Speaker selector that won't degrade sound

Guys, thanks for the answers to the outdoor speaker question.  Seems that from the above answers to the speaker/amp switch box question, it looks like I will have to just set up a streamer and a dac outdoors with powered full time outdoor speakers. 

So far the Pro-ject Stream Box S2 Ultra and Pre-Box S2 Digital are great.  Just need to find decent powered outdoor speakers.  Any recommendations?

Although I did see advertised somewhere a month or so ago a very expensive outdoor speaker that was a streamer-dac-amp-volume control-speaker combined.  But at $4k a speaker, no thanks.  Perhaps a grand in total, but I have not yet found one at that price point.

None.

Out doors I have always ran SOOW. You’ll never hear the difference until you roll over the cable a couple of times with 300lb subs on casters. It will tear up a standard anything other than 600vac SOOW in armor. Some of my 50 footers double (4/12) bass cable are 35-40 years old. You can just about hit them with a lawn mower and it will not only keep working, it will still sound good too. 99.999 pure copper, fine stand, very flexible. Heavy copper works on everything.

I roll out heavy speakers in the summer and I have a few outdoor speakers.. To roll out plug in and listen to music under 5 minutes. They are stupid proof speakers too.

@imhififan that's the direction I will probably go but I'm going to try this speaker switch I have to see if I notice a big difference in sound.

If so then I think I'll try to build my own so that I can have control over the internal wiring, soldering etc.  You can get blank boxes that you can mount it all into.

What's is depressing is that I have all this expensive speaker cable and then I'm going thru THAT!  Kind of a waste I think.

Why not build one using high quality switches with silver contacts like the NKK S822 and high quality binding posts from WBT, Cardas or Furutech...

No. There is no such thing. I tried a high grade over built hard wired switch box… still notably degraded the sound. Pretty much why high end preamps don’t have tone controls and all sorts of functions. Touch the signal as little as possible for the best sound. The “straight wire” principal. I have been pursuing high end audio for fifty years… basic principle. No frills, short as possible gives the best sound, no exceptions.

one of the thing you have to watch out for is that, sometimes one thing will not be obviously detrimental to the sound… but they are additive. So, things you shouldn’t do… maybe pile up wires together, add a switch box, and use a regular outlet. Perhaps you can’t hear one… but the combination has a big toll. So it is important to care and tweak each aspect… ever if you can’t hear it immediately. It takes years to develop listening skills to identify really small differences. But in aggregate they make all the difference in the overall sound.

The AVR is for home theater use only.  I use my 2 channel setup speakers as the HT fronts also.

My 2 channel setup is the Freya+ and a Cherry amp.

The sound quality solution is to ditch the AVR and use stereo. There is no such thing as an AVR that does not wreck sound quality. Even with bypass. Just don't.

@tump350 I gave up on the old school way of having outdoor speakers being part of my main setup.  Nowadays for outdoor music I'm using my phone to select and control music, so I went with outdoor Bluetooth speakers.

Much easier.

imhififan

1,679 posts

01-03-2022 3:11pm

Theoretically, all switches will degrade sound quality, only you can determine if you can hear the difference in your system.

My suggestion is try one and find out

Specialty AV SP71

@imhififan that's actually the switch I have, I'll give it a shot.  What's is depressing is that I have all this expensive speaker cable and then I'm going thru THAT!  Kind of a waste I think.

Theoretically, all switches will degrade sound quality, only you can determine if you can hear the difference in your system.

My suggestion is try one and find out

Specialty AV SP71

Most transformer coupled tube amp need a load connected to its output when it is on, so some sort of protection is needed to prevent accident.

I am also interested in hearing from the pro's on this subject.  I'd like to run outdoor patio speakers off of my main system in the living room.  To do so, I would have to run about 25-30 feet of speaker cable through the wall to my amp.  I have heard of and seen pictures of an Adcom speaker selector, but don't want to mess-up the signal on my main system.  Don't know if the Adcom would do so.

The alternative for me would be to move the office streamer and Dac/pre to the patio and use powered speakers with 10 feet of rca cables and 10 feet of a single speaker cable.  I have an Ethernet connection on the patio but, would have to move the system inside whenever it rains.  Not my first choice.