Extending cables on speakers

Mirarxos Johnnakos · Aug 20, 2015

I have the Logitech X-530 speakers, they are 5.1 and I want to extend the cable of the rear speakers to put them behind me. I know the limitations of RCA cable and the signal loss and because of the distance i want they are out of the question.
If I buy RCA to XLR adapter, XLR cable and XLR to RCA adapter for each speaker (so that I will not extend with anymore RCA cable) , will the signal loss be still too much, or compared to RCA it will be nominal.
And if it is ok , will cable lengths about 7.5 and 10 be too much?
Thanks in advance

Alabalcho · Aug 20, 2015

10 meters over good speaker wire (AWG 18, AWG 20) will not decrease the sound quality. We're talking about miniscule speakers anyway, not 100W 12" cones.

Just make sure that you will keep polarity unchanged.

americanaudiophile · Aug 20, 2015

I think you are confusing RCA terminated audio cable with RCA terminated speaker cable.
The rear speakers are not self amplified so they are powered through the sub. You can just just cut the cable wherever you want and splice speaker wire or use any length speaker wire terminated with RCA plugs. No signal loss to worry about (unless you use really thin wire) 16 ga should be fine since there is no bass coming from the rears anyway
And just in case it ever comes up your idea about XLR cables for line level extension would require an active or transformer balanced line driver/adapters and XLR cables for long runs. The connector adapters wouldn't help since it is the combo of the driver and cables that allow for very long runs.

Mirarxos Johnnakos · Aug 20, 2015

americanaudiophile :

I didn't know that difference on the cables, because when I looked on the net they greatly discouraged to use them, so I didn't really look into them.
First, if I get this right the RCA terminated audio cable is like this http

/www.cop-usa.com/images/product/image/WRCAGOLD.jp... having plugs at both ends.
And second to extend the RCA terminated speaker cable I have to buy speaker wire, cut the cable and attach it.
Is the speaker wire the same as an RCA cable without the plugs?
If it is, do the RCA plugs mess up the setup because the wire comes straight from the speaker and connects to the sub directly with a single RCA plug?
I know that you said not to worry about signal loss, but i didn't specify above the total length of the extension and the speaker cable that will be just under 12 and 14.5 meters
As for the XLR I stumbled upon them today and didn't know they would be so complicated.
Thank you for your answer

Alabalcho · Aug 20, 2015

Logitech have decoded to use RCA connector for the satellite speakers just because they are easier to handle by "dumb" end-users - as long as you get the colors right, you will get it right. If you look at the back of your home AV receiver, you will see that speakers are connected by either clip-on or twist-on connectors.

Here is how this speaker wire looks like. You are looking for 18 or 20AWG wire.

The recommendation to splice and use speaker wire is because it has much larger diameter (meaning losses along the cable are low). You can cur original cable somewhere, and splice the speaker wire to the center and shield of the RCA cable (and keep same polarity on both ends - speaker wire usually have one of the cores labeled with stripe). If you are little bit more into experiments (and can work with soldering iron), you can try to open the speakers and attach the speaker wire directly to the speaker driver itself, and attaching off-the-shelf RCA connector on the other end.

Mirarxos Johnnakos · Aug 21, 2015

Alabalcho :

That's why I was asking, I googled about speaker wire and their sizes and found those coils, and didn't know if they had any difference from the RCAs.
Does it matter if the speaker is connected with 2 different wire AWG sizes? (except for the obvious signal loss from the thinner), because I'm skeptical about soldering due to the fact that the speakers do not have any screws, so they must be hold together by clips and I'm afraid of damaging the case clips.
As for the RCA connector, I have seen golden plated ones, would you recommend them?

Thank you for your answer

Mirarxos Johnnakos · Aug 27, 2015

Alabalcho :

I bought 16 AWG speaker wire and extended the right speaker, then I compared it with the left one. I had to reduce the volume of the left to about 50% so that they would sound the same. I searched about it and came across this https

/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_wire#Wire_gauge

Now because the speaker is 4 ohms, and the original speaker wire is 4.5 m (14.7 ft) long I assume it is 18 AWG, due to the limitation of 4.9 m. The cable I bought is 10 m (33 ft) and the limitation is 7.3 m. In total I have 14.5 m of mixed wires.
Should I remove the original speaker wire and replace it with the 16 AWG or it wont make so much difference?

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Extending cables on speakers

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