Speaker Cables into Powered Monitors

[roothewhirl]

I just bought two 10' speaker cables off of musicians friend thinking i would be able to hook them up from the monitor outputs of my spirit m12 mixer into my powered rokit 8 monitors. Someone told me this isn't a good idea and to use regular instrument cables, any idea why?

 

[Farview]

Speaker cable are made to go between the amp and the speaker. If you have active monitors, the amp is built into the speaker and the 'speaker cables' are already installed in the setup. You are connecting your mixer to the amplifier (not the speaker), for this you use balanced cables.

Speaker cables are not sheilded. They are made for handling large voltages. Instrument and audio interconnect cable is shielded and meant to carry line level signals. You are sending a line level signal from your mixer to the amplifier that is built into your speaker cabinet that houses your speaker.

Get balanced cable.

 

[blazingstrings]

The actual size of the wire in a speaker cable is larger than in a Balanced or unbalanced cable.
So it would introduce noise.
Its the old adage of trying to run water through a pipe.
If the pipe is the right size the watter will have the proper pressure and run as it should but if you put the same amount of water through a larger pipe it will just trickel through. and if you put the same water through a smaller pipe it can blow the pipe.
SO dont ever use a guitar cable when conecting a guitar Amp head for example to a amp speaker cab. You could damage the amp.
amd using a speaker cable for instruments will make for noise ect. and posible damage.

-Blaze