Speaker wire for inefficient speakers?

[John Osborne]

Hoping someone has some good advice for me on selecting speaker wire for inefficient speakers. Should have sought advice first, but here is the situation: I have a pair of ATC SCM19 loudspeakers which while sounding incredible have only 85 dB sensitivity. I have them powered by a Hegel H160 which puts out 150 w into 8 ohms. I am finding (I know inefficient speaker need lots of power) that even cranked up there are times I would like it louder. For speaker wire I may have made a mistake and thought I would seek advice. Maybe I needed to save up for the bigger amp, but for now my focus is on the wire. I went with Clearday Double Shotgun silver cables. Am I better off with simply a simple 10 awg plain jane wire rather than multi strand silver? Is there a way to get more output without compromising sound? Probably obvious from my question I am not a technical guy, but is there a simple answer? THANKS!

 

[Beave]

From their website, I see it's $450 for the speaker wire???!?!?!

Hopefully you can return it. You got snookered. High end speaker wire is a scam. Plain ol cheap copper wire for $0.25/foot does the job just fine (ie, introduces no audible degradation of the signal).

Generally, you choose speaker wire gauge based on the distance/length of wire you need, not on the amp power or speaker sensitivity. So how long are your speaker wire runs? Did you buy the standard 8 foot lengths? If so, that's short, and any speaker wire will work just fine, even 18 gauge.

The only way to get more output is with more sensitive speakers, or with more amp power, or by sitting closer to the speakers. How big is the room and how far back are you sitting from the speakers?

 

[John Osborne]

I paid $250 for the cabling. The cable are I think 10 feet or 12 feet, I can't recall, but not super long. The room is pretty large (maybe 20 ft X 20 ft with two story open space), open concept home so that does not help. I sit about 8 feet from the speakers.

 

[Beave]

OK, at least $250 is less than $450. So you only overpaid by about $230 or $240!

Even at 10 to 12 feet, just about any gauge will do from about 18 to anything thicker. I generally like 16 gauge because it's thick enough, electrically speaking, for runs under 20 feet, but it's not so thick that it's hard to bend. 14 is ok too. 12 gauge gets really thick and hard to bend in my experience.

But yeah, 12 or 14 or 16 or 18 gauge copper wire would do just as well as what you have - but the speaker wire won't do anything for the volume levels.

Sitting 8 feet away isn't too far, but a 20 x 20 room is pretty large for bookshelf speakers. You might be better off with an AVR and two subwoofers along with your speakers instead of the expensive integrated amp from Hegel.

Or just higher sensitivity speakers - usually that means bigger speakers.

 

[John Osborne]

Oh, I do have a sub, an ATC C1, forgot to mention. I would like to keep the amp out of any changes and restrict it simply to the wire. As I mentioned, the sound is GREAT, I have NO complaints about the amp or the speakers. Perhaps I paid too much for the wire, but are you saying there is certainly degradation from my use of silver wires? Anyone else want to chime in?

 

[shadyJ]

While you overpayed for wiring, the wire isn't what is holding you back here, it is the speaker. Yeah you could hook those speakers up to a more powerful amplifier, but at their highest power handling they can't do much more than the amp you have now. If you want louder, you will need more capable speakers.

 

[John Osborne]

Now I am really confused. You can't go loud with speakers that have low sensitivity?

 

[Beave]

shadyj is right. There is no degradation from your existing speaker wire (except financially).

And you have plenty of power for most applications.

But your speakers, while as nice as they are, just aren't made for high sound levels in a large room. Think of speakers as a tool. They just aren't the appropriate tool for the job you want to do.

 

[Beave]

Now I am really confused. You can't go loud with speakers that have low sensitivity?

You can go fairly loud, in small to medium sized rooms. But in a large room, a low sensitivity speaker will needs lots of amplifier power to get there. And then you run into two possibilities, neither of which is good: clipping the amp output, ie, overdriving the amp, and two, possibly blowing the speakers by hitting their limits in terms of how much power they can handle.

 

[John Osborne]

The documentation that comes with the speakers says they are rated to handle over 300W, but I get what you are saying. I can definitely live with the loudness, as I am in love with the sound, so maybe if I do save some more pennies a bit more amp might do it. Thanks.

 

[Beave]

A speaker's power handling is a really complex metric. Whenever a manufacturer gives a single number (and practically all of them do), it's to be taken with a huge grain of salt. The power that can be handled depends on the frequency of the signal, its amplitude, and its duration. A single number can't encompass all the variables.

For example, they can probably handle 300W in bursts of a few milliseconds, but a continuous 300W signal will fry them. And they can probably handle 300W at certain midrange frequencies, but a 300W output in the low bass will send the woofers crashing to their ends.

As I said before, a higher power amp might get you a little more output, but remember that doubling the power only nets 3dB, a relatively small increase in perceived loudness. So a 300W amp will allow you to play a little louder but now with the higher risk of damaging the speakers.

So, really, either stick with what you have and save your money (and your hearing), or if you want louder, get more efficient speakers.

