Using The Right Speaker Cable

Speaker cables present with a number of differences, all capable of causing better or worse sound from your speakers. The cables you will use for a home theater system will be a different variety than those used for standard home stereo. Also, there will be a difference in cables for floor speakers compared to bookshelf speakers.

Longer cables will most likely be needed for the home theater system than what you use for regular music setups. The longer a cable runs the more likely it will have a loss of sound quality due to the impedence from the long length. For this application look at the longer cables with lower resistance and RFI (Radio Requency Interference) cancelling to have the best sound possible.

You have a few different consideration for finding the correct speaker cables for whatever system you are setting up. Speaker impedance is an important statistic to know, this is measured in ohms, and most speakers will have a 2, 4, 8 or 16 ohm rating. Find out this information before proceeding with cable purchases, it'll probably be printed on the speaker, if not, look at whatever paperwork came with the speakers.

Once you know the impedance measure on the speaker, then you need to find the right connector for your speakers, and you can discover this by looking at the ports on your speakers. There are several varieties, one could be single prong connector, they usually have quarter inch or eighth inch sizes; and then it could be three way connector, typically colored red, white and yellow. An additional connector could be a banana plug cable connector which has single or dual connectors. This variety of connectors and cables are capable of connecting amplifiers, computers and of course, speakers.

Once it has been determined what kind of connector is needed and what the speaker impedance is, the length of the cable needed can be determined. This can pretty much be an eyeball estimate of how much cable will be needed to connect the cables to the speaker, but these other factors will have an impact as well. For instance, it could be that a 3 foot speaker cable would be sufficient to run from the unit to the speaker, but because of the connector needed and the speaker impedance, the smallest speaker cable available might be a six foot cable.