Adding an extra 1ft to premium speaker cables


I was given a pair of premium quality speaker cables but they’re about 1ft short on each side and there’s no way to change it. If I added an extra 1ft of cheaper cable would it defeat the purpose?

rankaudio

Showing 3 responses by pcolvin

Years ago, like before the late 70’s, almost everyone used zip cord. Stereo stores, speaker manufacturers, consumers, pro audio installers. It was that or Belden 5000 series. Monster came out in the late 70’s with their large gauge multi-core speaker wire and convinced people that you had to have a cable that had a small gauge conductor set in the center and a larger gauge conductor set wrapped around it, to steer the frequencies through the proper wires so the sound was better. By the early 80s OFC speaker cable became the rage (it too came on rolls). And many years later came the super cables, but usually for the audiophile because they were way too expensive to be used by the consumer or pro who stuck with the same old wires. 

And still today it’s still the same at the non-audiophile level, although a lot of pro situations are now using 10g. For the most part the speaker manufacturers (JBL, Wharfdale, Infinity, Klipsch, Altec-Landing, etc. etc.) are still using the same 12-14ga something in their speakers that they always have used.  

So, will a 1ft piece of non-audiophile speaker wire hurt your listening experience?  Unless you’re using bell wire, or something with a gauge smaller than the rest of the wire, probably not: there won’t be enough resistance or capcitance add to make a difference. 



 

@audphile1 Please define “faithful”.

Odds are overwhelming that 1 ft of added cable of equal or greater gauge will not add any appreciable resistance or capacitance to any cable to change the resulting sound.  The only thing the OP has not defined is how long the original cable is.  If the OP is talking about being 1ft short on a 3 ft premium cable (amps right next to the speaker) then there is a high chance that something will change.  If the OP is using long cables then a 1ft add, again, would have negligible impact. 

Ultimately, as I said earlier, the blocker is really what’s being used by the speaker manufacturer.  Many times it’s no better than 24 gauge bell wire. 

@audphile1

”how can they be faithful if they are plugged into a speaker terminal…”

Hence the question.