4 core and 2 core speakon cables (Me in a new venue)

[iainutron]

Is there a standard?

Should there be compatibilty?

 

With 2 core cable I have

 

2 Amps set to stereo and can run one sub channel and three spot effects speakers for example.

 

With 4 core I have to have

 

1 amp set to stereo and can run 2 spot effect speakers

1 Amp set to bridge mono for one sub channel. The sub will only work with 4 core in this mode but will work fine with 2 core in the other mode.

 

I see no advantage apart from more sub power using both sides of the Amp.

 

The building appears to have 4 core installed.

 

I have seen 4 core used to go direct to a sub then onwards as 2 core to a mid.

I have also seen it used as a multi for monitors and patching thru monitors.

 

Some clarity would be useful. Thanks all

[fogg]

4 core speakon cabe is often used for biamping. For example you have a cab where you drive the mid and the high from seperate amplifiers. Pins +1 and -1 would be used to power the midrange driver, and +2 and -2 would be used to power the high end. You can pretty much wirte it how you like, sometimes like you said a 4 core cable is used in a bridge situation where alot of power is being shoved down the cable. Hope this helps a bit!

[Rob_Beech]

Hi

Fogg is on the right lines but I shall expand a bit further, knowing me probably alot further.

 

As you said yourself 4 core is normally used for bi-amp purposes, it saves running multiple speaker leads to your main stacks when one will do. It is most commonly found (in the biamp scenario) for powering subs and mid/tops, with the mid/top speakers having an internal passive crossover. In this case you'll normally find pins 1+/1- are from the amplifier channel and go to the sub, pins 2+/2- go to the mid top. You would normally be expected to make a prewired panel or patchbay on the amplifier rack to make this easier. This can also go to a larger scale where 6 or 8 core cable is used. A common example I like to give is with my Martin W8 setup which is 4 way. Using NL8 speakon connectors and 8 core cable I can power all 4 bands (sub low mid high mid hi) from 4 amplifiers, using 1 8 core cable per side and then links between cabinets.

I am also building a multiway monitor setup. Again using NL8 and 8 core cable, where by I can have 1 cable going to a splitter box with 4 speakons out to give me 4 monitor mixes. (and a second one for 4 more to the back of the stage).

 

Some manufacturers will wire 1+/1- for the HF and 2+/2- for the MF on an active cabinet, This is frowned upon as pluging in the wrong lead with just 1+/1- connected will send frequencies to the HF driver that are out of its range and could easily damage the driver. its therefore important to select the right cable for the job.

 

Using 2 cores out of a cable for the same signal to effectively increase the cable thickness will work, but is again sometimes frowned upon as this means bespoke cables in most situations. Wherever possible its best to keep most cables wired normally and wire racks and stacks accordingly, that way another cable can be used incase of failure.

 

Additionally, if you have ALOT of power to a low impedance through a 2.5mm cable this will increase the impedance somewhat (particularly over long cable runs). If you use 2 cores from the cable you can reduce this problem, but if one cable fails you will be unaware of this and your system can be severely restricted.

 

Whilst this is not life threatening for speaker connections, this should NEVER be done with mains cables, if one cable breaks the circuit remains live but running on a cable half the thickness, this can overheat and cause fire.

 

Back on topic now.

 

To answer the first part of your question. there is no standard to wiring things up with multicore speaker cable. But as mention above, its normal to try to keep the cables wired normally (1+ - 1+ 1- - 1- etc) and do any patching within boxes and racks. You will have to have a look yourself or ask someone for a wiring diagram of the system in the building you speak of. If there is no wiring diagram and you need to be working with thie equipment regularly, it may be worth you working it out and making one yourself.

 

Every bespoke piece of wiring within my hire stock has a wiring diagram. So when I get fed up and move to the moon and leave my gear with someone else, they'll know how it all works.

 

 

Rob

[paulears]

From bitter experience, if you use speakons, and have even one set of bi-amped kit, then make sure all your speakon cables use 4 core! It is a real pain to wire things up and then find things don't work because you used a cable that was only 2 core, not 4. Happens to me all the time. I must remember to put that stripe of tape on those idiot 2 core ones (I tell myself, every time).

 

The only real problem, and it's quite small really, is when you make the cables up, you put one end on and the four cables are in the correct lay to make a neat connection. At the other end they are in the wrong order, meaning you have to have a little more exposed and they need to cross inside the plug. To do it properly you need to heatshrink the end, otherwise, the sheath tends to pop out of the grip, putting stress on the terminals. The trouble is that the heat shrink also prevents you easily repairing the ends when they come loose - which always seems to happen with chunkier cabling as the strands compress.

[iainutron]

Thanks all

 

More investigation required I think.

[Ian Cunningham]

From bitter experience, if you use speakons, and have even one set of bi-amped kit, then make sure all your speakon cables use 4 core! It is a real pain to wire things up and then find things don't work because you used a cable that was only 2 core, not 4. Happens to me all the time. I must remember to put that stripe of tape on those idiot 2 core ones (I tell myself, every time).

 

I feel your pain!

 

The way I got round this was to use NL2 connectors on any 2-core cables and keep NL4s for the 4-core. Also has the bonus of cheaper connectors.

Makes for a very easy visual check rather than reading details off the cable

 

Ian

[charlie wilson]

This is very interesting, I currently have the FBT Verve 152 speakers accompanied by the FBT Verve 15" bass bins and I'm running 2 X Crown XTI4000 amplifiers. I am currently running for speaker leads and it's a nightmare! are you saying I can do it another way? and just run two leads.

