8
CABLE PREPARATION
You will need several cables for this installation. None of the cables or connectors
mentioned in this section are included with the system.
Important Safety Note! If you plan on running any of these cables through the walls,
through a connecting floor, or inside an air duct, they should be rated for In-Wall, Riser
(between floors), or Plenum (air duct) use in commercial installations. For residential
installations, an In-Wall rating is sufficient for all circumstances. Using unrated or
improperly rated cables could accelerate the spread of any fire and could nullify insurance
claims.
Speaker Wires
You will need eight speaker wires to connect each speaker to the amplifier. The size (AWG)
of wire you choose depends on the distance from the amplifier to the speakers, the
speaker impedance, and the physical limits of the terminals at each end.
Other than saving a few pennies of cost or grams of weight per foot, there is no reason to
use anything other than the thickest wire possible. This amplifier uses 5-way binding post
connectors, which can accept bare wire, spade lugs, banana plugs, and pin plugs. For
anything other than extremely short speaker wire runs, you should use at least 14AWG
wire, but preferably 12AWG or 10AWG, depending on which gauges your speakers can
accept.
Whichever speaker wire you get, make sure that it has marks to identify one conductor
from another. Most speaker wire uses a colored stripe to identify one of the conductors.
The identified conductor is usually used for the positive (+/red) connection and the other
for the negative (-/black) side.
XLR Cables
You will need eight XLR cables to connect the preamp outputs on your preamplifier to the
inputs on this amplifier. If your preamp has RCA outputs, instead of XLR, you can use an
RCA to XLR cable to make the connections, such as PID 4777.
