Doing a little upgrading...

[roguerower]

Not a huge upgrade but I just wanted to check to be sure before I ordered anything that it would work.

I'm moving back to school and into my new dorm in the next two weeks and am looking at getting some new wire and banana clips from monoprice.com for the HT-S760 in my sig. I was looking at these Banana Clips x 6 for the speakers and this wire to replace the stuff that came with the speakers.

I bought the system used, however I have it running right now in a 5.1 setup that doesn't do it justice (very confined bedroom) and so far it's worked great. To anyone's knowledge, will all these components go together?

Does anyone know a good walkthrough for correctly positioning all the speakers to achieve the best sound?

 

[BassBomb]

Man we should make a sticky for topics like this... Oh wait...

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2099593&enterthread=y

 

[Shawn]

What's the point of banana plugs? Do people really disconnect their speakers so often that they would be useful?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

The receiver / amp end was always 10 times more annoying for me to connect than the speaker end. When I was moving twice a year it was very helpful to have them, but it's not really necessary if you're just going to set it up once.

Just FYI, you'd have to order 12 pairs to do your 6 speaker wires on both ends rather than just one.

You receiver and all your speakers use binding posts rather than spring clips, right?

 

[roguerower]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Man we should make a sticky for topics like this... Oh wait...

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2099593&enterthread=y

Great...thanks for being an asshole. I KNOW that there is a sticky, I used it when I was first buying this system, but I wanted to know whether or not people with MORE knowledge than me in this area would deem it to be a worthy upgrade or a waste of 40 dollars. The sticky is a general guide (with more in depth portions) that is very useful. It's just like in the General Hardware forum; most setups are the same these days but people post the same setups anyways just to make sure that they haven't missed anything. I'm just doing the same thing.

Jello, the reciever is the only one with binding posts, the speakers are just spring clip. I will be moving once or twice a year, and knowing that i can just pop the bananas in without having to worry if the wire is ok or is making the right amount of contact is the main use here.

I looked in your guide again and couldn't see this, but what's the difference in wire gauges? Is 14ga v. 12ga that large of a difference? The speakers/reciever will accept from 12-18.

 

[Shawn]

I think the wire gauge depends on how much wattage will be going to the speakers. I don't think you'll need speaker wire as large as 12ga but perhaps you should wait for jello to chime in.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

The lower the number the thicker the wire. How long are your speaker wire runs going to be?
14 gauge is probably going to be absolutely fine, but depending on where you're getting it, 12 gauge might be just a few bucks more and then it's kind of a "might as well get the 12 gauge" decision.

For the banana plugs, I would only get them if you think the amount you're spending it worth the trouble of not having to screw in speaker wires to the back of your receiver again (vs. any kind of sound quality / connection quality improvements... since bare wire is just fine for that).

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: roguerower

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Man we should make a sticky for topics like this... Oh wait...

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2099593&enterthread=y

Great...thanks for being an asshole. I KNOW that there is a sticky, I used it when I was first buying this system, but I wanted to know whether or not people with MORE knowledge than me in this area would deem it to be a worthy upgrade or a waste of 40 dollars. The sticky is a general guide (with more in depth portions) that is very useful. It's just like in the General Hardware forum; most setups are the same these days but people post the same setups anyways just to make sure that they haven't missed anything. I'm just doing the same thing.

Jello, the reciever is the only one with binding posts, the speakers are just spring clip. I will be moving once or twice a year, and knowing that i can just pop the bananas in without having to worry if the wire is ok or is making the right amount of contact is the main use here.

I looked in your guide again and couldn't see this, but what's the difference in wire gauges? Is 14ga v. 12ga that large of a difference? The speakers/reciever will accept from 12-18.

Guide was for your "Does anyone know a good walkthrough for correctly positioning all the speakers to achieve the best sound? "

 

[roguerower]

Originally posted by: BassBomb

Originally posted by: roguerower

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Man we should make a sticky for topics like this... Oh wait...

