Congratulations to the speakers, they seem great!
To get the most out of your speakers, I have the following cable advice:
Speaker cables:
Wire gauge – To be on the safe side throughout the frequency range I would recommend an 11 AWG or lower (heavier gauge). The Speaker Cable Gauge calculator, mentioned before, render in 16 AWG for 4 Ohms speakers which also concurs with your speaker specification, given your 10 feets. However, it should be noted that these specifications often are too optimistic and actual impedance as low as 1 Ohm somewhere in the frequency range it is not uncommon. If this was true also for your speakers it would render in a recommended maximum 2,5 feet length for a AWG 16.
Terminated or bare wire – I would recommend bare wire as best value since low price terminators often contains less conductive materials such as brass etc. The only disadvantage with pure copper is its oxide which has a less favourable conductivity. However, if you retighten your connector screws on the speaker and amplifier ever so often this should assure a clean nice copper connection between the sockets and the bare wire.
Soldering of cable tip – If you plan to keep the cables in the system (and don’t change so often) I see no reason to solder the tips. I am no solder pro, but regular solder has worse conductivity than copper. Even if you manage to find “pure” silver solder the potential induced oxide and flux will render in less conductivity if you are anything less than a solder pro. Concerning the reference to the soldering of cables to circuit boards, my understanding is that you first put the cable end on the board, to get a clean copper to copper connection, then you heat and solder to fixate the connection.
Cable construction – An even AC resistance (impedance) through out the frequency range will always be better, everything else equal, see examples in speaker-cable-reviews-faceoff-2 page 6.
The reason is that higher AC resistance in the higher frequencies will consequently lead to greater losses of the high frequency sound (going up in heat). You will see that low inductance high capacitance speaker cables normally have a more constant AC resistance and consequently a more linear “frequency response”. There are many brands to choose from, I use Achievum Cables speaker cables.
Interconnect cables
Cable construction – I would recommend low capacitance cables. Since the load impedance (the amplifier's RCA input, assuming you have an integrated amp) is very big (many kOhm) the current in the interconnect cable is very very low in relation to the voltage. For this reason any leak currents caused by the interconnect cables capacitance will have a much greater impact than both resistance and inductance. Also go for good thick shielding since this protect the sensitive interconnect signal against external interference and earth differences in your equipment. Here I can second Blue Jeans Cable company, mentioned earlier, for their interconnect cables which have very low capacitance, double shielding and reasonable connectors at a good price.
Using your existing component video cable – It all depends on if it meets the criteria’s for capacitance, shielding and connector quality as mentioned above. However, in standard configuration all 3 leads are normally bundled together and this will by default drive up the capacitance, which is not good.
