Studio advice - speaker cable and wall plates

[zimlen]

Hey guys

I've built a 4m x 3m studio, which is effectively a sound insulated room built within a shed. I'd like to change the setout so my two amp heads are located at the other end of the room to the cab they drive (I switch betwen heads using a Radial HeadBone).

A couple of questions on this:
- Am I going to be losing anything tone-wise by having a 5m run of speaker cable between my amps (both 1W monsters!) and cab?
- If I was to install speaker jack terminals at either end of the room, and run speaker cable under the flooring, would wall plates with standard 1/4" TRS jacks be suitable, or would I need specialised jacks to handle the higher voltages of an amp (ie. much higher than instrument level)?

Thanks in advance!

[Micky]

As long as you use suitable cable for the speaker run you should be OK.
Personally I would use 12 or 14 ga. wire, and then use Speak-On connectors on wall plates.
But that is just me. What you use is up to you. TS jacks will work and are a lot less expensive.

[mott555]

The speaker-level outputs from an amp are only 30 - 40 volts at most. And since it's low-impedance, high-current, you should be able to run pretty long speaker cable runs without any significant tone or signal loss. I've run 100+ foot speaker lines from power amps to unpowered PA speakers before with no ill effect, I'd expect no issues with a guitar amp.

As Micky said, you don't need TRS, just TS.

[zimlen]

As long as you use suitable cable for the speaker run you should be OK.
Personally I would use 12 or 14 ga. wire, and then use Speak-On connectors on wall plates.
But that is just me. What you use is up to you. TS jacks will work and are a lot less expensive.

Thanks for the advice.

What is the advantage of going Speak-on wall jacks instead of TS jacks? Is it just to differentiate between instrument level 1/4" jacks? My cabs and amps all have 1/4" jacks, so I'd have to get adapters to make the connection, or use cables with speakon at one end, and 1/4" TS at the other.

On the wiring, can I use regular 12 or 14 ga AV speaker cable?

[zimlen]

The speaker-level outputs from an amp are only 30 - 40 volts at most. And since it's low-impedance, high-current, you should be able to run pretty long speaker cable runs without any significant tone or signal loss. I've run 100+ foot speaker lines from power amps to unpowered PA speakers before with no ill effect, I'd expect no issues with a guitar amp.

As Micky said, you don't need TRS, just TS.

Excuse my ignorance, but wouldn't TRS jacks work fine - I assume the ring conatct would just become redundant. I only ask because my local electronics store has plenty of TRS wall plates, but no TS wall plates.

[mott555]

The speaker-level outputs from an amp are only 30 - 40 volts at most. And since it's low-impedance, high-current, you should be able to run pretty long speaker cable runs without any significant tone or signal loss. I've run 100+ foot speaker lines from power amps to unpowered PA speakers before with no ill effect, I'd expect no issues with a guitar amp.

As Micky said, you don't need TRS, just TS.

Excuse my ignorance, but wouldn't TRS jacks work fine - I assume the ring conatct would just become redundant. I only ask because my local electronics store has plenty of TRS wall plates, but no TS wall plates.

You're right, a TRS will work fine. I just meant if you have a choice, there's not really a reason to pick a TRS over a TS.

With a TRS setup you could get creative using some mono-stereo splitters and run multiple speaker outputs through a single wire run.

[zimlen]

Thanks matt.

I've looked into this and I think I've found the best solution for the speaker jacks. Neutrik now do a socket called the "SpeakON Combo". It's a SpeakON jack that also let's you plug in a 1/4" plug into the centre of the socket. Best of both worlds - and no confusion about speaker and line level jacks!

Similarly I think I'll go XLR/1/4" combo jacks for my line level jacks. That gives me XLR or 1/4" TRS options in the one jack.

Thanks for your advice!