Wharfedale Evo 4.1 powered by Sonos amp.
Original wires were 16 gauge tinned copper from Crutchfield R: 4 ft, L: 6ft Speakers about 6 feet apart
New wires are 16 gauge pure copper from Best Buy R: 10 ft, L: 4 ft Speakers about 8 feet apart
Ever since getting a larger TV and media cabinet, which required buying new speaker wire, the sound is noticeably quieter and just doesn’t sound as good. I’m sure the wire length should be the same, but that’s just what it worked out to with my setup and other media cables I had. Kind of bummed because I really liked my 2.1 setup.
Any clues? Only other major difference is that the new wire jacket is really thick and dense so I had to screw the connectors on really tight which may have stripped off some of the copper 🤷🏻♂️
Edit: Music is through Spotify connect. Can’t comment on TV
I've gathered some options I've researched on Google, but maybe wanted to see what others thought about the amount work/cost/complexity/etc. and what some people who actually knew what they were doing thought.
Option 1: Invisible tape. Honestly, the reviews aren't very good. Many reviewers state it's either not that discrete or the adhesive wears off within weeks or months.
Option 2: Crown molding. My ceiling is a 2 step ceiling. The lower "step" sort of hollows out into the staircase (so no crown molding there), and the higher step (where the ceiling goes higher) is sort of in the middle of the room, so it would look really weird. This would've been the best solution if my HT room was just a normal square/rectangle room.
Option 3: Digging a 1-inch "trench" or "canal" across the route where the wires would go in the dry wall. So that means a 1 inch "canal" in my dry wall from my speakers, up the wall, to the ceiling, across the entire HT room across the ceiling, and back down to my TV. We shove the wires in there, and we patch up the dry wall and repaint. This seems like a LOT of work just to hide wires. My ceiling also has this stupid half dry wall half popcorn ceiling design (smooth around the edges like a picture frame, and popcorn in the middle where the picture would be) that I think would be a lot of effort to replicate. I also only have 100ft of speaker wires (50ft per speaker), which are already quite expensive. If this were the best option, I guess I would return the wires, and get longer ones to rope around the popcorn ceiling. But again, this already seems like much more work and money, and on top of that, more money on wire length.
Option 4.1: (I'm sorry if I'm not using the correct terms) Feeding the wires through Floor molding/trim/baseboards and through door frames. I saw a few posts saying there's some sort of space between the floor and wall behind the molding/trimming/baseboards that you could feed the wires through, but these were for carpeted houses. Not sure if it's the same for hardwood floors. I also have a bunch of doors on either side of the room, so I'm not even sure if there's a way to feed wires inside/through a door frame? I don't know if it's hollow or solid (obviously not possible if solid).
Option 4.2: Instead of going through door frames, I could feed my wires through the floor molding/trim/baseboards, and instead of going through doorframes, I could place floor edgings (the random speedbump pieces of wo
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Hello. I feel really stupid asking this, but my car doesn't have rear speaker wiring coming from the factory. I will obviously need to run custom speaker wires from the back , all the way to the front. My problem is... since the factory loom doesnt ''support'' rear speaker wiring, where and how am i supposed to connect my speakers to my car radio? My car radio uses ISO connectors.
I have 14AWG oxygen free copper speaker wires for my 5.1.2 system and I’m planning to add banana plugs to them for convenience. Anything specific I should look for? Should they also be oxygen free copper or is brass okay? Any specific size I need for 14AWG wires? Any brand you recommend? Just want something that’s up to standard and won’t degrade conductivity. I’m new to these so I’m lost, thanks for input
Edit: Are spades just as good as plugs for quality and convenience?
I have 4 speakers in my retail ceiling - one of which I wanted to disconnect. It is too difficult to access where it is currently located so I popped open a speaker wire and cut the wire extending to that particular speaker. Probably not surprising to this community, all of my audio stopped when I did this in the other speakers as well.
I’ve tried reading up on this, but can’t find a good fix. Techs are difficult to come by where I am, and I am looking for a more DIY solution. Any thoughts on what needs to be done to ensure my other three speakers work?
I'm installing one of these floating consoles (https://www.ikea.com/us/en/images/products/besta-tv-unit-with-doors-white-selsviken-high-gloss-beige__0723594_pe734026_s5.jpg?f=s). However I have a 5.1 system with 2 speakers in the back of the room. Right now the speaker wire is just lying along the edges of the room going to the 2 speakers in the back. I'd like to hide these wires somehow. My basement is finished so no ability to fish from there. Is there any way I can feed these from the receiver (which will sit on the floating console) through the wall, through the carpet (along the edges is fine as along as its pretty hidden) to the back speakers. Any help would be appreciated.
