Wire gauge for DR250

Anything not covered elsewhere.
Post Reply
Message
Author
Jojo
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2014 4:25 pm

Wire gauge for DR250

#1 Post by Jojo »

How you all doing fellas.I need some help in choosing the right gauges of wire to run 100ft from amp to the DRs. They are the deltalite 2510 with Compression drivers bi-amped. Any help will be appreciated thank you..

Grant Bunter
Posts: 6912
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 11:12 am
Location: Ilfracombe Queensland Australia
Contact:

Re: Wire gauge for DR250

#2 Post by Grant Bunter »

Jojo wrote:How you all doing fellas.I need some help in choosing the right gauges of wire to run 100ft from amp to the DRs. They are the deltalite 2510 with Compression drivers bi-amped. Any help will be appreciated thank you..
G'day!
Good thanks lol.
How you doin?

Um, by and large, you shouldn't run 100 foot cables, it's usually quite avoidable for most modest sized rigs.
Amps placed in the centre of a stage (underneath the stage is better) cut the distance in half.

However, if you have a big rig and this is for delay stacks etc, understood.

Look at this page:
http://www.electrovoice.com/cableloss.php

Put in your variables (power correction factor, amp output, wire capacitance of the cable you intend to use etc) and change cable length from 100 feet to 50 feet, and wire gauge.
Take careful note of loss in watts that arrives at the speaker (and the reduction in dB of output).

You'll see you can have the same loss with lighter gauge wire over the shorter distance. Which costs you less.
The issue you're facing from 100 foot cables when running bi-amped is that it's quite difficult and expensive to get 4 core wire in 8 gauge for +1 -1 for mids and +2 -2 for HF on NL4's.

However, 50 foot lengths of 4 core 10 or 12 gauge is easier and cheaper to find...
Built:
DR 250: x 2 melded array, 2x CD horn, March 2012 plans.
T39's: 4 x 20" KL3010LF , 2 x 28" 3012LF.
WH8: x 6 with melded array wired series/parallel.
Bunter's Audio and Lighting "like"s would be most appreciated...

User avatar
J_Dunavin
Posts: 1273
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2006 3:13 pm
Location: Appleton WI
Contact:

Re: Wire gauge for DR250

#3 Post by J_Dunavin »

I use this :
http://store.haveinc.com/p-49380-canare ... g-cut.aspx
I also bi amp DR200s but not quite at 100ft.
This should be quite adequate.
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

User avatar
Bill Fitzmaurice
Site Admin
Posts: 28916
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 5:59 pm

Re: Wire gauge for DR250

#4 Post by Bill Fitzmaurice »

Grant Bunter wrote: Um, by and large, you shouldn't run 100 foot cables, it's usually quite avoidable for most modest sized rigs.
Amps placed in the centre of a stage (underneath the stage is better) cut the distance in half.
+1. That's why snakes have sends and receives. The receives are to take the signal from the stage mics and other sources, the sends to send the mixer output back to the amp rack on the stage. Using more than 50 foot speaker cable runs creates problems, but mic and line level signals are fine with even 200 foot runs.

Post Reply