subwoofer cable?

[zachary]

I hope that this is the appropriate forum for this question...

I ran a wire from my receiver to the other side of my theater room (about 20-25 ft) through a drop ceiling with the intention of hooking up an active subwoofer via an RCA outlet in the wall.

I just tried this setup and all I got from the sub was consistent distortion....

The wire I used was quad shield coax cable from the Home Depot. I used Radio Shack gold RCA connectors soldered with silver solder.
Did I use the wrong wire?
Is there something else that I should try?

Thank you for your suggestions!
Zach

[usekgb]

If you are going to run line level signal that far, I would suggest running balanced cable, such as the Mogami 2534. You will have to balance the signal at your receiver, and the unbalance it at your sub, but you should get better results. This will reduce the amount of noise the cable can pick up, and you also won't get the signal loss that you do when you run unbalanced co-ax longer than 20 ft.

Cheers,
Zach

[Kittle]

Also check where your cable runs... does it parallel any house wiring or other stuff that can add interference into the cable?

My active sub is also on the other side of my room -- but only 15feet away. I run a 20 foot Acoustic Research subwoofer cable from the line out on my amp to the line in on the sub amp. and dont notice any distortion.

And im assuming youve tested the sub for distortion with a short cable?

[zachary]

Mogomi 2534... sounds expensive. I will need to check into the price. My wife already feels that I have exceeded my HT budget several times over.

The wiring might cross, but I do not think that it runs parallel with hot wires in the ceiling/wall. I will need to check that.

Is there any way to shield this wire from the interference?

Yes, I did hook the sub up using a 1m $30 sub cable (forget the brand) and it sounded fine.

Thanks for the advice so far.
Zach