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2099593&enterthread=y

Great...thanks for being an asshole. I KNOW that there is a sticky, I used it when I was first buying this system, but I wanted to know whether or not people with MORE knowledge than me in this area would deem it to be a worthy upgrade or a waste of 40 dollars. The sticky is a general guide (with more in depth portions) that is very useful. It's just like in the General Hardware forum; most setups are the same these days but people post the same setups anyways just to make sure that they haven't missed anything. I'm just doing the same thing.

Jello, the reciever is the only one with binding posts, the speakers are just spring clip. I will be moving once or twice a year, and knowing that i can just pop the bananas in without having to worry if the wire is ok or is making the right amount of contact is the main use here.

I looked in your guide again and couldn't see this, but what's the difference in wire gauges? Is 14ga v. 12ga that large of a difference? The speakers/reciever will accept from 12-18.

Guide was for your "Does anyone know a good walkthrough for correctly positioning all the speakers to achieve the best sound? "

Ok then, that was an afterthought that I threw in there as I was writing my post. I thought you were talking about the post itself.

Jello, the room is 20x20 (huge frickin dorm room for just myself and one other guy so the maximum distance the wire would have to travel is 30ft (2 surround speakers). The 6th would just run straight under the carpet to its position in the rear.

So you're saying that the banana clips would be justified if they're for "ease of use" and they don't enhance/detract from the quality of the sound?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

The longer the length of the run, the more having a larger wire will matter. 30 feet is a very reasonable length and you have 8 ohm speakers so you're well within the safe range for 14 gauge according to charts I've seen.

I'm saying that as long as you're buying the banana plugs for the reason of "ease of use", then go ahead if you think it's worth the cost (something you have to decide for yourself). They shouldn't do anything positive / negative to the sound of things if you have them hooked up with a good connection.

 

[roguerower]

Ok then, thanks for you help. At $9 for all 6 I'll pull the trigger on them along with the 100' of 14ga wire.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Do you think 100' is going to be enough?

Keep in mind that you're also going to have vertical distances to cover as well as horizontal distance.
I'm not sure if you're planning on going along the walls for the surrounds and such, but it might end up being tight.

 

[roguerower]

I don't think it'll require more than that. The hardest thing is going to be postioning everything but I'll make another post about that when it comes to that frame. I heard that it's best for the speakers to be at ear level so sitting down the highest vertical run that ill have to make would be the vertical speaker which would be MAYBE 3-4 feet so 28 feet for the longest run.

 

[iRONic]

Originally posted by: roguerower
Ok then, thanks for you help. At $9 for all 6 I'll pull the trigger on them along with the 100' of 14ga wire.

Did you see this?

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Just FYI, you'd have to order 12 pairs to do your 6 speaker wires on both ends rather than just one.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: iRONic

Originally posted by: roguerower
Ok then, thanks for you help. At $9 for all 6 I'll pull the trigger on them along with the 100' of 14ga wire.

Did you see this?

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Just FYI, you'd have to order 12 pairs to do your 6 speaker wires on both ends rather than just one.

Originally posted by: roguerower
Jello, the reciever is the only one with binding posts, the speakers are just spring clip.

 

[roguerower]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: iRONic

Originally posted by: roguerower
Ok then, thanks for you help. At $9 for all 6 I'll pull the trigger on them along with the 100' of 14ga wire.

Did you see this?

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Just FYI, you'd have to order 12 pairs to do your 6 speaker wires on both ends rather than just one.

Originally posted by: roguerower
Jello, the reciever is the only one with binding posts, the speakers are just spring clip.

I did, but obviously you didn't. Thank you, try again, this time maybe offer some advice.

 

[iRONic]

YHPM
-Schadenfroh (AT Mod)

 

[iRONic]

Originally posted by: roguerower

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: iRONic

Originally posted by: roguerower
Ok then, thanks for you help. At $9 for all 6 I'll pull the trigger on them along with the 100' of 14ga wire.

Did you see this?

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Just FYI, you'd have to order 12 pairs to do your 6 speaker wires on both ends rather than just one.

