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What would happen if?

I just recently purchased a new pair of speaker cables and my goal is to hook them up and set them side by side with the old ones for easily comparasion.
My amplify is hidden behind the wall, it's very diff to get behind it to plug in and unplug the speaker cables back and forth. My Q. is what would happen if I get behind it once and tap the new pair on top of the old pair (old one is bananas, new one is spades) and leave the other end to the speakers OPEN. That way I can swap them back and forth for easy comparasion.
As far as I know, both of the cables will receive amplyfied signals at the same time but only 1 selected pair will get hooked up to the speakers. I'm curious what's the damage or any posible senerio would be if I play with them like this for approximately about a month? Will the dynamic of the speakers be decreased?
Thanks,
128x128nasaman

Showing 1 response by newbee

newbee
4,751 posts
 
Oh go do it. I don't think that the second set of cables left attached to the amp changes any of the parameters of the amp at all. Think about it......

But, shorting is a REAL issue! What I have done when necessary is to tape the wires with spades so that the + and - wires are well away from each other and can't under any circumstances touch. Ditto for banana plugs if they are individual plugs (not two encased in plastic, seperated the proper space to match to many speaker and amp connectors).

Re the taping, hell I'm so anal about the shorting potential I tape all of my loose ends, spades, bananas, whatever, so they can't short if one or both were to come loose from the speakers or amps. Highly recommended!

FWIW.
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