 

[highfigh]

Now I am really confused. You can't go loud with speakers that have low sensitivity?

Depends on how loud you want to go. You could use a more powerful amplifier but at some point, the speaker's voice coil will become hotter than it should be and that causes its resistance to increase in a situation called 'thermal compression'. At that point, you might hear the SPL DEcrease when you try to make it louder. Your speakers, at 85dB/W, would produce 105dB with 100W input, under certain conditions. Your amp won't output 200W, though. However, the room's reflections will affect the SPL, but you need to remember that small speakers that can't produce bass well will never give you the "I can feel it!" experience without your subwoofer and even then, the setup makes a huge difference.

Your speaker wire isn't the problem and the previous comments about its importance are correct. Silver wire won't make it louder, it will only cost more.

 

[Speedskater]

It's in pro audio sometimes with cable runs of well over 100 feet and high power, low impedance PA type speakers, that cable loses are a concern.

 

[Mikado463]

So a 300W amp will allow you to play a little louder but now with the higher risk of damaging the speakers.

Far more speakers are damaged from over taxing an amplifier and sending it into distorted clipping than power.

To the Op, while there seems to be a fair amount of concern over your less than 'super efficient' speakers you should also be concerned of your 'square listening room', never a good thing, acoustically speaking.

 

[PENG]

Far more speakers are damaged from over taxing an amplifier and sending it into distorted clipping than power.

Both can do damages, but "...far more..."? On what basis, forum talks/hearsay, or some reliable stats, studies etc.?

 

[PENG]

I paid $250 for the cabling. The cable are I think 10 feet or 12 feet, I can't recall, but not super long. The room is pretty large (maybe 20 ft X 20 ft with two story open space), open concept home so that does not help. I sit about 8 feet from the speakers.

The H360 will get you not even 3 dB more so probably not worth the extra dollars. Try a higher crossover to make the sub work harder may help. Your speakers are limited to 108 dB max at 1 meter.

 

[yepimonfire]

Even though a subwoofer will take the load off of the woofers as far as excursion limited output is concerned, people often forget that the most demanding portion of the audio spectrum is the midbass/lower midrange section. Not only is the majority of audio content centered in this range, but it's often where speakers present their lowest impedance to the amplifier. Many 8ohm speakers may dip as low as 4-6ohms across this region.

It also begs the question of how the 300w power handling spec was derived. 300w is a lot of heat for a 6" woofer to dissipate.

Lastly, if the speakers max spl at 1m is 108dB, at 8', that's going to be about 100dB. That's still quite loud, but what kind of distortion are you getting at that level? My guess would be quite a lot.

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

 

[Mikado463]

Both can do damages, but "...far more..."? On what basis, forum talks/hearsay, or some reliable stats, studies etc.?

read about it in 'Good Housekeeping' ...........

 

[j_garcia]

The documentation that comes with the speakers says they are rated to handle over 300W, but I get what you are saying. I can definitely live with the loudness, as I am in love with the sound, so maybe if I do save some more pennies a bit more amp might do it. Thanks.

That would be PEAK and instantaneous, not continuous. You can pretty much ignore this rating as it means little or nothing to how loud the speaker will play.

The sensitivity is a different issue. My room is ~25x30 with high vaulted ceilings, one pair of speakers are 90dB sensitive. Crossed at about 100, they have no problem filling the whole room. I had a pair of Philharmonic AAs in my setup which are also ~84.5dB sensitive and I had to crank them significantly to achieve similar levels on the same amp (200W).

 

[PENG]

Even though a subwoofer will take the load off of the woofers as far as excursion limited output is concerned, people often forget that the most demanding portion of the audio spectrum is the midbass/lower midrange section. Not only is the majority of audio content centered in this range, but it's often where speakers present their lowest impedance to the amplifier. Many 8ohm speakers may dip as low as 4-6ohms across this region.

You are stating the obvious! And I doubt many people forget.. as such. It would be stating the obvious too by saying more load shifted to the subwoofer means less load for the SC19's 6 inch woofers. Regardless, I would still suggest he try a higher crossover to make the sub work harder and that it may help. That particular speaker has quite low sensitivity, the specs claim 85 dB, and according one lab, it could be as low as 83 dB/2.83V.

http://www.avmentor.net/reviews/2016/atc_scm19_2.shtml:

"Average sensitivity (considering measurements in octave steps between 125Hz up to 16kHz) is close to 83dBSPL/2.83V/1m, a performance that undoubtedly classifies the SCM19 as a low-sensitivity loudspeaker"

Again, it is very obvious that there are the demanding midbass/lower midrange that the SC19 still has to produce, but every little bit help when the OP is running out of options. He wants it loud, the speaker has low sensitivity, and is not designed to play very loud. Regarding the 300 W thing, the specs stated: "Recommended amplifier 75 W to 300 W". We don't know exactly what that means. It could mean minimum 75 W and maximum 300 W, implying that the speakers can survive 300 W peaks (that is, not average power) in music contents (that is, not some sine wave test tones) but that would just be my educated guess.