Speaker wire guage

[bribassz9]

I am getting ready to wire a friends home theatre for him. I am going to recommend the monoprice 14 Guage inwall wire. Any reason to go with the 12 guage wire. He will use a mirange receiver and the HSU in wall speakers.

Thx

 

[ryanosaur]

14 is likely fine unless you have very long runs or you wish to future proof for your friend in case they add a lower impedance speaker somewhere down the line.
Speaker Wire
Just double check with our good friend Roger Russel.
Pricing between 12awg and 14awg shouldn't be a deal breaker if they want to be prepared for that future possibility.

 

[TLS Guy]

I am getting ready to wire a friends home theatre for him. I am going to recommend the monoprice 14 Guage inwall wire. Any reason to go with the 12 guage wire. He will use a mirange receiver and the HSU in wall speakers.

Thx

In wall runs end up being longer than you think. I would go with 12 Gauge, I did. Also if you want to future proof, put all in wall wiring in conduit. Use Tech tubes, that stuff is cheap as chips, and easy to run in wall. Then you won't have to risk opening walls later. This is important as it won't be long before speakers are run from Ethernet cables and not speaker wire.

So the later means, that you need to plan an AC outlet close to every speaker location.

It is really important to put HDMI cables in conduit as they are so prone to failure. You don't want to open up a wall to change an HDMI cable.

If any HDMI runs are longer than 12', then you need active cables. Hybrid optical cables, like Ruipro are best.

You can get high quality Belden 12 G speaker cable from Parts Express. I put a total of 650' of it in my room.

I can not stress enough, that you never place any in wall AV cable without it being in conduit. Failure to do that is a major mistake.

 

[SithZedi]

If you go with the 14 gauge use the 4 wire, 4 conductor to cover bases. That way you can bi-amp or wire the 4 wires into 2 which is what I ended up doing with my speakers.

 

[BMXTRIX]

While I agree with @ryanosaur that you should check with the Roger Russel page, and I agree with @TLS Guy that in-wall runs do end up being a bit longer than some expect, I will disagree completely that things are going towards 'Ethernet' wiring for audio. Active speakers have been around for decades, and audio over network has been around well over a decade now, and it is barely starting to take hold in the commercial realm, at really high prices to implement.

The traditional amplifier and amplified speakers with speaker wire will be around for decades and decades more. There is some movement towards networked speakers, but that movement is tiny. It also isn't going to go away. Not with the cost associated with unpowered in-wall/ceiling speakers. It just isn't. So, you absolutely do not need to put speaker wires into conduit and go through the expense, or hassle of conduit for speaker locations. I would argue that it is pretty ridiculous to think that 60+ years of traditional speaker wiring is about to be completely changed anytime soon.

I would say, if someone wants to be absolutely sure, they could run a cat-5e/6 cable alongside the speaker wire. This is way less money than conduit... by a mile. It also would likely never be used. Ever.

So, don't worry about the conduit. Do consider 12 gauge cable, or maybe 14/4 cable (this is what I often use) and call it done. Keep it simple.

EDIT: EXCEPT TO DISPLAY LOCATIONS! HDMI Didn't exist 20 years ago, and there will likely be something new in just a few years. Always leave a way to add a new cable to your display location in the future. While speakers largely haven't had new wiring requirements in decades, TVs have changed drastically. Run conduit of at least 1.25" or larger, or make sure you have a path you can utilize in the future to add/replace the current HDMI cable.

 

[lovinthehd]

While I agree with @ryanosaur that you should check with the Roger Russel page, and I agree with @TLS Guy that in-wall runs do end up being a bit longer than some expect, I will disagree completely that things are going towards 'Ethernet' wiring for audio. Active speakers have been around for decades, and audio over network has been around well over a decade now, and it is barely starting to take hold in the commercial realm, at really high prices to implement.

The traditional amplifier and amplified speakers with speaker wire will be around for decades and decades more. There is some movement towards networked speakers, but that movement is tiny. It also isn't going to go away. Not with the cost associated with unpowered in-wall/ceiling speakers. It just isn't. So, you absolutely do not need to put speaker wires into conduit and go through the expense, or hassle of conduit for speaker locations. I would argue that it is pretty ridiculous to think that 60+ years of traditional speaker wiring is about to be completely changed anytime soon.

I would say, if someone wants to be absolutely sure, they could run a cat-5e/6 cable alongside the speaker wire. This is way less money than conduit... by a mile. It also would likely never be used. Ever.

So, don't worry about the conduit. Do consider 12 gauge cable, or maybe 14/4 cable (this is what I often use) and call it done. Keep it simple.

From what I've seen of TLS's setup, he still uses quite a bit of speaker wire to his speakers from his amp locations.....my house is certainly not a good candidate for multich systems requiring outlets in parts of rooms that don't currently exist....

 

[Teetertotter?]

Here is a speaker wire gauge chart: Speaker-Cable-Transmission-Distance-as-a-Function-of-Conductor-Size-vs1.pdf (systoncable.com)
Speaker Wires Guide - Gauge, Length, and Type. (satmaximum.com)

Myself, I use 2 conductor, SHIELDED cable. My runs are less than 50 feet, for 6 & 8 ohm speakers and used 16GA.