Hi I have just bought some mission mx3 and a mission centre speaker and was planning to use 12 gauge cable to replace to rubbish supplied with my onkyo htr538 I'm assuming standard bannana plugs speaker end but but am struggling at amp as two fronts have binding posts and surround speakers have little push terminals which are to small for cable
Connection issues
Originally Posted by andy173:
“Hi I have just bought some mission mx3 and a mission centre speaker and was planning to use 12 gauge cable to replace to rubbish supplied with my onkyo htr538 I'm assuming standard bannana plugs speaker end but but am struggling at amp as two fronts have binding posts and surround speakers have little push terminals which are to small for cable”
“Hi I have just bought some mission mx3 and a mission centre speaker and was planning to use 12 gauge cable to replace to rubbish supplied with my onkyo htr538 I'm assuming standard bannana plugs speaker end but but am struggling at amp as two fronts have binding posts and surround speakers have little push terminals which are to small for cable”
Then don't use such silly thick cable
If you look at the thickness of the cable (actually wire rather than cable) inside the speakers, you'll see why you're wasting your time. It's also really only a concern for bass speakers, not for mid-high units.
But I've bought 15 mtrs of it and it looks cool tried some 2mm pin terminals but they don't go in fully and flop about 
You could solder a bit of thinner wire on the end of the thick stuff,otherwise if you can't solder it's choc block time! If it is stranded just use a few of the strands. I would be surprised if the thicker wire had any effect on the sound from the surround speakers as they probably carry very little bass. It would be easier to stick with the original cables where you have problems. Does the centre front speaker have spring clips as well, if so use the original cable for that as well. How is the sub connected?
If we presume your layout isn't completely bizarre (e.g. fronts on 1m each and centre on a 13m run), and we know it's only the centre where you have push-in connections and you're unlikely to be running more than 5m of cable on the centre.... Then let's look at the power loss through 5m of pure copper cable (not CCA) for an amp rated at 6-16 Ohm output impedance and a centre speaker with an 8 Ohm impedance.
Even at full power, 5m of 12 gauge will lose about 1.3% of the power. That's not significant.
Now lets look at what happens with thinner gauge cable. 14 gauge = 2% loss. 16 gauge = 3% loss.
12 gauge has a cross sectional area of roughly 3.3 square millimetres. 16 gauge has a cross-section area of about 1.3 square millimetres; in other words it's 60% smaller, but the difference in power transmission is only 1.7% less. So for relatively short lengths of cable then the cross sectional area isn't a significant factor in power loss.
Here's how you overcome your problem...
Trim down the thickness of the cable until it fits the Onkyo push-in speaker terminals. Even if you get down to 1 square mil you'll never notice the difference because it's still less than 1/5th of a dB. When you start getting over 20m that's when you'll need something thicker than 2.5mm/13 gauge.
Even at full power, 5m of 12 gauge will lose about 1.3% of the power. That's not significant.
Now lets look at what happens with thinner gauge cable. 14 gauge = 2% loss. 16 gauge = 3% loss.
12 gauge has a cross sectional area of roughly 3.3 square millimetres. 16 gauge has a cross-section area of about 1.3 square millimetres; in other words it's 60% smaller, but the difference in power transmission is only 1.7% less. So for relatively short lengths of cable then the cross sectional area isn't a significant factor in power loss.
Here's how you overcome your problem...
Trim down the thickness of the cable until it fits the Onkyo push-in speaker terminals. Even if you get down to 1 square mil you'll never notice the difference because it's still less than 1/5th of a dB. When you start getting over 20m that's when you'll need something thicker than 2.5mm/13 gauge.
I just hope you didn't buy 15m of this stuff
http://www.audioemotion.co.uk/audioq...ble-7687-p.asp
I strongly advise being seated and not having any drink near your gob when you look at the price, especially when you select 15m from the drop down list
http://www.audioemotion.co.uk/audioq...ble-7687-p.asp
I strongly advise being seated and not having any drink near your gob when you look at the price, especially when you select 15m from the drop down list
Well I've now installed these and I'm a bit disappointed to be honest maybe I've done something wrong slightly confused with having four connections on the mx3s I seem to get a lot of distortion at reasonable high volume
Originally Posted by andy173:
“Well I've now installed these and I'm a bit disappointed to be honest maybe I've done something wrong slightly confused with having four connections on the mx3s I seem to get a lot of distortion at reasonable high volume”
“Well I've now installed these and I'm a bit disappointed to be honest maybe I've done something wrong slightly confused with having four connections on the mx3s I seem to get a lot of distortion at reasonable high volume”
How have you bi-wired them?, and what are you using for an electronic crossover?.
I suspect you should only be using two wires, and the speakers internal crossovers?.
Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin:
“How have you bi-wired them?, and what are you using for an electronic crossover?.
I suspect you should only be using two wires, and the speakers internal crossovers?.”
“How have you bi-wired them?, and what are you using for an electronic crossover?.
I suspect you should only be using two wires, and the speakers internal crossovers?.”
Couldn't track down a manual on the Mission website, just kept going round in circles! But found this
http://www.hifigear.co.uk/media/uplo...0MX_Manual.PDF
This shows various connection methods for the MX3 speakers. It seems that it should have a couple of shorting links that connect the two -ve and two +ve terminals together for a simple single pair wiring setup. It also shows two bi-wire methods. One where the two pairs of wires are connected to the same amplifier output and one where there are separate LF and HF terminals on the amplifier. See the diagrams on page 4.
