The speaker wire that came with my rear surround sound speakers is not long enough for the room in which I am installing. The wire is hard- wired to the speaker and it has a special connector at the end that goes into the receiver. I want to try to splice in more length in the middle but have a few concerns before I start The factory wire is 22 guage. Do I need the same exact guage when splicing? It seems like this is a really uncommon thickness. Also, some of the wire is going to be running either under carpet or in wall. All of the in-wall speaker wire I have found is around 14 guage. How can I most effectively accomplish what I'm trying to do?
22 gauge wire is a very poor speaker conductor, at bes. For any length you should replace the whole length with a decent gauge of conductor. If you must splice the cable use a heavier gauge if adding much length.
22 gauge speaker cable is quite common, for some reason that audiophiles will never understand. I am not a supporter of the ridiculous vehicle booster cables promoted by the salespeople but 10-14 gauge makes a much better speaker hookup, if quality of sound is any concern. I used to buy extension cords cheaply and cut the ends off, for the most economical source.
Install the wire in-wall and use wallplates with spring clips in them. Cut the wire are the speaker and run that to the wall plate. At the receiver, use the other end of the clipped wire to run from that wall plate back to the receiver.
If it's using such a paltry wire gauge and proprietary connectors then it's likely a crappy system anyway. What is it, a Bose?
Use 14 gauge, that way you'll have decent wire in there when you get around to buying a better solution. But even if you don't go in-wall, use the higher gauge. Electric extension cord wire is an acceptable cheap solution for a cheap system. With the higher gauge you won't, at least, lose volume and clarity due to the loss caused by the added distance.
There's not a lot of evidence that larger wires for speakers makes much of a difference unless they're going to be hundreds of feet long. You do not need to match the wire size, either; for audio frequencies, it just doesn't matter.
Go to the hardware store and get a roll of "speaker wire" which will probably be #22, but it really does not matter. Cut the existing wire about a foot from the connector, and splice in whatever lengths of the new wire it takes to get from "A" to "B". Stripping the conductors back about an inch, twisting tightly, and taping will work just fine, or use wirenuts of the proper size (hardware store again).
The most important part (actually, the *only* important part) is to make sure the conductors don't get swapped. In both the existing wire and the new stuff, there will be *some* way to differentiate the conductors -- maybe different wire colors (silver, copper), maybe a ridge lengthwise along one (but not both) conductors, maybe different colors of threads running along side the conductors, maybe something else. Make sure that you don't cross over the wires when you add the length. No damage will occur if you do, but the stereo image may suffer, and the low-frequency stuff may, too.
Running the wires under a rug is fine; if you do, make an effort to keep the wire "flat" (no twists), so that even if you walk on it, the conductors can't cut through the plastic insulation and short. You can cut the wires in two places if necessary, and splice the new stuff in the middle, to keep the joints from winding up underneath that rug.
Just to make sure I understand correctly: it is okay for the wire to come out of the speakers at 22 gauge, then switch to 14 and then back to 22 for the receiver connection?
It is a Panasonic PT-SC660 btw, a cheap system, but aside from this wiring glitch, I have no complaints.
There is no need for larger wires other than impedance (audio amplifiers are not very sensitive to this) or current handling (not necessary with a small amp or small surround speakers).
I happen to dislike 22 gage for anything where there might be stress but you might be able to run it under an edge of the carpet so that it doesn't get beat up too much.
Now... a real DIYer would take the speakers apart, unsolder the connection to the 22 gauge wire, solder new 14AWG wire to the speakers, obtain the correct connector from his local electronics supply store and "voila". But then... a real DIYer wouldn't buy the cheap Panasonic crap for his home theatre now would he?? :-)
Yes, he would. I certainly consider myself a DIYer, but I'm happy with the Panasonic SA-HT820V that we bought several years ago for about $250. The only issue was the DVD player is tethered to the amplifier/sub-woofer enclosure with a multi-conductor cable. So, that limited the placement of the components.
I used 14 gauge for all the "in-wall" cabling, but that was probably overkill. Very heavy wire is only needed for the bass. It seems that all systems today have a single bass driver, and all the "directive" speakers are strictly mid and high range.
No. He wouldn't. He would buy the speakers, build the enclosures and tune the system himself using a sillyscope and multimeter. He would spend hundreds of hours doing this and in the end would wind up with a set of speakers that he could have purchased "off the shelf" from Polk Audio, but he would have the satisfaction of having "done it himself". :-)
Blech!!
Oh, I dunno. I used 14 gauge wire for all my in-wall and in-ceiling speakers too. The only real issue that cropped up was when one of the drywallers broke a speaker mounting ring and didn't tell us. :-(
I don't know about that. Every time I set foot in either Future Shop or Best Buy the sales guy is trying to "upsell" me to the 8 gauge "oxygen free" Monster Cable. I mean just whom would you have me believe? A pimple-faced professional sales associate from Best Buy or some guy in a Newsgroup that says he's a DIY'er?? :-)
Happy New Year to one and all, by the way. I'm particularly looking forward to February. That's when we can start cracking the "special reserve" wines we bottled back in 2006.
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