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dmonty83

Audiophyte
I have some friends of mine that put two Insignia (8 ohm) outdoor speakers by their pool. They are running them into the house via 18ga speaker wire at about 75ft. They are connected to a very inexpensive Sony mini shelf system.

I'm not a sound expert by any means...

They can get decent sound from the outdoor speakers at low volume. Once you turn up the volume they sound horrible. I'm guessing the speaker impedance is too high? The catch is the still want to use the speakers that came with the mini system for inside.

I need a solution that would allow them to use both sets of speakers and still sound decent.

Space is very limited...

Thank you for any help in advance!

David
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
I wouldn't run 18 AWG wire for runs longer than 10 ft. For an 8 ohm resistance at 75 ft, you will need 10 AWG wire. Read this. A better solution would be to just get a boombox for the pool, in my opinion.
 
G

Grador

Audioholic Field Marshall
I wouldn't run 18 AWG wire for runs longer than 10 ft. For an 8 ohm resistance at 75 ft, you will need 10 AWG wire. Read this. A better solution would be to just get a boombox for the pool, in my opinion.
Normally this is true, but with cheap speakers outdoors I rather doubt that the wire is the issue.

There are two things I think are more likely: My best guess is that the amp in the cheap bookshelf setup is awful. I had one of those a while ago and when I plugged the cheap bookshelf speakers that came with it into a real amp they sounded much better [though still not good]. Alternately you could be pushing the inexpensive insignia speakers past their limit.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
I wouldn't run 18 AWG wire for runs longer than 10 ft. For an 8 ohm resistance at 75 ft, you will need 10 AWG wire. Read this. A better solution would be to just get a boombox for the pool, in my opinion.
you could get away with regular 12 AWG lamp cord and not notice much difference. 18 AWG at 75ft introduces significant noise to the music,
however that said if they sound horrible as you describe, I doubt the issue is solely with cable gauge.

Do a simple test: connect same speakers with very short, say 6ft cable (18 awg is a ok) and see how they sound like at high volumes.
I think the burning issues are both a) very poor amplification b) very mediocre speaker.
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
you could get away with regular 12 AWG lamp cord and not notice much difference. 18 AWG at 75ft introduces significant noise to the music,
however that said if they sound horrible as you describe, I doubt the issue is solely with cable gauge.

Do a simple test: connect same speakers with very short, say 6ft cable (18 awg is a ok) and see how they sound like at high volumes.
I think the burning issues are both a) very poor amplification b) very mediocre speaker.
I concur with your assesments #1 and #2.

But, if we know the gauge of wire that is needed for a certain run and they are using a smaller wire, then you can't discount that fact either.

Like you say, connect with a short run and see if that solves the problem. If it does, move to a larger gauge for the long run and see if it sounds better. Even if he upgrades speakers and amp, he still needs to get the sufficient thickness of wire run, no way around that (you can't beat physics).

I also wanted to comment on a couple of items from the OP that nobody has mentioned yet.

1) The catch is the still want to use the speakers that came with the mini system for inside.---So, they have 4 speakers hooked up to 2 speaker connections (assuming in parallel)? If yes, then this is probably gonna fry that amp sooner than later. This is almost certainly the root of the problem if hooked up this way. At low levels it sounds OK, at high levels the amp is severely clipping and distorting.

2) I'm guessing the speaker impedance is too high?--- You got it backwards. High impedance represents a small load. Low impedance is a heavy load.
 
G

Grador

Audioholic Field Marshall
Hi All, thank you for the feed back. I was able to determine that the speaker wire is actually 16 ga not 18. I know only a small improvement.

How about we remove the Sony system from the mix and upgrade it? Like I said space is limited. How's this for an alternative?

CRX-332 - Mini-systems - Audio & Visual - Products - Yamaha United States

If not does anyone have any suggestions?
Did you take BSA's advice and test a shorter length of wire first? It is likely a good move to take the sony system out of the mix, but until you test it's just a shot in the dark. Alternatively if anyone you know has a decent receiver you could ask them to drag it down and give that a go.
 
M

Mark of Cenla

Full Audioholic
I have used a couple if different Sony shelf units to power a wide variety of speakers, such as Polk Rti 4, Boston Acoustics CS 26 , and JBL Control One Monitors. They sound pretty good if there is a good speaker connected. I do not believe they sound much different than most inexpensive stereo receivers. I have run DVD players through them and connected them to a good speaker, and it sounds reasonably "mid-fi" for watching movies. Most of the speakers that come with them are awful though. The Yamaha would sound better. Peace and goodwill.
 
