Does speaker wiring matter? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: desbo
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 12, 2024, 04:01:34 am
content: I am modifying the wiring in a vintage quad box for a guitar amp.1) Does it matter if I have the factory wiring and do new connections with larger gauge wiring ie. a mix of standard and thicker gauge?2) Does length matter? I note that the factory wiring had no slack at all and was minimal length. Was Jim Marshall just saving money or did it have an effect on performance?

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 12, 2024, 04:06:28 am
content: Thicker wire is just fine. Leave a bit of slack if you want. No problem. Just make sure it can't touch the back of the speaker cone if the amplifier is leaned over.Regarding wire thickness, the wire the speaker voice coil is wound from is tiny and very long compared to the wire inside the cabinet, so any sensible thickness of wire you use won't make any difference at all.

author: desbo
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 12, 2024, 11:19:01 am
content: that seems logical. thanks Circlotron

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 12, 2024, 11:58:11 am
content: Thick wire helps to reduce resistance on longer runs where it becomes significant. For short distances wire thickness barely matters as long as it's not exceedingly thin. There is no harm in using thicker wire unless it causes trouble for connectors or solder lugs.

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 12, 2024, 01:41:16 pm
content: For the power levels you are dealing with 16ga would work although 14ga would be more of a commercial standard of quality. I have seen 1 kilowatt subwoofers (what a joke of quality) wired with 16ga. It works and usually the crap quality subwoofer speaker blows up long before the wire becomes damaged. Take very good care to get your phasing correct!!! if you are shooting for 4 ohms from your quad of 16 ohm speakers then it is really simple. All the pluses go to plus (red) and all the minuses go to minus (unmarked). So it appears from your posts you have an amplifier head with a separate quad cabinet? Are you gigging with a 4 X 12" arrangement? That is the most common. Very strange to see 4 X 10" in those Hartke bass cabinets. Saw a live band Saturday night, the bass player was using a Mark Bass 2 X 10" and rocking the club and he was NOT plugged into the front of house system!!! They were using two EV stick / sub combos for F.O.H. and sounding great!! Why the EV's??? Because Bose Blows and JBL means Just Bloody Loud. They auditioned systems from all 3 and choose EV. I agree on their choice. B.T.W., take care in crimping your spade lugs, better yet solder those lugs. Somehow they always get loose.

author: MarkT
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 14, 2024, 08:08:34 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on March 12, 2024, 11:58:11 amThough you do need the amp's output fuse to blow before your wiring starts a fire...

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 14, 2024, 09:11:33 pm
content: Quote from: MarkT on March 14, 2024, 08:08:34 pmDon’t let a fuse get in the way of a captivating performance! ⚡️💥🔥

author: Terry Bites
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 11:20:15 am
content: Use a gold plated fuse and holder, that'll fix it.Gold cable too of course.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 11:55:44 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 14, 2024, 09:11:33 pmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleshort

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 12:03:54 pm
content: Quote from: desbo on March 12, 2024, 04:01:34 amHaving no slack is mostly about ensuring the wires don't rest against things where they might vibrate and rattle in use. Some speakers have lots of slack and foam sheaths over the wires to prevent rattling noises.

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 01:06:36 pm
content: When a powerful amplifier using +/- 50 volt rails (or higher) faults to a dead short to one of the power rails going out to the speaker then any D.C. coupled speaker in the cabinet is looking for damage. Usually the woofer only as the mids and highs are often capacitor coupled. The speaker often gets damaged as quickly as the fuse. Any fuse big enough or slow enough to not blow during sustained loud stage volume is usually too big to act quickly to protect the speaker. Speaker relays driven by 'D.C. offset' sensing helps BUT with power amps having rail voltages over +/- 50 run into another strange problem. The relay contacts go into continuous arc. The inductive kick back from the speaker starts the arc as the contacts open and the arc sustains because the contact gap isn't wide enough to clear a D.C. fault. To help relieve that problem often the power supplies are also commanded off in a soft reset mode. The drivers I have replaced most often (other than the total garbage like rockville, kracko, spark-o-matic, etc) were in the Bose 802's. Mainly the older ones, 8 x 1ohm speakers in series with a capacitor shunt that shorts out half of the drivers at high frequency leaving only a 4 ohm load and using the BOZO 'system controller' that adds 17dB of boost to the high frequency range. What a stupid idea!!