Speaker wire for ceiling speakers

[derekwwww]

In my last house I had two ceiling speaker in my kitchen that I just used regular speaker wire to wire in to the amp. The house I recently bought I am having ceiling/wall speakers in the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, and out on the deck, all with their own volume control. I see some people use LVT wire for their speaker systems, but that is very small wire 18 guage I think maybe 16 at the largest. Is that big enough wire to be running decent speakers (James and Sonance) that have decent power going to them, or should I use regular speaker wire, which I have lots of both 12awg and 14awg. Or is there some special wire I should be using for in walls and ceilings? And how about the wire used for the speakers outside, that I will be having an outdoor volume control on?

I want to get the wire right before I close the walls in....

Thanks

 

[Adam]

Hi. Check out the site at the link here for recommendations on wire gauge as a function of the length of wire and the impedance of your speakers.

Depending on where you live, there are codes for what types of wires you can have in the walls. Sure, you can put anything in, but if there are codes were you live, you'll likely have to deal with it if you try to sell the house. I'm not an expert on that stuff, but others here are. I think that they are called CL2 and CL3 wire, but I'd recommend more research on that.

Adam

 

[Adam]

Here are some wires listed for running in-wall at PartsExpress.

 

[highfigh]

From experience, Carol wire is decent but unless they changed to a larger spool in a box like just enough everyone else uses, I have to recommend asking PE if it comes on the little, skinny sheet metal spools, or not. If it is on the skinny spool, get something else- it'll drive you crazy by trying to coil itself in the same size loops as when it was on the spool. The wire and/or insulation has memory and once it's paid out, it tangles up and will waste a lot of your time.