reducing gauge of speaker wire

[Daryl P]

Who says bigger is better? Here's my issue: I prewired my house with belden 5000UE (12 gauge stranded) speaker cable. I have 4 rooms controlled with a russound CA4KT1 controller. The unit comes with a wall port that the inroom keypads and inroom speakers all connect to. Attached to this post is the back side of the wall port. Now you might see my problem: the 12 gauge stranded cable is too large to fit into the holes on the rear of the wall port. [4 rooms x 2 speakers x 2 wires each = 16 individual wire connections into the rear of the wall port and these are in addition to the 4 rj45 plugs for the keypads.] And also notice that there is literally no room between the 8 holes on each side so any stray strand off one speaker cable can hit a stray strand from another cable.

One thought is peeling back a few strands off each. But given the tightness of spacing, I fear this would be bad.

Another thought is to get some smaller gauge (say 14 or 16) jumpers (say 6" long), that fit neatly and tightly into the wall port. And then figure out how to join the thinner jumper cable to the thicker cable. The best I can come up with is a step-down butt connector (amazon sells one for 14 to 12).

I am open to all suggestions!

 

[Speedskater]

Yes, it's a cross-section area times length thing. A few inches of smaller wire won't hurt anything.

 

[Daryl P]

Thanks -- makes sense. Any thoughts on best way to join the different wires? That is, any reason to prefer a stepdown butt connector to a spade or bullet connectors (male to female)? All are solderless.

 

[slipperybidness]

Thanks -- makes sense. Any thoughts on best way to join the different wires? That is, any reason to prefer a stepdown butt connector to a spade or bullet connectors (male to female)? All are solderless.

BEST way is clear cut--Solder and heat shrink, end of story.

If you don't want to / can't solder, then I would probably do butt connector. Personally, I consider any crimp-connector as temporary. Simply use it for testing or to get my lengths sorted out, then I come back and do it with solder and heat shrink.

I have also used spades and terminal strips a few times. If I do that, I typically crimp on the spade and come back and add a spot of solder on the wire/spade for good measure.