questions for all you Audio boffins out there.

[sportstractor]

Today i finally got round to finishing my ICE install. Fitted some 5.25" vibe blackair components in the front and some black air 6x9's in the rear. Coupled with an 'andy mac stealth sub'. All running from a alpione headunit. I even stuck sound deadening at every opportune place behind the speakers etc and it sounds wicked.

Right some concerns were raised when I was fitting, firstly Im afraid the cables I ran to pick up the rear speaker feeds masy not be heafty enough. I bough screened audio cable from maplins but realised after that it probably is too narrow gauge. What kind of gauge should I be looking at? I dont want my carpet catching fire because the wire is burnt out!!! Also mayh be looking at amping all speakers at some point so Will i need to renew all the original stereo wires?

Also with regards to polarity on the speakers I was unable to trace the wires (due to time) so I just connected them whichever suited, will this effect the audio quality or have any effect on the crossover unit. Its will be quite easy to test which is which, but will mean taking the front door cards off again.

Thanks for reading, Jim

 

[s8craig]

I don't think you should be using screened cable for speaker connections at all. It is usually for line level signals, not speakers. Speaker wire should be twin cable as thick as possible is the usual rule of thumb, although there are purpose made speaker cables with low loss. You will certainly be experiencing some loss through a screened cable unless it is really thick.

Speaker polarity is important, if you reverse a speaker it can be out of phase and reduce the volume by cancelling out the other speakers.

These are my takes on what you have said, please feel free to correct as I'm not an ICE expert. But I do a fair bit of work in the Audio arena.

 

[sportstractor]

Cheers mate. Il be rewiring it tomorrow, found some mega speaker wire which I once got with some speakers so will be using that.

 

[1animal1]

doood!! just come back in from fitting mine, gonna do a write up on another thread - dunno if it will help as i have only replaced four speakers with a pair of infiniti 6x9's and Edge 13cm components - i remember the rear wire colour combos if that will help, unsure how far you have gone with the rewire so dont know how much use i can be?