Can I connect cables like this?

[alsmi]

Hi!

I have two cables Van den Hul Clearwater, and I would like to make one long cable out of two. Is there a right way of doing so? I have soldered those together as shown on the picture.
https://postimg.org/image/mkr6vnx45/

Will this give me the same great sound quality or not? If not, can I still use this soldered cable without damaging the speakers and the receiver? I am asking because they stopped selling this type of cable in my country, and I have a long cable for one speaker and two short ones.

I have heard that using different cables for different speakers isn't optimal. If I replace the whole cable for both speakers, it will be expensive (long cable to one of the speakers). So, if the solution on the picture is not optimal, I will order this cable from abroad. But while I am waiting - is this solution safe to use? Thanks!

 

[macdiddy]

as the picture supplied isn't too clear, so you have one long and two short lengths of this speaker cable and you want to join the two short ones together to make another long one, thats seems fine to me as long as you match positve to positive and negative to negative and make sure there are no stray strands of wire visable once soldered, use some insulating tape over the joins.

Don't worry about things like sound quality, damaging the amp or speakers etc as long as you are carefull there should be no problems.

*music2*

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Purists and anoraks will shudder at the very thought of joining speaker cables with solder.

If you do, I'd be sure to use silver solder (not cheap lead - or lead sustitute these days - tin alloys) and make sure you've got a soldering iron that's capable of providing enough heat for the cable thicknesses involved. Most are really only sized for soldering resistors and the like to circuit boards. If you don't have enough heat you'll end up with what is called a "dry joint", which is basically where the underlying metal didn't get hot enough to fuse with the solder.

Try it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If it works, great. If it doesn't, all you've lost is an inch or two off of (already too short) speaker cables.

To insulate after soldering I would use poly-ole-something-or-other heat shrink - probably available in assorted sizes and colours from Maplin. It's plastic tube that, drum roll, shrinks when you heat it. Slip it on the wires before you solder them up and keep them well away from the hot areas. After soldering, let the joint cool fully, then slide the heat shrink down the wires and over the uninsulated areas. Use a cigarette lighter to heat it and, erm, shrink it after you've tested the joints. Then cover the entire splice with another, larger piece of heat shrink applied in much the same way over the outer jacket iinsulation.

 

[MajorFubar]

Alternatively you could have used a terminal block. Though some people have concerns about the screws becoming loose over time and breaking the connection. Some people are just weird though and presumably believe there are fairies somewhere whose job it is to unscrew all the world's terminal blocks when we aren't looking.

 

[pauln]

If It were me, I'd use crimps and heat shrink.

Much better than soldering, which is not really the way to do it, as pointed out above and a lot neater than choc block.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Alternatively you could have used a terminal block. Though some people have concerns about the screws becoming loose over time and breaking the connection. Some people are just weird though and presumably believe there are fairies somewhere whose job it is to unscrew all the world's terminal blocks when we aren't looking.

Actually it's the mice.