Speaker Cables: What & Where?

jArgHA

I have purchased an AV receiver and a 5.1 speaker package. As far as I know (hasn't arrived yet) there are no cables included with the speakers. I'm a total audio newbie and was wondering if someone could give me some advice on what speaker cables / plugs I will need. The AV receiver is an Onkyo 606, and the speaker package is the Jamo A102 HC5.

Also, if anyone can recommend where to source the cable online would be much appreciated. Is the same type of speaker cable used for each speaker / subwoofer?

jAH

Boarder2009

<SNIPPED>

The Ritz

jArgHA,

For speaker cable, try Maplins for 79 strand speaker cable, the code is N17AP 79/0.2mm copper, check online here: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=115110

It comes on a 20m drum, you can figure out yourself if thats enough for you to wire up your 5 speakers, depending on how big your room is and where you intend to locate the speakers. You'll need 5 separate runs of speaker cable from the Onkyo to each speaker.

You'll also need a separate subwoofer cable from the Onkyo to the sub. This cable needn't bethe most expensive thing going - it's a single cable with an RCA (phono) connector at each end. When you know how long you need that cable to be, you can look for a suitable one - just please don't spend a fortune on some pre-packaged cable with an outlandish price. There's a thread on these forums about sub cables already with advice, please have a look and come back if you need further advice.



Hope it goes well.




@Boarder2009,

Welcome to the HE forums. As this is your first post here, I think it fair to let you know that posts intended solely to promote a company's products or services, particularly if it is posted by the owner or an employee etc of a company, are not tolerated.

Your post looks suspiciously like an advertisement to me and I have deleted the text - given that the OP is in Cork, the suggestion is of limited value in any case. If you wish to make it clear that you are not promoting the company in the way I've described, feel free to say so.

Ritz.

Slaphead07

While I put a lot of importanace on interconnects you don't need to spend loads on speaker cable. It doesn't have a huge job to do.
79 strand is usually good enough but you might even try mains cable (twin and earth) as the solid core copper in it can be a really good carrier of bass and detail in some systems. Braided Cat5 works well too if you're handy with solder and have time.
There are 'flatline' cables too that are ideal for hiding under carpets and such and are generally good very quality.

jArgHA

@The Ritz & @Slaphead07

Many thanks for the very useful information. I think I have some mains cable knocking around that I may try for speaker cable based on Slaphead's suggestion.

Are any plugs required or can the exposed cables ends simply be inserted into Onkyo & Speakers as they are?

jAH

eddiem74

I used Banana Plugs into the back of my Onkyo (note: you need to remove a little plastic insert first, before plug will fit), and bare wire into the speakers. The Onkyo can take bare wire also.



If you forsee a lot of moving of the Amp or a need to plug in/out the speaker wires a lot, the plugs can save you some hassle.

I would also recommend using the labels you get with the Onkyo to label each wire connection at the back of the Amp. Nothing more frustrating than pulling all the connections out, and then realizing, you don't know which one goes back in where.

On the speaker wire, I used Maplins, if you ask at the counter they often have 50m reels, which works out cheaper than buying multiple 10m reels.

Also, on the sub cable, you could try SoundSolutions. Not bad on their pricing, and shipping as compared to Peats for example. Although I am sure you can still find cheaper.

Slaphead07

eddiem74 wrote: »

(note: you need to remove a little plastic insert first, before plug will fit), and bare wire into the speakers. The Onkyo can take bare wire also.

Good one! You just saved the man cold sweats and panic posting!
I second the banana plug approach. Much easier in the long run (no pun intended).

The Ritz

Good point about the banana plugs and labels guys, I have these as well and, yes, in the past I have disconnected everything from the back of the receiver and spent some time tracing speaker cables back to their speakers................... you can imagine the cursing that went along with that ! I labelled them pretty promptly after that.....


I bought these on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200265918449, and they're fine. They don't appear to have any in stock at the moment but you could message them and see. This may sound obvious, you need two for every speaker at the amp end, and you only need another two for each at the speaker end if the speakers themselves have banana connectors - I can't find info on the speakers online at the moment. So if it's all banan connectors, you need 20 plus in all.


Ritz.

jArgHA

Thanks a million for all the advice. I can't imagine I will be disconnecting the cables often between amp & speakers so I may forgo the banana plugs but I'll see what the cost would be first, I guess they may be worth it for the sake of tidiness..

eddiem74

I bought my banana plugs from ebay too. :pac:

jArgHA

thanks eddie

One final question - my player will be a PS3, would any of you recommend using digital optical out from the PS3 to the Onkyo rather than getting audio from HDMI? My video out device will be a 1080p projector, and I have heard that there may be issues if I relay the video signal through the Onkyo.

