help help! problem: one speaker wire, need stereo signal

[ZippyDan]

here is the current setup:

stereo audio source -> 2-wire speaker cable -> speaker 1 -> 2-wire speaker cable -> speaker 2

as you can see, it is currently only wired for mono sound. the first speaker cable is the problem as it goes through several walls and several floors, so it would be a huge hassle and cost quite a bit to run another wire from audio source to speaker 1. is there any way i can use this existing cable to get stereo sound from these two speakers? i am thinking perhaps of some devices that analog signal to a digital signal over cable wire, and then back to stereo?

example:

stereo audio source -> signal encoding box -> 2-wire speaker cable -> signal decoding box -> 2 2-wire speaker cables -> speaker 1 and 2

if not, then perhaps i need to look into something wireless? again i dont necessarily need wireless speakers, but a pair of wireless boxes that can get a stereo signal wirelessly from the audio source to the two wired speakers. i only want to go wireless as a last option however, as i dont trust it to be reliable

example:

stereo audio source -> wireless transmitter -> wireless receiver -> 2 2-wire speaker cables -> speaker 1 and 2

thanks

---------
Moved from OT. A/V topics go in the A/V forum.
AnandTech Moderator Evadman

 

[Nohr]

This was already posted here, he crossposted it in OT.

 

[AlienCraft]

Mono's not that bad....

 

[RupTheKid]

what's your budget for this? There are some wireless transmitter / receiver low-voltage options, though generally speaking they're a bit more expensive for the rock-solid implementaions.

You could always use the speaker wire as RCA line-level inputs for L&R channel if you reconnect at the source end from speaker level outputs to preamplifier outputs. Then you could keep a one-channel amplifier in the same room as each speaker and do it that way.

 

[ZippyDan]

at this point assume there is no budget, because the cost of cutting and repairing sheetrock to run a new cable along the same path would be extremely high

please explain the second paragraph a bit more... RCA is a two-conductor wire. that means i could make one RCA connection from one speaker cable. can i carry a two-channel signal over a single RCA connection? if you could link me to some kind of example of what you are talking about, i would be exceptionally grateful

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: AlienCraft
Mono's not that bad....

As long as you're not kissing anyone.

 

[RupTheKid]

Zippy - dropped you a PM with my phone number. I'm notoriously terrible at explaining via written text. For the sake of communal knowledge, I'll try to explain here as well. Speaker wire is a two conducter strand (+ = red, - = black ). Every channel of RCA is a single conductor and return. Therefore, you could use the red for the right channel, and the black for the left, as long as you make sure you reconnect your speaker wires at the source end to a preamplified output (versus the speaker output they're currently connected to). Now you have two discrete low level signals, one for left and one for right. In order to get these to a high level that will power the speakers, you will now need an amplifier (one channel, also known as monoblock) close to each speaker that you will have to conceal or phish wire to the speaker to.

Does that help? If not, call me and we'll go over it in some depth.

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: RupTheKid
Every channel of RCA is a single conductor.

maybe i don't understand what you mean...but i always knew RCA to be signal + ground, for a total of two conductors. you need a + and a - for each channel. you need 4 wires for 2 analog ...right?
i guess sometimes you can share the ground, but that would still be 3 wires, and he has only 2...

 

[RupTheKid]

<snip>

 

[ZippyDan]

Originally posted by: vshah

Originally posted by: RupTheKid
Every channel of RCA is a single conductor.

maybe i don't understand what you mean...but i always knew RCA to be signal + ground, for a total of two conductors. you need a + and a - for each channel. you need 4 wires for 2 analog ...right?
i guess sometimes you can share the ground, but that would still be 3 wires, and he has only 2...

the rest of your explanation makes sense, but im hung up here too.. i thought RCA was two conductors...

something i dont understand in general is why this is so unfeasible to most people? coax is a 2 conductor cable that can carry ridiculous amounts of info analog. digital signal cables have no problem doing multiple streams of stuff over one cable. my old gamecube can do surround sound over two rca cables. the problem is not having one cable, the problem is the signal. thats why im shocked there is no way to convert the signal over one run of cable and then back?

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: ZippyDan

Originally posted by: vshah

Originally posted by: RupTheKid
Every channel of RCA is a single conductor.

maybe i don't understand what you mean...but i always knew RCA to be signal + ground, for a total of two conductors. you need a + and a - for each channel. you need 4 wires for 2 analog ...right?
i guess sometimes you can share the ground, but that would still be 3 wires, and he has only 2...

the rest of your explanation makes sense, but im hung up here too.. i thought RCA was two conductors...

something i dont understand in general is why this is so unfeasible to most people? coax is a 2 conductor cable that can carry ridiculous amounts of info analog. digital signal cables have no problem doing multiple streams of stuff over one cable. my old gamecube can do surround sound over two rca cables. the problem is not having one cable, the problem is the signal. thats why im shocked there is no way to convert the signal over one run of cable and then back?

your gamecube can't do surround over two RCA cables. there are still only two channels of sound, its probably just processed by dolby pro-logic or something. but still only two channels.

Coax is just a type of cable, it has a higher bandwidth/better shielding than a a simple two conductor cable you usually see on composite cables. I use coax cable with RCA connectors for all my component/composite sources.

as for your problem...i'm not sure about a cost-effective solution. Does your receiver(source) have a spdif rca output? most only have optical outputs. if it has spdif, you could try RCA connectors on the one speaker cable. then hook it up to another receiver with the speakers to convert it to analog.

another problem is that any signal you send over a single 2 conductor wire will be a line-level signal. you will need another receiver/amp at the end to amplify it.

Personally i would try to pull another speaker cable through, but if it is difficult, wireless might be your best option. What is the distance between the source and speakers?

edit: one more thought, if you have a cat5 cable running from somewhere near the source to somewhere near the speakers, there are products you can use to send line-level signals over cat5. but you would still need an amp at the speaker end.