[[email protected]]

Or are is the speaker level too high? I want to join together two
speaker cables. Would there be any appreciable loss in quality? What
about tow different brands of cable? Thanks!

[Laurence Payne]

On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:33:21 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Or are is the speaker level too high? I want to join together two
speaker cables. Would there be any appreciable loss in quality? What
about tow different brands of cable? Thanks!


It'll work. Don't fuss.

[Mike Rivers]

On Nov 28, 7:33 pm, wrote:
Or are is the speaker level too high? I want to join together two
speaker cables. Would there be any appreciable loss in quality? What
about tow different brands of cable? Thanks!

Normally I'd say it's no problem but in-line 1/4" jacks (which are
what make up such "couplers" make really poor contact with the plugs.
I avoid them at all costs. Just get longer speaker cables. Your
reputation will thank you.

If you were talking about Speakon couplers, well, OK, that's a
different story. No sweat.

[Scott Dorsey]

In article ,
wrote:
Or are is the speaker level too high? I want to join together two
speaker cables. Would there be any appreciable loss in quality? What
about tow different brands of cable? Thanks!

Are you referring to female-to-female barrel connectors? Some of the
cheapies are pretty flimsy inside, but the Switchcraft ones are probably
heavy enough to use for speaker line.

Really, though quarter-inch is a bad idea for speaker cables, especially
if you're going to be chaining them. The Speakon connector is a lot more
solid and won't fail or fall out.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Geoff]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
In article
,
wrote:
Or are is the speaker level too high? I want to join together two
speaker cables. Would there be any appreciable loss in quality?
What about tow different brands of cable? Thanks!

Are you referring to female-to-female barrel connectors? Some of the
cheapies are pretty flimsy inside, but the Switchcraft ones are
probably
heavy enough to use for speaker line.

Really, though quarter-inch is a bad idea for speaker cables,
especially
if you're going to be chaining them. The Speakon connector is a lot
more solid and won't fail or fall out.

Especially as a 1/4" barrel connector (or any 1/4 socket for that matter)
may short circuit your amp if cable slightly tugged. Replace it all with
speakons where possible !

geoff

[nebulax]

On Nov 28, 7:33 pm, wrote:
Or are is the speaker level too high? I want to join together two
speaker cables. Would there be any appreciable loss in quality? What
about tow different brands of cable? Thanks!

The coupler will probably work ok, but don't use guitar cable to
connect your speakers, or else your amp will soon be in the shop!

-Neb

[daz.diamond[_2_]]

Prior to the advent of speakons (not all that long ago) many pro systems
did use [!! 14" jacks !!] for speaker connections.

LMAO

[Airbus]

In article
,
says...


On Nov 28, 7:33 pm, wrote:
Or are is the speaker level too high? I want to join together two
speaker cables. Would there be any appreciable loss in quality? What
about tow different brands of cable? Thanks!

Normally I'd say it's no problem but in-line 1/4" jacks (which are
what make up such "couplers" make really poor contact with the plugs.
I avoid them at all costs. Just get longer speaker cables. Your
reputation will thank you.

If you were talking about Speakon couplers, well, OK, that's a
different story. No sweat.

Well, few people use Speakons for unbalanced line-leve connections, so the
OP was probably not referring to these.

He could however be referring to RCA connectors. These will work fine if
it's a low-powered home system. At high power ratings they may actually
fail, not to mention the wires will be too fat to assemble the connector
properly.

Prior to the advent of speakons (not all that long ago) many pro systems
did use 14" jacks for speaker connections. It does work.

[Eeyore]

Airbus wrote:

Prior to the advent of speakons (not all that long ago) many pro systems
did use 14" jacks for speaker connections. It does work.

They used XLRs actually.

Jacks are incapable of carrying the high currents typically associated with pro
speaker systems. The actually get hot from the contact resistance. Potentially
hot enough to give you a burn.

Graham

[Scott Dorsey]

Eeyore wrote:
Airbus wrote:

Prior to the advent of speakons (not all that long ago) many pro systems
did use 14" jacks for speaker connections. It does work.

They used XLRs actually.

That too, although it's more rare. Also Hubbell twist-lock power connectors
and occasionally military A&N connectors.

Jacks are incapable of carrying the high currents typically associated with pro
speaker systems. The actually get hot from the contact resistance. Potentially
hot enough to give you a burn.

Been there, done that. It happens a lot, and people still use them all
the time.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Jack]

In article ,
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Airbus wrote:

Prior to the advent of speakons (not all that long ago) many pro systems
did use 14" jacks for speaker connections. It does work.

They used XLRs actually.

That too, although it's more rare. Also Hubbell twist-lock power connectors
and occasionally military A&N connectors.

Jacks are incapable of carrying the high currents typically associated with
pro
speaker systems. The actually get hot from the contact resistance.
Potentially
hot enough to give you a burn.