I have patch cables all over but need a 10ft speaker cable. I have some car audio 14ga or 16ga speaker wire and wanted to make sure it would work ok. Thanks!!!
I have what I hope is a simple question. I set up my speakers in a temporary position last year. I bought just enough wire to get it set up. This year, I bought wire covers and found out the length of the wire for one speaker is too short. Since I ran out of the first wire, I purchased some additional wire (without checking the gauge) and realize it’s two different gauges 14 v 16…new wire is 16. Total distance to the speaker is about 45 feet. Can I mix the two wires leading up to the one speaker. I only think it will need 6 feet of the 16 gauge wire. Thanks in advance to anyone that can help.
The reason I ask is because I swear I can faint hear voices coming from my tweeters when I just turn my amp on. The amp was recently serviced and the speakers I have are brand new. It sounds like a decent bit of intermittent hiss in quieter parts of songs. Any ideas? I live in downtown Pittsburgh so I’m thinking I’m picking something up.
I am getting a pool put in and while the electrical is being run, I want to have speaker wire run to my AMP. I have 2 Sonance Rock speakers currently run but they're close to my house so I ran 14AWG wire. 1 year in, so far so good.
The other speakers are going to the far parts of my yard (figure 200ft runs, minimum, each). I plan to get 2 more Sonance Rock speakers and run those lines in conduit. Will 14AWG be good for a run like that or should I go to 12AWG?
I'm sure 10AWG is best, but dropping $500 on wire, run in conduit, seems a bit excessive...
I think I read on here once that if you are going to hard wire Ethernet, you should do so to all speakers ideally, or just one speaker. That person said not to wire a few and not wire a few. Something about network problems if you do that. Is that true?
TLDR: Used speaker wire in lieu of the positive battery terminal. Car turns on and runs, is this safe?
Driving 65 miles tomorrow to my family home for Thanksgiving. Today, I go to start my car and the battery is clearly dead and gone. No worries, text a friend, head to the auto parts store and buy a new battery. As I'm swapping the batteries the positive terminal snaps off due to really bad corrosion.
Ummmm......
Channeled my inner MacGyver and used some speaker wire to connect the terminal to the battery. Now my car starts and runs. I also drove it around the neighborhood with success. Wires are ziptied down and very secure. Google had no answers for me and it's now too late to go back to auto parts store for a real terminal so I am wondering if it'll make the drive tomorrow
Edit: consensus seems to be extremely unsafe with a side of dumbass, so I will heed this advice, thanks for the replies!
I recently acquired a pair of old bookshelf speakers (JVC SP-UXS77B), but they have double the amount of wires that I'm used to. My stereo receiver has only four total terminals (one positive and one negative for each speaker), but I guess these speakers I got are bi-wired because each speaker has four wires: one positive and one negative for each high and low frequency. So with two of these speakers I've got eight speaker wires to plug in, but my receiver only has four terminals. What to do?
I know some receivers have eight terminals, do I need one of these? Or can I just twist the speaker wires into twos (obviously keeping positive and negative separate) coming from each speaker, effectively undoing the separation of high and low frequencies? I'm not too concerned with reaping the supposed benefits of bi-wiring, I just want to be able to use these speakers with my receiver. I tried this method of undoing the bi-wiring and it sounded ok, but one speaker sounded shallow and tinny. But maybe this is the correct method and I just made some mistake in twisting or connecting the wires.
eight speaker wires b/c low and high frequencies are separated
Hey all,
I have some banana jacks on both my speakers and receiver. I bought these plugs off ebay. They were super cheap and I figured they'd work. They're the type where you screw in the bare part of the speaker wire.
This has proven to be super jank. The wires fall out when something gets moved. I don't see a way to solder these either. Can anyone recommend a good plug on a budget? Soldering ok. I can probably make these work with some heat shrink tubing or electrical tape but I want a more polished solution if possible.
TIA
Edit: thanks to everyone for your advice and suggestions. It turns out I was in fact putting them together wrong. My bad. I'm still not thrilled at how they turned out but they'll do for now. I'm building out a couple other systems soon and I'll definitely go back over this post for ideas!
I just connected them to the 2 wires of the speaker and it works but in an odd way, it's a 16.5mm woofer with a built in tweeter but I hear barley any low end and crazy loud high end, could it be because I didn't install them properly?
car: Peugeot 206 (2003). speakers: JVC CS-J620. i
car wires: https://ibb.co/4J4g6zG
speaker: https://ibb.co/4tjXNvB
