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I have an original set of Klipsch v2-400 4.1 speakers. I just moved and took the speakers with me, but the cables for two of the speakers are gone. The speaker cables Klipsch sold with the set is standard black/red speaker wire with a mono miniplug connector at one end to go into the back of the speaker. I'd like to replace the lost speaker wire by making my own wire, but I'd like to make it much longer than before. The wire Klipsch gave is maybe 10 feet long. How much longer can I make the wire without degrading the audio signal too much?

Well, that depends. Usually within limits, and for normal purposes, that is, non audiophilic stuff which people can argue until they turn blue... speaker wire is limited to the current they can carry. So longer lenghs need to be thicker gauge. Thats about it. In my living room my back surrounds has about 40' of cable. My Videologic 4.1 system, of the same age your system is, came with about 25' or 30' cables for the back speakers. Just normal plain thin braided core speaker cable. Up to 20' for small computer sattelites, its a non issue really.

Speakers are low-impedance devices, which means the main thing you are concerned about is resistance; capacitive effects and induced interference should be a non-issue. The longer the wire, the heavier gauge it needs to be; otherwise the increase in resistance may cause your bass to get muddy due to what is called "damping factor" (the amplifier's ability to control resonances and stray motions of the speaker cones).

If you want to keep the overall wiring resistance the same as your original cables, you will need to go down 3 wire gauge sizes (lower numbers correspond to thicker wire) for each doubling of distance. It is quite possible that this is gross overkill; you might even be fine using the same gauge wire as the original cables. But without knowing the gauge of the original wire or how much longer you plan to make it, it is impossible to say with any certainty.

Okay, that wasn't scientific of me at all. The supplied speaker wires were approximately 10' long and look like 20-gague. 20 is a guess, but it's around that thickness. It would be nice to triple or quadruple that length.

just brew it! wrote:

The longer the wire, the heavier gauge it needs to be; otherwise the increase in resistance may cause your bass to get muddy due to what is called "damping factor" (the amplifier's ability to control resonances and stray motions of the speaker cones).

There's not really anything resembling bass heading out to those satellites.

Oops, my bad. Didn't realize we were talking about little satellite speakers.

FireGryphon wrote:

I have an original set of Klipsch v2-400 4.1 speakers. I just moved and took the speakers with me, but the cables for two of the speakers are gone. The speaker cables Klipsch sold with the set is standard black/red speaker wire with a mono miniplug connector at one end to go into the back of the speaker. I'd like to replace the lost speaker wire by making my own wire, but I'd like to make it much longer than before. The wire Klipsch gave is maybe 10 feet long. How much longer can I make the wire without degrading the audio signal too much?

I don't know what the limits are, but my rear satellites (same speakers) have around 40' of 18ga wire between them and the amp. The fronts have around 25'. They still sound just as good as they did when I bought them. In reality, the acoustic of your average computer room are such that any coloring of the audio signal is likely not going to be noticeable.

To the OP: I've got the same situation with a couple of klipsch computer speakers I'm trying to use as rear speakers for my surround system(hooked to home theater). If you figure out how to make normal speaker cable into those single plugs please post it. I looked briefly but gave up. I've got 100 feet of cable sitting idle until I can get a couple of speakers or figure this out.

Thebolt wrote:

To the OP: I've got the same situation with a couple of klipsch computer speakers I'm trying to use as rear speakers for my surround system(hooked to home theater). If you figure out how to make normal speaker cable into those single plugs please post it. I looked briefly but gave up. I've got 100 feet of cable sitting idle until I can get a couple of speakers or figure this out.

Run down to your local Radio Shack and pick up these, then solder them to the end of your wire. Make sure you polarity matches between the two speakers.

--SS