Is this safe?

Frarf

Frarf

May 26, 2017
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#1
Maybe someone can answer my question. I have been looking for a right angle speaker cable and some searching lead me to a forum where someone suggested this.
Amazon.com: Monoprice 109447 3-Feet Premier Series 1/4-Inch Male Right Angle to Male Right Angle 16AWG Cable: Home Audio & Theater
Description reads unbalanced but when received cable says balanced 16 awg shielded on the side. This would be used to connect my amp to cab that is 500w. I opened it up and it looks like speaker wire but they're are both soldered to the tip and the shield (?) I guess, is soldered to the ring. I don't know a lot about this stuff and am confused. Is this safe to use? 20170526_221124.jpg
 
#4
There are only a few unique applications I am aware of where shielded speaker cables are appropriate. You can check with agedhorse for the specific engineering reasons, but my gut is telling me that you should not even consider using a shielded cable for speaker level signals on typical bass and/or PA gear.

There are line and instrument level signal cables where they run two core wires and a shield as opposed to a single wire and a shield. Depending on your application and the need to have the shield only connected to ground at one end (usually the end other than the instrument), these kind of designs might be useful, but not for use as a speaker cable regardless of the size/gauge of the wires.

EDIT: If I recall correctly the primary concern with using shielded speaker cables in applications where their use was not part of the amp design equation is that the added capacitance to the system load can create problems for the amplifier depending on the stability margin and other attributes of the design. In other words, while it might work okay, it's a chance I wouldn't take.
 
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#5
Frarf said:
Maybe someone can answer my question. I have been looking for a right angle speaker cable and some searching lead me to a forum where someone suggested this.
Amazon.com: Monoprice 109447 3-Feet Premier Series 1/4-Inch Male Right Angle to Male Right Angle 16AWG Cable: Home Audio & Theater
Description reads unbalanced but when received cable says balanced 16 awg shielded on the side. This would be used to connect my amp to cab that is 500w. I opened it up and it looks like speaker wire but they're are both soldered to the tip and the shield (?) I guess, is soldered to the ring. I don't know a lot about this stuff and am confused. Is this safe to use? View attachment 1141904
Click to expand...
This is an instrument/patch cable. It says so in the link you provided.
THIS IS NOT A SPEAKER CABLE. DO NOT USE IT AS SUCH.
 
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#7
Welcome to TalkBass.

Sorry you got the wrong cable. This is one of the many reasons the Speakon connector is great, it prevents this confusion.
As The Old Garage-Bander said, THIS IS NOT A SPEAKER CABLE. DO NOT USE IT AS SUCH.
From your link
  • Connect your musical instruments and effects processors with this Premium 1/4" TS Patch Cable with 90-degree connectors from Monoprice!
Make sure you get what says speaker cable before purchasing, also the words Speaker Cable will be printed on the cable.
Feel free to ask anything you are unsure of. It is better to ask is this ok? than to ask why did this smoke?
 
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#9
When amps are in the hundreds to thousands of dollars neighborhood and cables are in the tens of dollars neighborhood, it makes no sense to use the wrong cable for your speaker connection. It might work okay, but then it could cause a problem...$10-20 (or less) gets you a 100% "no problems guaranteed" solution.
 
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#10
Some amps do not reference to ground that which would be the shield side of this cable.
That means you could have exposed voltages on the metal parts of this cable.
If you use it for speakers, do not touch it while the amp is on.

Anytime you use 1/4" connectors for speaker cables, you should use ones that have insulated or plastic shells. This is not a problem if the cable is used as an instrument/patch cable.

FYI. Balanced cables normally have two inner conductors and the 1/4" connector would have to be a 3 conductor (aka Tip/Ring/Sleeve, aka stereo) connector. The cable in the link is a 2 conductor, Tip/Sleeve, mono connector type. So it is unbalanced.

Balanced speaker outputs, those not having a ground connection on one side will still be balanced even if you use what is normally considered an unbalanced cable.

Bottom line... you really need to pay attention to the circuits involved and the cables being used. If you deviate from the instruction manual, be sure you have a good grasp of all of this.
 
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#11
seamonkey said:
It is perfectly safe. It is 16 AWG which is appropriate for amps that use 1/4" jacks.
Shielding is not needed for speakers, it also doesn't hurt.
Light gauge wire is what hurts.
Click to expand...
It may be 16 AWG but it is an instrument cable. 16 to tip shield to sleeve, not 16 tip and 16 to sleeve like speaker cable.
Use the correct cable.
 
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