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would 50 feet speaker wires be harmful to amp?

I am considering using my amps to drive my second set up on another floor of my house. Both my primary and second set up requires bi-amps and for now I would like to hold off investing in another amp.

I was thinking of just running 50' speaker wires to my second set up to drive my celestion sl6000 speakers there. My amps are Ampzilla 2000 MK2 and Mccormick DNA500.

Since I'll only be listening to one set up at a time anyway, I would just connect for the room I'll be listening in. I play my music off my computer server mostly these days and that is network driven to my PS PWD DAC which I can control from any room in the house.

My concern is with such lengths of speaker wire, would the inductance/capacitance add up to a level that could be harmful to my amps. Given the lengths of speaker wire, I'm incline to go with basic speaker wires to manage cost in that area as well.

I also have a pair of VTL MB450 which I may switch in as well. If SS amps can handle such lengths of speaker wire, would tube amps be the same?

Thoughts on this anyone?

Gerald
geraldedison
geraldedison OP
36 posts
 
Al,

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. I especially appreciate the note from Stereophile on the Celestion speakers.

Thanks to the other folks on their comments and sharing as well.

I will be careful with speaker wire selection and will focus on low gauge wires for the task.

Gerald
mitch4t's avatar
mitch4t
1,611 posts
 
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I've had 50ft runs with no problems for years. Use 10 or 12 gauge and you'll be fine.
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csontos
1,311 posts
 
Pssst, (8awg.) SHHHHHH
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hk_fan
474 posts
 
The impedance swings of your speaker is much more challenging to your amplifier than any additional loss that a cable may add.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,849 posts
 
I think you will find that in running cable lengths that long that you will loose a lot of definition!

Things like vocals will be harder to discern; details will be smeared and lost.

There is more to speaker cable than just resistance and capacitance numbers. Cables also have something called Characteristic Impedance (normally thought to only be a phenomena of RF transmission lines). No speaker can perfectly match the CI of a particular cable; this results in a loss of definition due to time delay issues (smearing). Normally in short cables this is not a big problem but does account for some of the differences we hear in cables, but when you run a speaker cable that long these effects are magnified.

If you are just looking for background music it will work fine.
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