[StevenW2]

Something else we have noticed, which is why we are going over to 4-core for everything - The 4 core coils better with repeated use, especially in cold weather outdoors!

[Rexeltw]

We stopped buying 2 core speaker cabling a couple of years ago. Now we only have two sorts of speakon cable; 4x 1.5mm which is fine for most bi-amp wedges and mid-high speakers and 4x 4mm for subs etc (does work on wedges too!). Save a huge amount of problems.

 

The previous company I worked for used quadcore speakon as well as 2 core speakon wired to pin 2 AND 2 core speakon wired to pin 1. Result was a complete nightmare and making sure you had a couple of pin 2 to pin 1 convertors in your show box.

 

Biamp with quadcore speaker cabling is a godsend on small shows; 4kW systems that only need two longish speakon and two links virtually patch themselves!

[drsound]

From bitter experience, if you use speakons, and have even one set of bi-amped kit, then make sure all your speakon cables use 4 core! It is a real pain to wire things up and then find things don't work because you used a cable that was only 2 core, not 4. Happens to me all the time. I must remember to put that stripe of tape on those idiot 2 core ones (I tell myself, every time).

 

I feel your pain!

 

The way I got round this was to use NL2 connectors on any 2-core cables and keep NL4s for the 4-core. Also has the bonus of cheaper connectors.

Makes for a very easy visual check rather than reading details off the cable

 

Ian

This is a good way to go as it's an easy visual indication. We did that and went one step further and use different colours of cable - grey for 2 core and black for 4 core. Still people manage to mess it up on dry hire... :D

 

Now, a downside to using four core cable on a single speaker is that some power amps (quite a lot of new models it would seem) put channel 1 onto 1+/1- and channel 2 onto 2+/2- of one of the speakons to help with bi-amping. This means that you can stick a nice NL4 into the back and then run it to your passive speaker that is expecting a signal on 1+/1-. It could however also have pins 2+/2- wired to something and you get a signal there you really didn't expect to get. It's not entirely unknown for cheap chinese boxes to wire 1+ to 2+ and 1- to 2- for a reason probably best left alone.

[MarkPAman]

It's not entirely unknown for cheap chinese boxes to wire 1+ to 2+ and 1- to 2- for a reason probably best left alone.

 

Or not so cheap American ones for that matter :D

 

(Peavey made some cabs wired something like that once upon a time, though I'm sure they've sorted it now.)

[Rob_Beech]

This is very interesting, I currently have the FBT Verve 152 speakers accompanied by the FBT Verve 15" bass bins and I'm running 2 X Crown XTI4000 amplifiers. I am currently running for speaker leads and it's a nightmare! are you saying I can do it another way? and just run two leads.

 

Potentially.

 

The XTI4000 has both channels on output 1 of the amp. This means that if you were to use 4 core speaker cable you could send both channels signals down 1 cable without having to make adaptors from 2 speakons to 1. Alot of amps do this including budget offerings like the EP2500.

Now, whether or not you can benefit from this will depend upon your speakers. We need to know if all 4 pins are connected in parallel on the back of the subs and/or tops. If they are, then you need to program your amps so that the top is on channel 1 and the sub on channel 2. This gives you 1 amp for left and 1 amp for right balancing the load on the PSU's on the amps which are not the largest in the world. If they're not, more work has to be done.

 

You need 2 4 core leads to go from the amp to the top cab, and 2 shorter link leads (4 core) to go from the top to the sub. On the short link leads connect pins 2+/- on one end to 1+/- on the other and the other way around. You COULD use 2 core for this but the lead would only work 1 way and gives no redundancy for failure so it's easier to just use 4 core.

 

So why top first? Smaller gigs you might only take the top cabs in, so you do everything exactly the same, only you don't link out.

 

 

Want to go a step further? If you have more than 1 top and sub per side you need straight links and cross links, so they MUST be MARKED UP as what they are of you'll get mixed up. As long as each time you move from cab to cab you transfer both LF and HF signals you'll be fine. Connect top to top to (crosslink) sub to sub etc.

 

You could even rack your amps up separately and with the aid of a longer XLR save on long speaker cable runs. just tape a bit of 2.5mm power cableto some mic cable and put it on a reel. You could keep your speaker lead length down to a few metres.

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

It's not entirely unknown for cheap chinese boxes to wire 1+ to 2+ and 1- to 2- for a reason probably best left alone.

 

And most of the Martin Wavefront range, though some of these are NL8 but the same principle applies.

 

Also not cheap chinese boxes, the reasons left alone is down to current capacity and limits amongst other things. This is less true in the cheap chinese boxes of course.

[Yorkie]

I'm planning to put a bit of red heatshrink around each end of any two core Speakon cables I make up, thus denoting them 2 core.

[ChazHS]

I'm planning to put a bit of red heatshrink around each end of any two core Speakon cables I make up, thus denoting them 2 core.

 

I flogged most of my 2 core cables when I decided to go 4 core, I've got a few with the speakons removed for internal patching in racks etc now but thats about it! =)

[TimmyP1955]

The only real problem, and it's quite small really, is when you make the cables up, you put one end on and the four cables are in the correct lay to make a neat connection. At the other end they are in the wrong order, meaning you have to have a little more exposed and they need to cross inside the plug. To do it properly you need to heatshrink the end, otherwise, the sheath tends to pop out of the grip, putting stress on the terminals.

 

Nope. All you do is pull the sheath (outer jacket) back an inch or two, cut the conductors an inch shorter, terminate, push the sheath back toward the connector, and tighten the strain relief. My cables are going on 7 years old, and I've never had a sheath back out.