Is all speaker wire (home Entertainment system) the same? Better quality

IvanOpinion

Ibrahim5 said:

Whilst waiting for my speaker cable to arrive I popped into the garage looking for some temporary wire. Could only find 13a mains cable. I was quite impressed. Worked very well. I don't agree with the comment about speakers being wireless in the future. Wireless speakers may be available but will be inferior to wired. If you put good speakers and cable in a room should be good for 50 years.

Sound these days is produced digitally rather than as analog.  That is a sequence of 1's and 0's a binary state that can be transmitted just as well through wireless as it can through speaker cable.  Wireless currently drives millions of computers and mobile devices sending far more data at rates far higher than would be needed to transmit music and video.

Cables are not needed for audio any more than they are needed for a phone, and that does not mean that quality is less, that will be determined by the electronics.  Placing the amp near the speakers means less distance to transmit  and no need for long lengths of quality deteriorating cables.

Ibrahim5

You end up with the situation that Sonos had where they told everyone that the software couldn't be updated so throw them in the bin.

Ibrahim5

There may be an advantage having a DAC, amp and speaker together. You would then connect them with data cables. Wireless never adds anything apart from aesthetics. The amplifier and speaker are likely to be fine in 50 years but not the DAC. So you would want that separate. But then it's not pretty which is the reason people buy wireless.

cx6

"Active speakers" have the amp inside the speaker housing. There are many models to choose from. You can feed them with an analogue source (so external dac) or some even have a built in dac so you can feed them with a digital source (eg optical)

Something like the KEF LS50 Wireless 2 speaker goes even further - has the amp, dac, and a lot more built inside each speaker - they connect together (stereo) via wireless so no cables.

Ibrahim5

When the DAC is out of date the whole lot has to be binned. That happened with Sonos. If they take an analogue input I guess you could put a new DAC next to each speaker.

googler

Putting lots of different functions in one box means that if one fails, and cannot be repaired, the whole box has to be junked, instead of the component that failed. Keep functions separate, and one item can be slotted out and replaced easily. 

I've seen this happen with things like TVs which had built-in VHS or DVD players - one fails, and the whole thing has to be chucked. 

Also consider the software issue, as hinted at a couple of posts earlier - look at how often folks have to update PCs, tablets, phones and iOS devices because the latest version of their core app or apps just will. not. work. with the older OS on their device, and the device will not allow the OS to be update beyond a certain point..... does anyone REALLy want to be doing that with the HiFi? 

cx6

Agree with you but there does seem to be a trend towards 'everything in one box' probably because it looks better than a pile of different boxes.

Belenus

cx6 said:

"Active speakers" have the amp inside the speaker housing. There are many models to choose from. You can feed them with an analogue source (so external dac) or some even have a built in dac so you can feed them with a digital source (eg optical)

Something like the KEF LS50 Wireless 2 speaker goes even further - has the amp, dac, and a lot more built inside each speaker - they connect together (stereo) via wireless so no cables.

They may not need speaker cables but instead require power cables and conveniently placed power sockets.

Ibrahim5

I was going to say that. A speaker needs a cable and a wireless speaker needs a cable. Only problem is my speakers have 2 cables. Bi-amped.

Chino

Deleted_User said:

I wouldn't call these inferior speakers:

So how good did they sound when you listened to them?