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Extending Gigaworks speaker wires

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DudeItsMe

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
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I'm looking to buy a Gigaworks speaker system soon, and am trying to figure out how it's going to be setup around my room before I buy it. The biggest problem is speaker wire length, since I'm going to be most likely running the wires around the perimeter of the room. Running them along the floor = lots of tripping and breaking things.

I'm assuming the speakers connect with a plug on one end and bare speaker wire on the other.. that's the way my Cambridge Soundworks speakers work and the Creative ones look like they connect in an identical way. If that's not how they connect, tell me now, cause then I don't have a problem
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So to extend them I would need something like this--Speaker Extension Cables from Creative. RCA male on one end, and RCA female on the other. However, the price of $10 for 16 feet on two speakers could get expensive. Especially if I need to buy three or four of these just to reach all the way around my room. So obviously I'm looking for a cheaper alternative. I've checked places like Best Buy, but they don't have this specific cable, since it seems it's pretty unique to computer speakers (I guess because of the plug on one end and bare copper wire on the other). I've checked places like cablestogo.com but I can only find stuff with multiple plugs (left and right or a 5.1 setup). Maybe I just suck at searching for these things
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Anyways, what's a cheap way to extend the speakers, if any? Am I stuck paying $10 a pop for something that's out of stock?
 
Bump cause I wanan buy these speakers today and I still haven't found a solution.
 
I had the same problem with the gigaworks s700's in my room. I just bought the extensions from Creative. They work great. Remember that there are two extensions per pack. Don't forget that when extending you need to have the fronts the same length and the rears the same length. Good luck.
 
i'd say just buy the extension cables from creative, it may be expensive, but it works, and works well
 
OK well the extension cables are out of stock so I'm thinking a no on that one.

I went to Radioshack, they had the same thing as Creative, but one 12 ft. cable for $4, and a girl that really had no idea what she was talking about (I taught her what a RCA male plug looks like... actually I think the concept of a male plug was new to her) Circuit City had a 40 foot cable for $15, and a 20 foot for $10. BestBuy had a 20 foot cable for $3, and a guy that came along to try to sell me on really high quality auido cables and installation that'd run about $100.

Anyways, I'm not quite sure what I need. If I linked multiple extension cables, would that cause the current to the speakers to be too weak? If I need a really long cable, should I have one custom made? I'm not completely ruling out custom cables, but $100+ to wire a $345 speaker system may be a bit much.

What do you mean by the front and the rear need to be the same? I'm assuming same length so that the singal comes in correctly or whatever. Any more information on that?

Oh and while I'm posting... does a computer system really need big expensive wires, or are the standard ones OK?
 
The standard RCA extension cable should be sufficient. If you are worried about signal degredation, using thicker guage cables allow for longer runs. You can buy some 16-g cable cheap and solder on an RCA plug. Repeat as neccessary. :)

Hmm, 16-g may be too thick for the Giga sats. You can also use 18-g. Bring a sat with you and check it at the store.
 
OK. thanks. I really don't mind paying a bit extra for good wire, especially for a nice system like this... I'm just trying to avoid paying for some salesperson's commission and getting something that offers me no improvement over a cheaper product. I think my best option at this point would be to get the Best Buy installer guy to make some wire. Hopefully the tons of wire and monster RCA plugs he'll want to sell me will pay off.
 
What we mean by having the fronts and rears the same length is that in order to get the BEST sound positioning, the fronts need to be the same length from your head as the backs from your head. So if your front speakers are 5 feet away, then your rears need to be the same 5 feet away from your head.But running at great lengths means you will meed your speakers a bit louder, so dont spead them out to far, or else they might not be as loud as you want them to go, but with these speakers, 10-15 feet from your head should be fine, but not much more than that. Oh, and here is a good link with a tutorial for making your own RCA conectors CHEAP, but you do need some time and a steay hand! :D ;)
http://revision3.com/systm/avcabling/
Hope this helps!
 
Thanks man, I think I finally have everything I'm looking for.

I was worried about the front/rears thing because I thought maybe he meant a longer wire meant a worse signal. But I understand making the distances equal to be in the "sweet spot". Thanks for clearing it up.

The speakers should be here in two days. I figure I'll either make my own cables (not so likely) or have Best Buy do it (depends on price). If worse comes to worse, I'll work with stock cords til I have a better solution. My main concern is tripping over the wires = damaged speakers!

Time to give the cable guide a look. I'll let you guys know how things turn out.
 
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