Speaker cable for speakers - how to choose a cross-section?
As strange as it may sound, buying an speaker cable for a speaker is not the easiest thing. There are such a huge number of them on the market and you can buy them in almost any audio equipment store. Just before you buy, evaluate your solvency. Determine how high quality these wires are. Before purchasing, study the manufacturer of the product, as well as the technical specifications. Most people buy wires for acoustics without thinking, they say they will fit any system. But this is completely wrong. Such a choice is not an easy task and must be approached responsibly.
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How to choose an speaker cable?
When choosing an audio cable for your acoustics, base it on the following rules:
- If you buy inexpensive speakers, do not think that the wire will be of excellent quality.
- If the manufacturer is popular and well-known, all components, including audio cables, are correctly selected.
- A high-quality wire always has a wide cross-section, this is the only way it can pass enough current.
- The surface must have a varnish coating, this protects against short circuits.
- The sound should not get worse: if the wire is of good quality, then the sound will be better.
- The wire should have an average resistance; the lower the resistance, the better the sound.
- It should be remembered that audio cables made of copper are better. They usually consist of twenty copper wires. Each is separately isolated and they are all collected into one system. Due to the small diameter of the cable, it has little resistance. This makes it possible to transmit a signal at high speed without losing quality.
- A large diameter wire should only be taken if it is no longer than three meters.
How to choose the cable cross-section?
Every owner of a speaker system sooner or later asks the question: which cable is better? What should the cable cross-section be? It all depends on the power that will be transmitted. The higher the power is planned to be transmitted, the higher the cross-sectional value should be. Resistance has a significant impact on signal transmission.
This can be explained by the fact that many speakers have low impedance. You can do an experiment. To do this, connect an acoustic cable with a resistance of one ohm to a speaker with a resistance of eight ohms. The load will be equal to the sum of the two indicators. Current and power values drop. In order for the power to be of the required value, it is required that the resistance be no more than five percent of the impedance, if high frequencies are used, and when low, then no more than ten percent.
The ideal wire can be considered the one whose cross-section corresponds to certain indicators and is purchased for a specific system. If the cable does not meet the specifications, you need to select other cross-section indicators. The most common are cables with a cross-section from 2.5 millimeters to four.
As you can see, there is nothing complicated in selecting a section. Follow the rule that a longer wire requires a higher cross-section.And the most common is 2.5 millimeters. From there you need to start selecting a more suitable cable for your speaker system.