Been there, done that. It happens a lot, and people still use them all
the time.
--scott


I dunno, Marshall has been using 1/4 inch jacks in their amps forever
with nary a problem. And some of those amps are 100 watt (8 ohm) to 350
watts.

--
Jack N2MPU
Proud NRA Life Member

[Arny Krueger]

"Jack" wrote in message

In article ,
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Airbus wrote:

Prior to the advent of speakons (not all that long
ago) many pro systems did use 14" jacks for speaker
connections. It does work.

They used XLRs actually.

That too, although it's more rare. Also Hubbell
twist-lock power connectors and occasionally military
A&N connectors.

Jacks are incapable of carrying the high currents
typically associated with pro
speaker systems. The actually get hot from the contact
resistance. Potentially
hot enough to give you a burn.

Been there, done that. It happens a lot, and people
still use them all
the time.

I dunno, Marshall has been using 1/4 inch jacks in their
amps forever with nary a problem. And some of those amps
are 100 watt (8 ohm) to 350 watts.

100 wpc to 350 wpc amps are small by modern live sound standards. Medium is
a few thousand watts. It takes many thousands of watts for an amp to be
considered large, and that's for just a single amp. Modern live sound can
easily involve banks of large amps.

[Mike Rivers]

On Nov 29, 8:37 am, Airbus wrote:

Well, few people use Speakons for unbalanced line-leve connections, so the
OP was probably not referring to these.

But the original poster was talking about speaker cables.

Prior to the advent of speakons (not all that long ago) many pro systems
did use 14" jacks for speaker connections. It does work.

And this is what I believe he's talking about. He did ask "... or are
the SPEAKER levels too high?"

[Laurence Payne]

On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:03:32 -0800 (PST), nebulax
wrote:

The coupler will probably work ok, but don't use guitar cable to
connect your speakers, or else your amp will soon be in the shop!

Probably won't actually. They aren't recommended, but will in
practice work just fine :-) If one did short out, it shouldn't be
disastrous to a modern amplifier.

[D C[_2_]]

Laurence Payne wrote:

The coupler will probably work ok, but don't use guitar cable to
connect your speakers, or else your amp will soon be in the shop!

Probably won't actually. They aren't recommended, but will in
practice work just fine :-) If one did short out, it shouldn't be
disastrous to a modern amplifier.


I will admit to having done it, before I went into sales and warned
people of the perils of doing it.

[Laurence Payne]

On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:54:32 -0500, D C wrote:


The coupler will probably work ok, but don't use guitar cable to
connect your speakers, or else your amp will soon be in the shop!

Probably won't actually. They aren't recommended, but will in
practice work just fine :-) If one did short out, it shouldn't be
disastrous to a modern amplifier.


I will admit to having done it, before I went into sales and warned
people of the perils of doing it.

What disasters have you experienced due to using a signal cable for a
speaker connection?

[Mike Rivers]

On Nov 30, 4:05 am, Laurence Payne NOSPAMlpayne1ATdsl.pipex.com
wrote:

What disasters have you experienced due to using a signal cable for a
speaker connection?

Not real disasters (never saw one burst into flame) but quite possibly
degradation. Small signal cable is typically 18 to 22 gauge wire. The
nicely made non-ripoff rubber or neoprene jacketed cable with 1/4"
plugs on both ends that's sold in a music store as "speaker cable" is
16 gauge and occasionally 14 gauge. If you know where to look, you can
get cable with 12 gauge wire. Switchcraft makes a 1/4" phone plug that
has a fat back shell with a big hole to accommodate heavy gauge wire.

The bigger the wire (the smaller the gauge number) the less voltage
drop for a given length and current. If you were using an 18 gauge
wire a foot long to go between a guitar amplifier head and speaker
cabinet, it would probably work just fine. But if you were to run 100
feet of that same cable to speaker cabinets capable of sucking up 200
watts on peaks, you wouldn't get all of that power down to the speaker
end of the cable. Some would be dissipated as heat in the cable itself
(and you can't hear that).

While the actual load impedance of a loudspeaker varies all over the
place with frequency, if you use the nominal (typically 8 or 4 ohms)
impedance and amplifier power (assuming the speaker won't blow at full
amplifier power) you can use Ohm's Law to calculate the current. Using
a copper wire table (or an ohm meter) to figure out the resistance of
the cable, you can then calculate how many volts will get to the
speaker and how many will be lost to heating up the room with the
cable.

The issue of the 1/4" cable is another thing. I've never noticed one
that's become warm from the current, but I'll take Scott's word for
it. If I found one like that, I'd suspect that several strands of wire
had broken inside the connector shell and it was a very short piece of
high resistance wire that was generating local heat rather than the
jack contacts.

[D C[_2_]]

Laurence Payne wrote:

Probably won't actually. They aren't recommended, but will in
practice work just fine :-) If one did short out, it shouldn't be
disastrous to a modern amplifier.

I will admit to having done it, before I went into sales and warned
people of the perils of doing it.

What disasters have you experienced due to using a signal cable for a
speaker connection?


None.

