Thanks, much appreciated.

Much appreciated!

Heh, good luck with that! Thanks.

LOL

Thank you!

Glad you enjoyed it!

My pleasure!

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks!

That is only relevant for very high frequency, like radio frequency, for audio frequency this do not matter, sorry. The same goes for skin effect, for audio frequency, the voltage, current and wire size present, this do not matter. Both skin effect and the fact that higher frequency goes better in stranded wire is true, but it doesn't matter when we are dealing with audio frequency.

1000ft is a good run, it's going to require some copper if you don't want to lose much power, even at 70 volts. I'd suggest 16 gauge wire, which equates to about 10% power loss in the wire for 1000ft @ 70v. You could do 18ga, for about 20% power loss on the run. Thicker is always better, and more costly.

Happy to help. If you just need to do voice announcements throughout the facility, and it's a single zone, I would just hang paging horns similar to what I recommend below that include 70 volt input, and drive them with a simple paging amplifier that provides 70 volt audio output. Let me know your requirements, and I'll help best I can. JBL Professional CSS-H30 Horn amzn.to/3TDYRii Bogen 100-Watt Public Address Amplifier amzn.to/3PG9iRl

Yes, those higher voltage distribution systems are not intended to provide audiophile level listening experience. But oftentimes the fidelity is perfectly adequate for casual listening.

I'd prefer to see a setup where you have amplifiers closer to the speakers and run balanced line-level audio, or a 70v (or 25v) distributed system. But, will 120 feet of 12 gauge wire work? Sure, and since these are ceiling speakers and (I suspect) it's not a real critical listening situation, and we don't care about losing a little teeny bit of power in the wire, I think you'll be just fine.

Sure, that'll work -- but maybe overkill for shorter runs.

Thanks for watching! The wire's resistance increases with length, so you need thicker wires for longer runs to preserve the same performance. To keep it simple, I would say 18 gauge wire would be plenty sufficient for any runs 20 feet or less in typical home audio. If you're a serious audiophile doing critical listening, at higher power levels, and want the very best bass transient response I'd reach for as large of cables as practical - like 10 or 12 gauge. This is all a matter of audio fidelity performance and power loss in the wire. You could use super thin wires, like 24 gauge and your speakers will work, nothing will be damaged, but you'll compromise some sound quality.

I wouldn't expect them to use power amplifiers to drive powered speakers. So, I would presume those amplifiers are for other speakers, or perhaps it's a result of legacy stuff that has been upgraded over time. Hard to say without investigating what they did.

@@Barry-Watson the club has closed down now, they definitely had a room full of amplifiers that were flashing their clip lights while the music was on, so they were still connected to something But when you went upstairs, you could see the power lights on the back of the hanging line array speakers They had three podiums you could dance on, and they said there was banks of 18" subwoofers inside those podiums, inside bandpass boxes, but i would imagine they would run off more than 100 watt amplifiers I wouldn't have imagined they would have banked all those amplifiers together either, surely connecting one amplifier output to another amplifiers output would blow the amplifiers up wouldn't it? All the line splitters in the room were powered up and flashing the peak/clip lights too They wouldn't leave a complete room full of amplifiers on for nothing surely? Maybe they ran to smaller speakers around the building? I know there were speakers in the toilet ceilings, horn speakers outside in the queueing area, speakers in the lobby ceiling, and a few back rooms and vip rooms, maybe those amplifiers were for that? But there seemed to be too many amplifiers for such a small amount of ceiling speakers you could count Unless they had hidden speakers all over the place, inside statues and behind decorations? They said the club ran 30,000 watts, but id have said the amount of amplifiers in that room would equate to hundreds of thousands of watts, there was literally racks of 100 watt amplifiers stacked about 20 high, and the room was full all down one wall which was around 60 feet long, lots and lots of small amplifiers In fact is was probably more than i think in there, because there was about 8 to 10 amplifers in a stack, then a line splitter, and possibly a power distribution unit, or power conditioner, then another stack of about 8 to 10 amplifiers on top of that, and another set of line splitter and power conditioner The amplifier room was the only place in the entire club that was air conditioned too, it was like walking into a reefer first thing on a night, then it got up to about room temperature half way through the night, and stayed that temperature Very strange setup

For the main house speakers that are driving the dance floor, I would expect to see amplifiers larger than 100 watts. I would presume amplifiers of that size are probably driving speakers that are outside of the building, or other zones where you don't need extreme volume. They may be using a good number of amplifiers, so they can have multiple zones that are independently controlled. Of course, without looking at how the system is actually set up I can only speculate.

@@Barry-Watson i think your right, our assumptions are very similar There is another cherry on top, I'm not certain if they had a vibrating dance floor or not, the floor did vibrate somewhat, but im not sure if that was due to all the subwoofers around it, or whether it was down to the floor being mounted on drivers, maybe that could be another reason they had so many 100 watt amplifiers, it was hard to tell because i was a medic working there, and always had thick rubber boots on The dance floor was raised somewhat from the surrounding floor, there was say a 6 inch step up to it, and it did seem like it was floating The venue was called isis nightclub in Nottingham, uk, formerly known as the black orchid Its closed down now, and inside has been almost demolished by copper cable looters, and vandals, so it would be difficult to say exactly what they had that amplifier room for, unless i bump into someone that worked there whilst they were all fitted

The wire length isn't extremely long, so I think 18 gauge would probably work fine. Larger wire is always a little better, so I would choose 14 or 16 gauge if the wire size isn't an issue and it's convenient. Thicker than 14 gauge seems overkill to me, unless you're building a really high-powered competition system.

@@Barry-Watson thank you sir

Depends upon the situation, I explain in detail in the video.

I'd go for ofc (oxy free copper) over cca (copper clad aluminum), and I'd take 12ga (larger) over 14ga. So, for me the 12 gauge ofc wins. Now, if the gauges were reversed 12cca vs 14ofc they should be pretty comparable in terms of resistance and be about equal choices - but I'd still lean toward the copper wire (ofc) over the aluminum cored wire. Of course, either wire will pass signal. Rock on!

For example in house wiring if you use no:8 aluminum it can be replaced with the better option and that's no:10 copper good for 30 amps. Aluminum is always a poor choice it can expand and contract causing loose connections. Copper should always be the first choice.

Take the wattage and divided by the voltage for wire size. Car volts 12 vs American house voltage 110 bolts or actually around 116 to 119 volts. That's why they can use smaller wire size. 119 watts is only 1 amp at 119 volts. Same thing for car at 12 volts is almost 10 amps. Big difference. 240 watts car auto is no: 12 wire. 480 watts car auto no: 8 copper. 480 watts home audio the voltage will be higher and less amps smaller wire size.

That's a short little run of cable, so I don't think you need any really massive wire. I'd probably reach for some 14 or 16 gauge stranded copper wire. I'd use whatever is handy, but I wouldn't go smaller than 18 gauge. I'm assuming these are typical home hi-fi speakers, or PA speakers.

Some manufacturers will use thin(er) wire inside of the box, not my preference, but keep in mind that the wire length inside the box is very short so they can get away with it.

With active speakers you're just sending a signal down the cable, but you don't have to carry high power which requires a thick cable capable of carrying a lot of current. If you use pro-sound, balanced 3-wire connections to drive your active speakers, with quality signal/mic cable you can run long lengths (more than 100ft) without significant signal degradation.