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[Beefcake]

I'm thinking of purchasing some speaker cable. what is the standard gage and length for live sound?

[Greg Cameron]

Read up:

http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/studyjump.php?pdf=df

Cheers,
Greg

[Beefcake]

Where do you find the cable's ohm?

refuring to this chart, do you need 18 gage for a .32 ohm cable?

[Andy Peters]

Beefcake wrote on Thu, 22 April 2004 16:34

Where do you find the cable's ohm?

The cable's resistance is a function of its wire gauge and its length.  The chart you added to your post shows two cable lengths and five wire gauges.  Simple math tells you the resistance of a given cable.

Say you have a 16AWG cable that's 50' long.  The chart tells you that 10' of 16AWG has a resistance of 0.08 ohms, so 50' is five times the length and five times the resistance, or 0.40 ohms.

Quote:

refuring to this chart, do you need 18 gage for a .32 ohm cable?

The whole point is that you want to minimize cable resistance.  Consider:
A 10' section of 18AWG cable has the same resistance as a 25' run of 14 AWG cable (0.13 ohms).   Put one way, to go longer, you need a heavier-gauge cable.  Put another way, if your runs are short, you can get away with lighter-gauge cable.

There are practical considerations: 10AWG cable is pretty frickin' heavy, difficult to coil, is expensive and takes up a lot of trunk space.  You may find that 14AWG cable is more than adequate for your use.  If you find yourself doing 100' speaker cable runs, you should consider moving your amps closer to the speaker cabinets.

--a

[Jason Vanick]

My "standard" speaker cables are 50 foot long 12 gauge.

I've found that 50 foot is the perfect length for most of our gigs where either we're providing sound ourselves from stage (amps are in the back), or I'm providing sound to others, amps are off to one side.

I also have an assortment of shorter runs for monitor to monitor connections as well as amp to speaker when the amps are at one side.

Current speaker inventory:
4 Subs
4 Monitors
2 Mains

Current cable inventory: (All 12 gauge, speakon to speakon)

6 50 foot
6 25 foot
2 12 foot
4 5  foot

I got a good deal on a 500' spool of cable, so I just made them all up.

-J

[W. Mark Hellinger]

What are you using it for?

Here's some things to consider:

In my experience: Speakon NLT4 connectors are physically able to accomodate up-to 10 gauge wire, although you'll need to use an SJ type cable to keep the OD down small enough to physically fit into the end of the barrel.

In my experience:  Speakon NL4 connectors are physically about to accomodate up-to 11 gauge wire.  The NL4FX requires SJ wire on heavier gauges.  NL4FC will accomodate SO wire up-to 12-4.

In my experience:  I don't advise lashing up 1/4" phone plugs on anything much heavier than 13 ga., and even at that, I recommend G&H Megafoot ends of similar heavy duty end.  Standard Switchcraft No. 280 Phone Plugs won't accomodate cable much heavier than 16 ga.  The heavier cables and 1/4" plugs typically put too much strain on the panel jacks and can cause problems there if you don't strain relief the connection.

In my experience:  Typically, Banana plugs accomodate up-to 13 ga. fairly well.  There are Banana plugs that will accomodate considerably heavier gauges, but typically they're not common.

In my experience:  Amplifier 5 way binding posts are typically built to accomodate up-to 12 or 13 ga. wire through the hole.

There's an opinion by some that large gauge cables might knock the high frequency possibly.  Other folks believe thinner gauge cables effect the low frequencies.  Personally, I have conducted listening tests and I believe there is a very slight difference; however, for most SR applications, it's far from significant, on either the high frequencies, or the low frequencies.

All-in all, I'm of the opinion that it doesn't make a lot of sense to equip with significantly heavier gauge cables than what it takes to do the job.  It makes no sense to me to run 10 ga. cables 10ft. to a 100 watt compression driver, when 14 ga. will do the job just fine.  The physical complications and cost considerations of running "over-kill" cables outweigh what little possible preformance might be gained.  However, when it comes to preforming musicians, there is the "binky factor" where-in if something gives a musician more confidence, then they will play better even if it's a placebo.  People really do hear with their eyes... and something that looks like it sounds good, generally does sound good.