[Scott Dorsey]

Mike Rivers wrote:
On Nov 30, 4:05 am, Laurence Payne NOSPAMlpayne1ATdsl.pipex.com
wrote:

What disasters have you experienced due to using a signal cable for a
speaker connection?

Not real disasters (never saw one burst into flame) but quite possibly
degradation.

I had someone at a festival come to me and ask to borrow a 1/4 to 1/4
patch cable, so I loaned him a Whirlwind one. He brought it back a couple
hours later, saying it had failed. Turned out he was using it for speaker
signals, and it did indeed fail. What's interesting is that the 24ga
center conductor is open somewhere in the middle.

This is the SAME person who a decade earlier asked me for a piece of
wire, which he used to replace a blown fuse in an amplifier. After doing
this, he came to me complaining that smoke had come out of the amp when
he did this. If he'd asked for a fuse, or told me what he was doing with
the wire, I'd have given him the proper fuse out of my kit. Sheesh.

Maybe I should stop loaning him anything.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Sean Conolly]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...
On Nov 30, 4:05 am, Laurence Payne NOSPAMlpayne1ATdsl.pipex.com
wrote:

What disasters have you experienced due to using a signal cable for a
speaker connection?

Not real disasters (never saw one burst into flame) but quite possibly
degradation.

I do this every now and then for my wee monitors, driving a whopping 100
watts each :-)

A short cord with low wattage is probably fine. A long cord with 'real'
wattage is just a combined low pass filter & fuse.

Sean

[Scott Dorsey]

Airbus wrote:

Some of you people need to get out more.
Speakons are a fairly recent invention (1990's)

This is true, but they sure have caught on fast.

All of the high-powered '60's/70's venues, from Allman bros to Fillmore East,
from Grateful Dead and Cream to Mahavishnu Orchestra used speaker systems
connected either with screw terminals, or more commonly 1/4" jacks. That's a
lot of sound for something "incapable" of the job. . .

Most of those guys used screw terminals or banana plugs, and the higher
powered systems were often built with Hubbel twist-locks. When biamping
started to come in, the twist-locks became that much more popular since
you could get them up to six pin varieties.

But yes, 1/4" phone plugs were very popular for many years, and they failed
a lot and were a big headache.

Still used extensively today

They sure are, and it drives me up the wall. But then, I also remember a
band in the early eighties that was using 1/4" plugs for high-Z guitar
lines, unbalanced microphone lines, AC power, and speaker signals. Needless
to say the expected disasters happened.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Laurence Payne]

On 1 Dec 2007 14:04:11 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

But yes, 1/4" phone plugs were very popular for many years, and they failed
a lot and were a big headache.

Still used extensively today

They sure are, and it drives me up the wall. But then, I also remember a
band in the early eighties that was using 1/4" plugs for high-Z guitar
lines, unbalanced microphone lines, AC power, and speaker signals. Needless
to say the expected disasters happened.


AC power?

[Scott Dorsey]

Laurence Payne NOSPAMlpayne1ATdsl.pipex.com wrote:
On 1 Dec 2007 14:04:11 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

But yes, 1/4" phone plugs were very popular for many years, and they failed
a lot and were a big headache.

Still used extensively today

They sure are, and it drives me up the wall. But then, I also remember a
band in the early eighties that was using 1/4" plugs for high-Z guitar
lines, unbalanced microphone lines, AC power, and speaker signals. Needless
to say the expected disasters happened.

AC power?

120VAC. Sleeve is white, tip is black. It's perfectly safe as long as
you don't touch any connectors ever, or let them touch the ground or a
case or anything else. And you don't ever plug them in.... and....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Airbus]

In article ,
says...




Airbus wrote:

Prior to the advent of speakons (not all that long ago) many pro systems
did use 14" jacks for speaker connections. It does work.

They used XLRs actually.

Jacks are incapable of carrying the high currents typically associated with
pro
speaker systems. The actually get hot from the contact resistance. Potentially
hot enough to give you a burn.



Some of you people need to get out more.
Speakons are a fairly recent invention (1990's)
All of the high-powered '60's/70's venues, from Allman bros to Fillmore East,
from Grateful Dead and Cream to Mahavishnu Orchestra used speaker systems
connected either with screw terminals, or more commonly 1/4" jacks. That's a
lot of sound for something "incapable" of the job. . .

Still used extensively today

[Peter Larsen[_2_]]

Airbus wrote:

Some of you people need to get out more.
Speakons are a fairly recent invention (1990's)
All of the high-powered '60's/70's venues, from Allman bros to
Fillmore East, from Grateful Dead and Cream to Mahavishnu Orchestra
used speaker systems connected either with screw terminals, or more
commonly 1/4" jacks. That's a lot of sound for something "incapable"
of the job. . .

4 pin xlr's are/were handy, also for biamping, 4 X 1 mm square rubber
insulated fits, tightly but it fits.

Still used extensively today

no comment.


Kind regards

Peter Larsen