Therefore I am considering hooking the PS3 HDMI directly to the projector and using the digital optical out for audio between PS3 and Onkyo. The drawback with this approach will be having to swap the video input to the projector based on the source, whereas if the source was the Onkyo there would be no swapping necessary...

Regardless of what approach I take, is there any difference in audio quality (DTS, TrueHD etc.) if provided to Onkyo by digital optical cable vs. HDMI cable?

viperirl

jArgHA wrote: »

thanks eddie

One final question - my player will be a PS3, would any of you recommend using digital optical out from the PS3 to the Onkyo rather than getting audio from HDMI? My video out device will be a 1080p projector, and I have heard that there may be issues if I relay the video signal through the Onkyo.

Therefore I am considering hooking the PS3 HDMI directly to the projector and using the digital optical out for audio between PS3 and Onkyo. The drawback with this approach will be having to swap the video input to the projector based on the source, whereas if the source was the Onkyo there would be no swapping necessary...

Regardless of what approach I take, is there any difference in audio quality (DTS, TrueHD etc.) if provided to Onkyo by digital optical cable vs. HDMI cable?

If you want to listen to the new HD audio formats(on Blu-Ray discs) like TrueHD, DTS HD Master, LPCM etc, you have to use the HDMI connection. The optical connection doesnt have the bandwidth for 5.1 or 7.1 HD audio channels. (unless you downmix to 2 channels)
For normal Dolby Digital and DTS, either optical or HDMI connection will be fine. For these sound formats just mentioned, it's hard to say which connection offers the better quality as it depends on the implementation of the electronics in both of these signal paths. Try both and let your ears be the judge!

Slaphead07

jArgHA wrote: »

thanks eddie

One final question - my player will be a PS3, would any of you recommend using digital optical out from the PS3 to the Onkyo rather than getting audio from HDMI? My video out device will be a 1080p projector, and I have heard that there may be issues if I relay the video signal through the Onkyo.

I use HDMI through the Onkyo and on to a 1080p Projector with no problems.

Idleater

viperirl wrote: »

If you want to listen to the new HD audio formats(on Blu-Ray discs) like TrueHD, DTS HD Master, LPCM etc, you have to use the HDMI connection.

While true that optical does not have the bandwidth for the HDAudio content, it is not correct to say that you _have_ to have HDMI to get HDAudio.

There are many BD players that offer 7.1 analog output from internal decoding.

inforfun

I did buy all the cables i needed in 1 go from these guys
Ordered on Monday evening, arrived on friday.
I looked into a lot of different shops, on line as well as brick and mortar here but this was the only one i could find that had all the cables i needed.

eddiem74

jArgHA wrote: »

The drawback with this approach will be having to swap the video input to the projector based on the source, whereas if the source was the Onkyo there would be no swapping necessary...

Don't have a PS3 so can't comment, I would say go with the HDMI first, and see for yourself. Sometimes issues are experienced by some and not others due to incorrect set-up, dodgy cable, etc.

With the comment above, there need not be a drawback if you did set it up that way, you could just run a HDMI cable from the Amp, and a 2nd from the PS3 to the projectors 2 HDMI inputs, and then pick yourself up a Harmony remote which will auto-change the inputs on the projector as part of changing your viewing from PS3 to SkyHD / DVD / whatever.

viperirl

nereid wrote: »

While true that optical does not have the bandwidth for the HDAudio content, it is not correct to say that you _have_ to have HDMI to get HDAudio.

There are many BD players that offer 7.1 analog output from internal decoding.

Fair enough. I forgot about the internal decoding ability of some of the BD players. But by using this method you'll have to use the player to configure your speaker size, distance and perform any Room EQ if its required. I'm not aware of any player that has an extensive setup like this. I know my old Sony BD player had some sort of setup features like this but it was nowhere near as good as using a reciever/processor to do the same job. Maybe the new high end Denon BD player is capable of doing this???

Idleater

viperirl wrote: »

But by using this method you'll have to use the player to configure your speaker size...

Not at all.

All you are doing is having the BD player decode the Audio track internally and send the 7 streams to your AVP to do what it wants to.

There is no difference between this and LPCM over HDMI, apart from that the AVP has to split the channels out of the HDMI stream. After it has done this it will apply whatever optimisations you have selected/configured as with any other source.

Aaaaanyway, this goes way beyond the topic posted by the OP.

I'm in favour of solid core speaker cable which I run for my main speakers. Plain old 79 strand goes to the surrounds though.

viperirl

nereid wrote: »

Not at all.

All you are doing is having the BD player decode the Audio track internally and send the 7 streams to your AVP to do what it wants to.

There is no difference between this and LPCM over HDMI, apart from that the AVP has to split the channels out of the HDMI stream. After it has done this it will apply whatever optimisations you have selected/configured as with any other source.

Aaaaanyway, this goes way beyond the topic posted by the OP.

