Electrics for AV/audio - sockets or strips?

The [significant] difference is cosmetic.

NT

Hung behind the kit a strip could reduce the number of cords hanging down.

At floor level everything should be behind a blanking panel.

Just checking there are no electrical reasons.

Thanks - loads of good ideas.

I plan to run the wires to the rear speakers under the floor to jack plugs.

I may do that for the front speakers as well - at the moment they are bi- wired with heavy 4 strand flat cable but I could replicate that under the floor fairly easily.

I assume there will be some losses -

however it would be neat and easy to move speakers etc.

No sub - Mission speaker set didn't require one - and the centre will be on the fireplace just under the TV.

I am now wondering if I should install a cabling area below floor level under the stack to accommodate all this stuff.

Satellite(s), TV aerial, Virgin cable, Ethernet, speaker jack plugs. Possibly an Ethernet switch.

Should be nice when it is done, though :-)

Cheers

Dave R

I'm not a lover of 1/4" jacks for speakers. Best connector by far for that is Speakon.

Nasty tendancy to short out when plugged in/out. Bit better than 3.5 mm jacks though, wouldn't want to pump 100W RMS through a 3.5 mm jack...

Agreed, and multipole so the bi-wiring isn't a issue.

Just make sure that no muck can get into the cd player at all. also make sure access is easy, and that there is adaquate cooling.

As for what to use, whell it might be an idea to also include some kind of filtered supply there, as things like mobiles etc, next door can be picked up by mains cables as I know to my cost. Brian

Those are guitar amps with no claim to fidelity. I can't think of one 'proper' amp that uses jacks for speakers.

Speakons are relatively recent in the scheme of things. The area and contact pressure between the contacts is in a different league from jacks.

But hifi users typically connect their speakers once, and leave them connected. Speakons are useful on connections that are going to be undone frequently.

They also have the advantage that a roadie in a hurry can't easily and / or accidentally plug the guitar (Or, for that matter, an unbalanced microphone) into the speaker socket.

On the other hand, for a permanent home installation, I'd probably prefer binding posts.

But we're not talking about the amp itself, but an extra connector say on the skirting etc to plug a speaker into.

No. But they are rather ugly for use on the skirting. Of course that may not matter to some.

Don't be silly.

That would depend on what you call "pro" quality. 1/4" jacks are often found on the lower end gear used by most pub bands. As it's a paid-for performance, by definition, it's a pro application.

In the same way, your cellphone gives digital sound quality, as it uses a digital transmission method.

In article , Arfa Daily scribeth thus

I reckon its evolved to that style as everyone else has done it that way over time..

As Dave says the Speakon is a much better connector, more contact area for a start compared with the very little that a Jack plug has.

As well as a better locking system..

Pity those olde LS5/8A's didn't have them;)>.

Exactly...

In article , Dave Liquorice scribeth thus

Indeed and that enormous elephant in the room the DC wall-wart power connector;!(((...

By that definition anything is pro. But most would understand what I meant by the use of the word.

And why would you use a connector designed for mono unbalanced mics as a speaker connector? It makes no sense at all - especially the risk of connecting things wrongly in that sort of environment.

And? There is no such thing as 'digital sound quality' without defining that quality. Except, perhaps in Currys. Or would you expect an analogue phone to give the same sound quality as a decent radio, etc?

I assume that you are using pro quality to refer to the top end gear used by large production companies?

To a *lot* of people, *this*:-

is pro gear.

It may not make sense, but it's the way a lot of people do it.

Most people outside the industry think that if it's digital sound, it's CD quality.

No - that is PA gear. I'm referring to high quality audio amplifiers that you might find in a studio control room or at home.

BTW, true pros don't tend to buy bundled kit like that. Since no one maker is likely to make the best of everything.

Lots of people twist wires together and sellotape them. Doesn't make it the best way to do things, though.

Then they are fools. I'd expect better of people reading here.

You might want to consider the '4 into 1' multi way mains connector that Micromark sell (or used to sell - you can still get them via ebay etc). They look like a white wall-wart and plug into a single socket; but you can wire four individual mains cables into it.

They would obviously be a pain for equipment which you might want to plug/unplug individually. But for something like an A/V system they can be used to minimise the number of sockets you need.

The Micromark part no. is MM5367; they are sometimes branded differently.

HTH J^n

The studio ones may use Speakons, but the home ones will almost certainly use binding posts. But that is a small subset of what most people would consider to be "pro" audio gear.

True pros? Please define. Is there a magic standard which, if you reach it, makes someone a pro in your eyes? And would you consider someone running a successful sound based business using a PA package as an amateur?

Sometimes, good enough is okay, and using 1/4" jacks for speakers instead of Speakons means one set of spare cables you don't need to carry.

Which is quite dismissive of people outside the audio industry, some of whom ask for help here, as the OP has.