If the shorting links are in place then can't see any point bi-wiring the speakers. One has to hope that the OP hasn't done something silly like having the shorting links in place and bi-wire the speakers to two separate outputs on the amp!
no im not trying to bi wire them im a bit dissapointed with the sound also seem to have no sound from rear speakers even tho speakers a /b is set correctly the center speaker sounds decent tho
Had a quick glance at the manual
http://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/...5_manual_e.pdf
a few things spring to mind. On my Onkyo you can tell it what speakers you have connected, if any, to each set of terminals. That means, None, Small or Large. None should be obvious. Small rolls off the bass end a lot more than Large.
So first thing I would check is what the settings are for each speaker. See the Advanced Setup section of the manual for details. There is also a level calibration option in the settings. This sends a test tone to each speaker in turn which allows you to equalise the volume of all the speakers and also test they are actually working!
The next thing to check is that you are not using a stereo mode which may well mute the rear speakers. And finally check the A/B speaker mode A only should be on for full 5.1 operation.
Once you have the speaker set-up sorted experiment with some of the sound settings. I found with my Onkyo amp that some of the room eq settings could make it sound pretty naff. My amp has an auto calibration mode that uses a plug in mic to set up the speakers itself, not sure if yours has this option? But I found I still had to tweak it to make it sound decent.
Also some of the options for things like Dolby ProLogic can affect the sound quality. On my amp it has settings for Movie and Music and I found the Movie options sounded really poor compared to the Music options for example.
Trouble is there are so many tweaks on the thing that it is relatively easy to get it all screwed up! Takes some perseverance to go through all the various settings and get it sounding right.
http://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/...5_manual_e.pdf
a few things spring to mind. On my Onkyo you can tell it what speakers you have connected, if any, to each set of terminals. That means, None, Small or Large. None should be obvious. Small rolls off the bass end a lot more than Large.
So first thing I would check is what the settings are for each speaker. See the Advanced Setup section of the manual for details. There is also a level calibration option in the settings. This sends a test tone to each speaker in turn which allows you to equalise the volume of all the speakers and also test they are actually working!
The next thing to check is that you are not using a stereo mode which may well mute the rear speakers. And finally check the A/B speaker mode A only should be on for full 5.1 operation.
Once you have the speaker set-up sorted experiment with some of the sound settings. I found with my Onkyo amp that some of the room eq settings could make it sound pretty naff. My amp has an auto calibration mode that uses a plug in mic to set up the speakers itself, not sure if yours has this option? But I found I still had to tweak it to make it sound decent.
Also some of the options for things like Dolby ProLogic can affect the sound quality. On my amp it has settings for Movie and Music and I found the Movie options sounded really poor compared to the Music options for example.
Trouble is there are so many tweaks on the thing that it is relatively easy to get it all screwed up! Takes some perseverance to go through all the various settings and get it sounding right.
Originally Posted by andy173:
“no im not trying to bi wire them im a bit dissapointed with the sound also seem to have no sound from rear speakers even tho speakers a /b is set correctly the center speaker sounds decent tho”
“no im not trying to bi wire them im a bit dissapointed with the sound also seem to have no sound from rear speakers even tho speakers a /b is set correctly the center speaker sounds decent tho”
Deleted
The two double-wiring methods you describe are fundamentally different. You have bi-wiring (one amp terminal connects to the HF and LF connections) and then there's bi-amping where the amphas a set of HF terminals separate to the LF terminals.
In most cases bi-wiring is a waste of time. All that it does effectly is to move the speaker shorting links from the rear of the speaker to the rear of the amp.... Thats it. In the process rhough ot introduces a load of extre cable between the amp and speakers which is a nice little profit booster for the cable manufacturers and resellers. Bi-wiring is often accompanied by a sort of disjointed sound resulting from a change in the way that the tweeter and woofer integrate because of the difference in the way that the source signal comes in to the crossover. People often mistake 'different' for better, but that's no real suprise.
Bi-amping on the other hand does have lots of benefits with the right sort of gear.
I'd recommend you put the shorting links back in and feed the speakers with single cable. Budget AV receivers promise high power outputs but it is smoke and mirrors. That's even more the case with those receivers now using digital (switch-mode) amplification. Concentrate instead on string up the system correctly: solid speaker supports, correct positioning, accurate distance measurements (ditch the auto set-up wizards) and accurate sound levels between speakers (use a smart phone with a decibel meter app if you haven't got a sound meter of your own). This 'back-to-basics' approach will get your speakers working properly and keep your amp working within its perforce envelope.
In most cases bi-wiring is a waste of time. All that it does effectly is to move the speaker shorting links from the rear of the speaker to the rear of the amp.... Thats it. In the process rhough ot introduces a load of extre cable between the amp and speakers which is a nice little profit booster for the cable manufacturers and resellers. Bi-wiring is often accompanied by a sort of disjointed sound resulting from a change in the way that the tweeter and woofer integrate because of the difference in the way that the source signal comes in to the crossover. People often mistake 'different' for better, but that's no real suprise.
Bi-amping on the other hand does have lots of benefits with the right sort of gear.
I'd recommend you put the shorting links back in and feed the speakers with single cable. Budget AV receivers promise high power outputs but it is smoke and mirrors. That's even more the case with those receivers now using digital (switch-mode) amplification. Concentrate instead on string up the system correctly: solid speaker supports, correct positioning, accurate distance measurements (ditch the auto set-up wizards) and accurate sound levels between speakers (use a smart phone with a decibel meter app if you haven't got a sound meter of your own). This 'back-to-basics' approach will get your speakers working properly and keep your amp working within its perforce envelope.
