jason978

I need a 50 foot length of speaker wire. I have 2 thirty foot lengths. Is it a bad idea to solder the 2 pieces together to make 1 wire? Would some kind of butt connectors be better?, or should I just buy one new piece? I'm using 12 gauge wire. Thanks,

Jay

edclem

As long as you use a good quality solder to make the connection, it'll be fine.
I had to do the same for one of my surround channels.

HTH

Green Jello

quote:<HR>Originally posted by edclem:
As long as you use a good quality solder to make the connection, it'll be fine.
I had to do the same for one of my surround channels.

HTH <HR>

Good god NO! NEVER, NEVER solder speaker cable together. Solder scts as a resister. Always simply use wire nuts when splicing has to be done.

edclem

quote:<HR>Originally posted by Green Jello:
Good god NO! NEVER, NEVER solder speaker cable together. Solder scts as a resister. Always simply use wire nuts when splicing has to be done.<HR>

Why are internal speaker connections always soldered then? You may well be right, I'm just curious.


[This message has been edited by edclem (edited December 17, 2000).]

Green Jello

quote:<HR>Originally posted by edclem:
Why are internal speaker connections always soldered then? You may well be right, I'm just curious.


[This message has been edited by edclem (edited December 17, 2000).]<HR>

I once asked and engineer from Yamaha that very same question. If you notice, most soldered connections within electronics are solid copper wire, rather than stranded. Also, if you look in higher-end amplifiers, the connections to the amps are usually spade connectors or something like that. Basically, it will still work, if you solder speaker wire together, but it is something that any audio manufacturer will tell you is a bad idea.

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edclem

I stand corrected.

Thanks for the info, Green Jello.

M i c h a e l

quote:<HR>Originally posted by jason978:
I need a 50 foot length of speaker wire. I have 2 thirty foot lengths. Is it a bad idea to solder the 2 pieces together to make 1 wire? Would some kind of butt connectors be better?, or should I just buy one new piece? I'm using 12 gauge wire. Thanks,

Jay<HR>

Hmm, sounds messy. 12AWG wire is only
$1/foot, I'd just bite the bullet and spring
for the $50 of new cable.

I'm sure you spent good money on your gear,
it would be a shame to have a degradation
in audio quality to save a few bucks...

ECydeDave

Use the butt connectors and then electric tape over them.

DigIt

Or just hold the two wires together with your fingers whenever you want to watch a movie.

Ejunior2

You forgot the old tie a knot and use chewing gum technique...

Actually, I have a similar question. I have the wiring for my rear speakers going through the attic and down a wall. Where is comes out I just have a coax type wall plate with the wires going through the whole. Home Depot has some nice modular wall plates that have banana or spade connectors which would look much nicer but I'm concerned about cutting the wires. Am I loosing anything by cutting the wire and using spades?

nabster

coincidentally, I have a similar situation. my sub sits at the opposite end of the room as my receiver. i have 5 monster RCA cables connected using RCA gold cable connectors running from my receiver to the sub .. anyone done the same thing? any significant loss in quality by doing this?

bfrank

Here is my spin.

It is no big deal. The first choice would be get new wire as Michael has recommended. But if the connection is done well no one (read NO ONE) could hear the difference of the two in a blind test. The long length has an increased resistance and the joint could also add some but could you hear the difference? No. I imagine you are talking about wire for your rears, right? Well then it even less of a worry.

My first choice would be to solder the connection. In all of the old high end Infinity products we used solder on all connection in the crossover and to the drivers. Spade lugs are for faster assembly and for the most part are fine but we have seen them short. Then some where behind these two options are the hold the wire together, the knot and the chewing gum style.

Bottom line if you are short of cash it is no problem IMO.

4KRG

bfrank

Thanks for the input. That is what I always thought, but I wasn't 100%.

DVD_O_Rama

quote:<HR>Originally posted by bfrank:
Here is my spin.

It is no big deal. The first choice would be get new wire as Michael has recommended. But if the connection is done well no one (read NO ONE) could hear the difference of the two in a blind test. The long length has an increased resistance and the joint could also add some but could you hear the difference? No. I imagine you are talking about wire for your rears, right? Well then it even less of a worry.

My first choice would be to solder the connection. In all of the old high end Infinity products we used solder on all connection in the crossover and to the drivers. Spade lugs are for faster assembly and for the most part are fine but we have seen them short. Then some where behind these two options are the hold the wire together, the knot and the chewing gum style.

Bottom line if you are short of cash it is no problem IMO.<HR>

I am in kind of a similar situation, where I was wiring all my speakers in-wall, and while running one of my rear channels, came up a foor or two short. Considering I had just bought two 50' spools of 10 gauge Monster, I didn't want to buy another 50' roll just for that short little piece. I posted a similar (if not exact) question on the HTF, and the general consensus was that a soldered splice insulated with heat shrink would be ok.
I ended up buying the other 50' spool anyway, and used the spliced length for my EX/ES channel.
My question to Green Jello is this:
what exactly would happen to the signal quality for this channel? You seemed out and out against the idea of splicing, so what, in your opinion would happen to the signal? Less output? Would I not be able to get a reference level response out of it?
I am not challenging you at all, just curious. I value your opinion, as I have agreed with all your posts on other topics as well.
Thanks.



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RTFM!

Green Jello

quote:<HR>Originally posted by DVD_O_Rama:
My question to Green Jello is this:
what exactly would happen to the signal quality for this channel? You seemed out and out against the idea of splicing, so what, in your opinion would happen to the signal? Less output? Would I not be able to get a reference level response out of it?
I am not challenging you at all, just curious. I value your opinion, as I have agreed with all your posts on other topics as well.
Thanks.


<HR>

It's simply an issue of resistance. I have a problem with soldering the speaker cable, not splicing it. Other than the looks of it, there is nothing wrong with splicing together two lengths of cable if you HAVE to. When you solder stranded copper wire together, it greatly increases the resistance on the line. I have seen this proven with an ohms meter by an engineer. There shouldn't be any degredation in sound, but the amps would be working harder, and with lesser quality equipment, the volume output would go down slightly. This falls under the same issue as why you want to try to keep the lengths of speaker cables about the same. You don't want to run 50' to the left channel and only 10 to the right.

Bottom line is this: It's not the end of the world in either situation, but in the pursuit of perfection, solder is something to be avoided.

mnguye10

Instead of soldering or splicing, you could buy some really cheap crimp caps, which smoosh the two ends of wire together in a little crimp that makes it difficult to come apart, and provides lots of contact between the wires. No need for messy tape which can come apart, or soldering.