Originally posted by: roguerower
Jello, the reciever is the only one with binding posts, the speakers are just spring clip.

I did, but obviously you didn't. Thank you, try again, this time maybe offer some advice.

Try being less of a dick to people trying to help. This isn't OT, kthx.

 

[mshan]

Unless you are going to be using that system in a large room requiring very long runs of speaker wire to surrounds, I would suggest trying to just replace bare speaker wire with simple, stranded spools of oxygen-free copper from Monoprice of the same gauge as Onkyo originally provided.

Onkyo probably voiced the system for that gauge cheap speaker wire, and going with much larger gauges may throw off intended system voicing (you may not be able to describe exactly what the problem is, but you might end up always sensing that something just doesn't sound right).

If you can, I'd recommend keeping speaker wire length to front, center, and left at even lengths, ideally between 8 - 10 ft. And bare wire is probably going to sound better than crimped on cheap banana plugs (i. e. degrade the sound less).

Surrounds are supposed to be high and to the sides, but you should just experiment with height and see if keeping all speakers on the same horizontal plane sounds better.

edit: this is not meant to be obnoxious, but I also recommend just reading the manual and see what maximum distance they recommend for system. If you are way beyond that, moving up from stock gauge to next thicker gauge might help. You might also just want to set up the system in your new dorm room with stock wiring and listen and see what you feel is missing or if you sense that system is being held back by not enough current getting to those surrounds.

edit #2: if you sense that the HTIB system you've got isn't just up to pressurizing that large room, you could try corner loading the system: put tv into one corner, put center, left and right with appropriate spacing on your home theater cabinet in that corner, and just mount surround on those "side" walls, kind of to the sides of where the viewing couch is. If you have the 6.1 channel speaker, just put that on some cheap bookcase or table behind the viewing couch and see how it sounds. Not sure where the sub should go with corner loading - in that corner, or just snugged up against one of the "side" walls, or even behind listening position near rear surround (though you would lose corner loading effect Onkyo probably intended).

I think you can get the analog SPL meter from Radio Shack for around $20. Analog meter one is supposed to be better than digital one. You can hold it at viewing position and adjust gain of each channel with volume set around your preferred reference spl (this may only 75 - 85 db, I forgot what was recommended, vs. true reference spl level because that is insanely loud).

 

[roguerower]

Originally posted by: iRONic

Originally posted by: roguerower

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: iRONic

Originally posted by: roguerower
Ok then, thanks for you help. At $9 for all 6 I'll pull the trigger on them along with the 100' of 14ga wire.

Did you see this?

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Just FYI, you'd have to order 12 pairs to do your 6 speaker wires on both ends rather than just one.

Originally posted by: roguerower
Jello, the reciever is the only one with binding posts, the speakers are just spring clip.

I did, but obviously you didn't. Thank you, try again, this time maybe offer some advice.

Try being less of a dick to people trying to help. This isn't OT, kthx.

You weren't trying to help, just thought that I was stupid enough to not read something that the Forum Mod would write down. I wouldn't have to be a dick if you contributed.

mshan, thanks for your help. i'll try and look and see what I can find in the manual. They are not long runs, like I said, maybe 30' at most. I didn't think about corner loading, but now that you bring it up....I just need to find a decent place to put the bass now.

 

[mshan]

No problem.

The guys over at Outlaw Audio previously stated that they felt that the difference between speaker cables were subtle, but differences between interconnects (in particular, poorly manufactured ones) could be more significant.

These Ohno continuous cast copper in twisted pairs are nice home theater cables and are quite fairly priced: http://outlawaudio.com/products/cables.html

Again, I would just get your rig up and running using what was provided by manufacturer, get it properly positioned and calibrated, and then see what you feel is lacking.

I would guess that these Outlaw PCA cables are probably able to provide you with a slightly less grungy sound, with perhaps a slight increase in vocal track clarity (?), because it is transmitted a less distorted signal (the oxygen free copy and long grain continuous cast copper, plus proper terminations) to receiver. YMMV.