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dmonty83

Audiophyte
I was thinking before I cut and move the speakers inside, one of the speakers isn't 75ft away, more like 30 feet away and that speaker still has distortion when it is the only speaker connected in parallel to the Sony speaker.

David
 
G

Grador

Audioholic Field Marshall
I was thinking before I cut and move the speakers inside, one of the speakers isn't 75ft away, more like 30 feet away and that speaker still has distortion when it is the only speaker connected in parallel to the Sony speaker.

David
If you have two sets of speakers hooked up in parallel that's your problem. The two speakers in parallel will try and draw way to much current from the amp when you turn the volume up. Unhook the second pair of speakers.
 
M

Mark of Cenla

Full Audioholic
If you have two sets of speakers hooked up in parallel that's your problem. The two speakers in parallel will try and draw way to much current from the amp when you turn the volume up. Unhook the second pair of speakers.
I agree! Peace and goodwill.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
It seems to me that there is a cluster of problems with this setup which need to be acknowledged.

1. Mini systems are a joke. Don't try to rationale it or anything else. The CRX-332 you linked to provides 20 watts of power at 10% distortion with a 6ohm load. It may not be stable at a 4 ohm load and will provide almost no power to a 16 ohm load. So, a far more serious amplifier is required (not optional) if any decent audio output is required.

2. Mini-systems are for mini rooms at low volume. In a family room with matching speakers, at reasonable volumes, this will sound much like any Bose system, but the outdoors, it turns out, are a great deal larger than most people's family room. Not only do you need good speakers outside, but the volume which would be very loud indoors, is somewhat quiet outdoors. You need far more volume to fill the space at even a reasonable level... Which leads back to issue #1.

3. 16 gauge cable won't be the issue. Anyone who is thinking this may be the issue is just not correct. 16 gauge cable won't deliver as well as 14 or 12 or 10 gauge, but is certainly plenty sufficient to deliver 100+ watts of power the distance required with almost zero loss in actual audio quality. Certainly not distortion.

4. The number one killer of speakers is under-powering them, and let me tell you, this is being done in spades with the current setup.

Solution:
Get a good amplifier! I really couldn't give two cents about the space requirements. If there isn't the space for the right product, then there isn't the right to complain about the stupid product which is being used. But, with some research you may be able to find a good amplifier for this setup.

Even something like this may be acceptable:
PyleHome - PAMP1000 - 160 Watt Home Stereo Power Amplifier

In the manual this unit will deliver 60 watts per channel into a 8 ohm load with .1% (not 10%!!!) THD. So, the specifications on this are light years ahead of the mini-system which was linked to.

You can hook up any iPod, or CD player or other audio source you would like to this amplifier and it includes front volume control and two sources which makes it a much better choice.

I'm sure people on these forums can give you much better alternatives to the thing I linked to which is generally low-end quality, but hopefully the point is clear - make room for a decent piece of gear to get good audio to the speakers outdoor.

Run separate speaker wire to each speaker. Not in series, not in parallel, but one wire pair per speaker. Preferably start with 14 gauge, but really, in my experience this doesn't matter in non-critical situations such as outdoors. What matters is having speakers which can fill the space with good audio.

Finally, 'Yamaha' speakers were mentioned, but they may be garbage or they may be excellent. Speaker quality always matters. Small 3" or 4" speakers aren't appropriate for any listening at serious volume and won't blend well with the outdoors at all.

People often have very unrealistic expectations of what they buy. They need to keep in mind the general rules: Smaller stuff is cute, but won't match up against the bigger stuff. You can pay more for smaller stuff which sounds worse than cheaper bigger stuff. Small speakers won't outperform similarly built larger speakers (typically), and outside, size and power matter a fair bit, because the size is so much greater.
 
tmurnin

tmurnin

Full Audioholic
Agree with the post above. You need a better - but not a great -amp. Try and find a decent 2 channel used of refurbished and add a speaker selector box to connect the individual speakers. If you're ok spending a little more $$, you can find multichannel amps from a number of manufacturers that do a good job. Not sure what you're listening to, but if it's just music, you don't need a receiver. Just get a RCA-line input
cable into the back of the amp and connect it to your iPod, or even better an Airport Express which would allow you to use an iPhone to control the music wirelessly. Don't worry about DACs or music fidelity - you won't notice that stuff outside anyway.
 
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