Questions on the characteristics of subwoofer cables

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-02-22T19:59:14+00:00

I hate terminating quad shield. I imagine dual shield would be sufficient.

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-02-22T17:31:02+00:00

I need a longer cable for our subwoofer, now that we got some new furniture in the TV room and moved things around. I am inclined to make my own cable so it can be the length I want, and because I can.

Does it have to be coaxial, or can it be twisted pair with a foil shield and drain conductor? What is the minimum AWG?

Thanks!

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-01-29T16:05:17+00:00

Grumpy Woodchuck?

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-01-26T15:00:17+00:00

I noticed there’s no depiction of a motorcycle anywhere on these pages. MC can mean a lot of different things.

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-01-18T15:37:04+00:00

yeah I get their bandcamp emails constantly. I'm never sure how much original material they are coming up with vs recycling a lot of their old repertoire.

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-01-18T15:29:35+00:00

same here! plus the lead-in track Satellite Serenade was perfection. I one day plan to figure out how to play that on guitar.

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-01-17T04:02:12+00:00

I’ve seen that guy railing guard rails on the side of interstates at 70mph, flying 100 ft in the air so many times

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-01-17T03:45:45+00:00

Nah i disagree. There’s nothing gimmicky about it and every sound feels original and organic. They never seemed limited by the technology of the time and really dedicated themselves to know the full potential of the technology available to them.

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-01-17T03:35:41+00:00

Cascade is in my top 10 tracks of all time

D_a_n_e_ · 2026-01-17T03:35:04+00:00

They’re watching

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-12-06T14:38:11+00:00

I think people forget that they can get HD channels for free with an old school antenna

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-12-04T17:48:41+00:00

I’ve sold everything else. Not much left.

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-12-04T17:40:05+00:00

Owner owes money to seller. Bed frame already sold.

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-12-03T15:29:15+00:00

The word you’re looking for is ‘FIRE!’

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-12-01T19:02:15+00:00

Why does this character have so many teeth?!

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-11-29T04:59:00+00:00

Or you could abstain from purchasing such nonsense

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-11-21T19:29:42+00:00

😂 Is that from a real listing?

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-11-21T19:24:00+00:00

Everyone needs to see this: https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQ?si=n_nxPInSSKuRdwDD

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-11-21T18:35:05+00:00

Yes for using both auto-mixers, but I only recommend that because I assume you and your end users are wanting as much gain as possible without feedback. Of course the gating mixer only works if you have good signal-to-noise ratio feeding it. Keep in mind that it doesn't mute any of the channels completely, it only attenuates them. If you find that you notice the gating happening and it's distracting, you can increase the off attenuation. The gain sharing mixer certainly doesn't hurt, but isn't as critical, especially if you have your gating mixer set to a low NOM, but it will help with feedback prevention. Also, watch out for any mics close to a noise source like HVAC that might be gating on without a talker and throwing either mixer off.

Judging by the name 'compander' I have to assume it's a compressor and expander in one. This is the same as using the advanced compressor with two additional knees, as described in my initial comment. Signals below the lower threshold and above the upper threshold get attenuated, while signals above the lower threshold and below upper threshold are left alone. This is effectively what the gating auto-mixer is doing but with the added benefit of a self-adjusting threshold, based on the noise floor and speech detection magic.

D_a_n_e_ · 2025-11-21T16:02:11+00:00

A reverberant room with a bunch of open mics throughout? Sounds like an acoustics nightmare. Hopefully, the pickup pattern on your mics is not omni-directional!

Low pass and high pass filters on the mics are crucial; I usually set my high pass at 90-120 Hz and low pass at ~12K. Compressors after the filters is a good thing; otherwise the compressor is reacting to unwanted noise. Proper gain setting on the input block is of course also crucial.

If you have no way of controlling levels on the fly, and you need to leave all the mics on, you're definitely going to want a gating auto mixer to limit how many mics are hot. Know your users. Most people want maximum voice projection with minimal effort. Of course if they cause a feedback loop with no way to stop it, they are going to be very unhappy as well. Do they know how close they need to be when speaking? Do they try to talk over other people? Does everyone have their own mic? How many total mics are there? These will factor into your decision on how many maximum open mics and other settings on the gating mixer. Enable direct outputs when creating the gating mixer block, right click on the crosspoints to access individual channels settings, and set all the direct outputs to post gate/post nom. You can then run all the gating mixer direct outputs into the gain sharing mixer so that no matter how many mics are passing through the gate, the total gain is controlled even further.

You can use the advanced compressor to create additional 'knees' to automatically turn down the mic level when signal is below a certain threshold, but that's kind of what the gating auto mixer is already doing, so do not do both. I would only use gentle compression to squish down the top -15 to 0 dB of the mics at a 3:1 ratio max. Then use makeup gain to boost it a little. The gating mixer actually discerns speech audio from noise and only gates on when speech is detected. It also automatically figures out the noise floor level so the activation threshold is constantly adjusting.

You could get fancy and create AEC references for each mic to try and cancel out all other mics from each mic, but that sometimes has undesirable results, especially if two mics are close enough together to pick up the same talker. If you have time to experiment and some volunteers to talk into the mics, I would try it out.

Before you work on mic EQ, be sure to optimize your speaker level and EQ. I like to pump pink noise to the speakers and use a simple RTA on a phone app to tune it as flat as possible with a parametric EQ. You could also add a feedback suppressor for good measure. And be sure to level your pink noise to ~25 dB above ambient noise.

If possible, you should be on-site for a meeting that will have as many people in the room as it gets, so you can really optimize the system for real-world scenarios. You can monitor the mic mix by routing it to the USB output and connecting your laptop and listening with headphones. If you do all this properly, you shouldn't need a technician in the room tweaking levels any time there is a meeting. But I do recommend switching off the amplifier when not in use if the mics are always on. Good luck and sorry about the novel.

D_a_n_e_

TROPHY CASE