's the right hand speaker that has excess cable and the left is just barely long enough. Not having to cut new cable saved me quite a bit of time when moving heavy things around. In fact, I don't think I even disconnected anything.

So, in summary: always make your rears longer than your fronts. :-)

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net