Do you need special wires for speakers?

In a nutshell: Most speakers don’t come with speaker wire. It’s up to you to select the right gauge (thickness) and type of wire for your system. You can buy speaker wire with connectors or without.

Are speaker cables the same?

Speaker wires should be the same length: It seems to make sense that speaker wires should be identical to eliminate phase shifts. It would take miles of speaker wire to hear any difference. So having wires a foot or two (or 10) different is irrelevant.

Does speaker wire ever go bad?

The cable themselves will not go bad. Yes copper will oxidize and this can cause more resistance at the connection point. Clean the connection points off so you have nice clean fresh looking copper, or just strip back new exposed conductor and you will be just fine.

Does cable length affect sound quality?

So we have good news, and we have bad news: audio quality is affected by the wire length, but some cables are better at protecting the sound and minimizing interference. Common workarounds are getting thicker cables, or getting cables with high-quality copper wire.

Are high end speaker cables worth it?

An expensive cable might sound worse on your system than cheap cable. Or it might sound better. The important thing to remember is that even if it does sound better, it’s such a minuscule improvement that pretty much anything else you can do will have a greater effect on the sound.

Where is the pre amp cable on a Compaq desktop?

The pre-amp cable is thicker and also comes from the bottom of the right desktop speaker. Connect the pre-amp cable into the round pre-amp connector on the subwoofer. Plug the subwoofer power cord into a power outlet and turn on the subwoofer. Turn on the computer and test for sound.

Which is better for speaker wire copper or aluminum?

Copper has low resistance compared to most other suitable materials. CCA is cheaper and lighter, at the expense of somewhat higher resistance (about the same as copper two AWG numbers up). Copper and aluminum both oxidize, but oxides of copper are conductive, while those of aluminum are insulating.

Can a poor speaker cable make your system sound worse?

What’s more, a poor speaker cable can definitely make your system sound a lot worse than it really is, so it’s absolutely worth budgeting for decent cabling when buying or upgrading your system. Fail to do so and you’ll end up with cheap, poorly made cables that will waste the talents of the expensive kit you’ve just forked out on.

What kind of cable do I need to connect my speakers to my computer?

Y adapter cables have one 3.5 mm (1/8 inch) stereo mini plug on one end and two RCA style connections on the other. If your computer came with on-board audio and you want to use 5.1 speakers, the sound connections on the back of the computer change to speaker out connections.