I'm in favour of solid core speaker cable which I run for my main speakers. Plain old 79 strand goes to the surrounds though.

sorry to be posting off topic but I'd respectfully disagree with Nereid on the above. Yes, connection wise you can do what u said but this is hardly ideal. By doing this u are getting the player to do the digital to analog conversion, send them over 7 interconnects and then getting to the AVP to convert back to digital, process them and then perform the digital to analog conversion again. There is no question that there will a loss in quality in a signal path like this. And we are talking about HD audio here. We want to preserve the HD sound. Two ADC/DAC's in the path is not good. I know this for a fact from working in ADC/DAC and HDMI chip design for years.

But back to the main topic, I'd agree with the speaker cable recommendations made for the OP's system. :-)

jArgHA

Thanks to everyone for all the advice, I never expected to get such a response in this thread!

For further reference, I have been looking at this excellent thread which deals specifically with everything you need to keep in mind / helping to configure a connection between PS3 & Onkyo Amp:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/onkyo-owners-forum/696423-faq-setting-up-ps3-onkyo-amp.html

Thanks again,
jAH

Idleater

viperirl wrote: »

By doing this u are getting the player to do the digital to analog conversion, send them over 7 interconnects and then getting to the AVP to convert back to digital, process them and then perform the digital to analog conversion again.

We should probably start a new thread for this discussion, but I also respectfully disagree with your DAC/ADC conversions because the better place to do DAC is in a non noisy dedicated place (eg BD or SACD player) and then pass the analog stream to a dedicated multi in, which can then be passed through dedicated analog bypass circuits direct to the amplifiers _without_ applying processing to them, because the stream has been decoded as it was encoded. This is the primary way in which SACD is "supposed" to work.

What you are suggesting is correct though, that to apply post processing to a stream in this way does involve extra DA conversions, the question in my mind is if this is required and even necessary.

Maybe we should start a new thread on HDMI 1.1 vs HDMI 1.3 (Player decoding vs Processor decoding) which is essentially what we are heading towards but there are loads of them on other forums which provide some very interesting debates ...

jArgHA

inforfun wrote: »

I did buy all the cables i needed in 1 go from these guys
Ordered on Monday evening, arrived on friday.
I looked into a lot of different shops, on line as well as brick and mortar here but this was the only one i could find that had all the cables i needed.

I ended up ordering from the retailer recommended by inforfun above (Nexxia).

@inforfun - di you have any issues with these guys? I placed the order 11 days ago and have still seen nothing in the post. I contacted them one week ago and they confirmed that they had dispatched. Surely it shouldn't take this long to reach Ireland from UK...

Contacted them again yesterday by email and have not received any response as of yet.

Idleater

jArgHA wrote: »

Surely it shouldn't take this long to reach Ireland from UK...

I hate to piggyback on your poor luck, but I too ordered some cabling that would be in a small parcel type size that has not arrived despite being posted about 2 weeks ago.

I can only hope that there is a delay somewhere from the uk on such parcels.

I got an a4 hardback envelope from the UK today, so some things are getting through. Can't tell when that was posted though it was the January circular.

slavetothegrind

jArgHA wrote: »

I ended up ordering from the retailer recommended by inforfun above (Nexxia).

@inforfun - di you have any issues with these guys? I placed the order 11 days ago and have still seen nothing in the post. I contacted them one week ago and they confirmed that they had dispatched. Surely it shouldn't take this long to reach Ireland from UK...

Contacted them again yesterday by email and have not received any response as of yet.

I ordered from Nexxia on sunday night ( before reading the rest of the thread:() and i recieved the goods at 9.30 yesterday morning.:)
They sent them by ups and emailed me a tracking number.
Thanks to inforfun! Did you guys get tracking numbers?

By the by i bought a 15m component cable, good quality, a 0.75m component cable and four sets banana plugs landed for 74 euro.
Maplins wanted 59 euro for a 10m cable!

jArgHA

Just to update on this - after more than 3 weeks of no arrival on the cables I asked Nexxia if they could refund or send out the items again. They agreed to resend the items again, and they arrived 2 days after dispatch.

Alls well that ends well I guess I just got unlucky with the postal service, the first dispatch may have been swiped somewhere along the way.

SK1979

Are there any other online sites that members would recommend? I'm glad that your order arrived from Nexaca and have been following this thread. The difference in cost between the bricks and mortar shops in Dublin (that I've seen anyway, unless anyone can recommend a cheaper one) and some of the sites is disgraceful. However, its hard to get delivery, so does anyone have any other sites (or shops?) they would recommend?

Thanks.

Idleater

My cables arrived eventually a few weeks ago from www.markgrantcables.co.uk. No fault of the site, purely poor postal service.
Superb quality at excellent price. Avforums recommended too.