speaker wire for center channel running along top of TV... isn't that bad? (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Meininger]

If the center channel speaker is shielded, it can sit on top of your TV without distorting the picture. But isn't the huge amount of magnetic radiation coming from the TV going to affect the quality of the sound since the speaker wire leading to the center channel is unshielded? Am I missing something here?

Thanks...
-Jeff

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Speaker wires don’t generate “magnetic radiation,” Jeff. Hold a piece of steel next to one and you can see for yourself.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Mark Larson]

Speaker wires don’t generate “magnetic radiation,” Jeff. Hold a piece of steel next to one and you can see for yourself.

Actually, Wayne, Jeff is talking about the radiation FROM the TV affecting the sound due to interfering with the unshielded wire - have i understood you correctly, Jeff? regarding your concerns about interference, i think it is negligible - wires are exposed to tons of radiation every day, but it doesn't affect the sound too much - where it can affect is when it is from the source - unshielded interconnects and cables.
Thus, i don't think it affects the sound to a noticeable degree...
Hope that answers your question!
Mark

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Actually, Wayne, Jeff is talking about the radiation FROM the TV affecting the sound due to interfering with the unshielded wire...

Oops! Should have paid better attention in that speed reading class... :b

Jeff,

Mark is right. Speaker-level signals are high-level signals and are generally immune to such interference. If they were, they would be shielded like signal cables.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Cees Alons]

Speaker-level signals are high-level signals and are generally immune to such interference.

Exactly. Don't forget the wires are connected to a very low impedance (< 10 Ohms), so any induced voltage is shortcut (it takes a power amp to have any audible effect!). And also, the radiation will equally go to the positive and negative wire, so it will even cancel itself out (just like in unshielded twisted pair - UTP - wire).

Cees

 

[Jeff Meininger]

thanks for the info, everyone!

 

[Blake R]

A television picture tube can generate substantial electric and magnetic field intensities. You have to keep in mind that the plates around the electron guns are charged to thousands of volts some as high 15 kV. The "E" fields are usually much higher than the "H" fields but it is possible for "coupling" to occur. Someone noted earlier that this(center channel)is a high level signal and as such has greater immunity to this effect. This is true. My concern would be distortion of TV picture, not corruption of the center channel signal. If your eyes and ears detect no problems, I would not worry about it.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

My concern would be distortion of TV picture, not corruption of the center channel signal.

From the speaker wire??

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[ken thompson]

IT seems there have been threads a while back about the wires being wadded up in a rats nest on the floor having an effect on sound. Everyone kept saying that the wires should all run parallel to each other. Why is this different?

 

[Cees Alons]

The wires should run in parallel: the two wires involved, and they almost always do because they're probably glued together. I'm now talking about the pair of wires to 1 speaker, of course . BTW, that's why the effect on another field (like the TV tube) may be negligible.
The "rat's nest" situation referred to a pair of wires to one of the speaker being too long and the surplus being wound to a bush to cope with that. It was advised against. Correctly: it's best to keep the speaker wires as short as reasonably possible (even if that would make them all different in length).
Cees