Shielded Versus Speaker Cables
I’m almost embarrassed to put this one in, but after what I saw last week I guess I have to. Line level runs are to be done with shielded cable. Speaker (amplified) runs are to be done with heavy gauge speaker cable. One of the largest and most ubiquitous names in electronics did a demo at Sweetwater recently in which they used speaker cables to run between a mixer and four powered monitors. It actually sounded fine, and there were no problems, but I was surprised to see this basic an error from a company with so much esteem in electronics. The side effects of using speaker cable where there should be shielded cable are rarely more than extra noise. The side effects of using a shielded cable where there should be a speaker cable, however, can be much worse. Best case is that a shielded cable screws up the impedance relationship between the amp and speaker, causing unnecessary strain on the amplifier and poor performance. In the worst case, it can actually cause a failure in the amp. So when you are connecting between the output of an amplifier and a speaker always use speaker cable (not a guitar cord, as I have seen all too often in my years). All other analog audio connections should be made with the appropriate shielded cables.
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