What guage speaker cable?

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>I just moved, and need longer cable for my surrounds. &nbsp;I currently have 16 guage Monster XP stuff. &nbsp;I have a Onkyo TXSR-600 receiver, which I believe drives 80 watts RMS per channel. &nbsp;I'm guessing that the surround speaker cable length will be about 30', possibly 40 if I go in-wall.

For the wattage and distance, what guage would you guys recommend?</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>Jethro;

The lower the gauge the better. &nbsp;If you can do runs of 10-12AWG that will minimize resistive and inductive losses of long runs.</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Thanks Gene. &nbsp;Any good recommendations for an online source? &nbsp;I found 14 AWG for about $.17 a foot in bulk, maybe I can do better. &nbsp;Also a good source for connectors, banana and pins, since I don't have loads of money.</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>Jethro;

Take a look at: Parts Express 12AWG Sound King &nbsp;a roll of 50' sells for under $23!

We did a review on this wire at: Speaker Cable Face Off

I believe they also sell terminations and accessories. &nbsp;

We wrote an article about how to build your own speaker cables at:

DIY Speaker Cables</font>

 

[Shinerman]

<font color='#000000'>Home Depot! &nbsp;They have some nice 12 ga. &nbsp;at a cheap price. &nbsp;You can but it in bulk rolls or by the foot.

Shinerman.</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>I have noticed the Home Depot stuff turns green after a few months, likely do to due to inter-strand copper chloride build up from to the PVC insulation. &nbsp;While this really doesn't harm the cable electrically, it does look ugly &nbsp;

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[Shinerman]

<font color='#000000'>Gene,

I bought mine about a year ago. &nbsp;It still looks brand new. &nbsp; I bought the 12 ga. Carol brand which is much thicker than your standard 12 ga. wire. &nbsp;The wire itself is of course the same diameter but the insulation coating is much thicker. &nbsp;It's probably double the thickness of most 12 ga. wire. &nbsp; This does not mean anything in terms of build or sound quality but I admit it looked cool. &nbsp;Yes, I am a dork.

Shinerman</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Will going through a number of connectors make a substancial difference?  I am thinking of going in-wall to the rears for my home theater set up.  Running cables along the corners doesn't really bother me either, so if I'm going to hurt the audio quality I'll skip all the effort.  

Also any cons with going with twisted wire?  (quick search Belden 5000UP 12 AWG, or Monster CI pro 14 AWG - only .17 per foot)

I just received these banana plugs - haven't hooked them up yet, but they look great.  Only $1.25 each in quantity.  
(side note - I hooked them to an ohm meter, and I got a reading between the cover ov the connector and the gold plated banana - bad??)
Nice banan plugs CHEAP!</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>BTW I am not associated with those people selling the banana plugs - they really do look nice and they are cheap.

To bump my question, will going through a number of connectors (going through wall connector panels) add lots of resistance vs having straight wire?

Thanks!</font>

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>

Jethro : <font color='#000000'>To bump my question, will going through a number of connectors (going through wall connector panels) add lots of resistance vs having straight wire?</font>

<font color='#000000'>No.

To verify, measure the resistance of the connectors. Assuming you even have a sensitive enough meter that can measure hundreths of an ohm you'll find it to be in very small fractions of an ohm - practically zero. So like they say, fuhgeddaboutit!

Same goes for capacitance and inductance.

12 ga. of any pedigree should be more than adequate!</font>

 

[mustang_steve]

<font color='#000000'>The sound king seems to be the best value, but if your in the california area and are too imptient to wait for shipping (like I am

) , you can buy some 12ga GC brand wire from any Fry's electronics in 25ft rolls for about $20.  I've been using the stuff for a while now and havent seen internal corrosion or anything, maybe they use a proper insulation for it, I dunno.  The jackets are see-thru but tinted with a hint of red, and have a blue stripe on one side to mark polarity.</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Does anyone know if the 12 guage Sound King can be purchased anywhere other than through PartsExpress.com? Also, has anyone had experience with Radio Shack's 12 guage Megacable?</font>

 

[Shinerman]

<font color='#000000'>Art,

Don't worry about the brand. &nbsp;They are all generally fine and you will never hear a difference. &nbsp;Shop for price. &nbsp; Simple as that. &nbsp;

Shinerman &nbsp;

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[HTJunkie]

<font color='#810541'>Try Lowes Home Improvement. 34 cents a foot for 12 guage.

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[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Actually with 18ga a length over 30 feet, sound degradation would be audible. &nbsp;16ga will allow you to use 50 feet max. &nbsp;I'm talking in terms of driving an 8 ohm load. &nbsp;Cut the length in half if you have 4 ohm speakers. &nbsp;Of course if you can afford it, you should look for lower gauge just to be sure and the shorter the distance the better. &nbsp;Check this site for more info.

http://home.earthlink.net/~rogerr7/wire.htm</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>Thats a great link, however the author doesn't account for complex load impedances of some speakers that may dip down to 4 ohms or less at high frequencies. &nbsp;This is why I recommend no thinner than 12AWG wire for speaker runs when high fidelity playback is concerned. &nbsp;Also, inductance is important to some extent too and should not be ignored.

We will discuss this in Speaker Cable Face Off II coming soon!</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Wow, that was a quick reply. &nbsp;I was just reading your Speaker Cable Face Off (part 1) and it's interesting that the most expensive cable came out last. &nbsp;It goes to show that expensive does not necessarily mean high-end. &nbsp;However, is the difference in the measurements actually audible? &nbsp;I am curious as to what other speaker wire will you be testing in the face off because I'd like to see how the Cobalt Cable Ultimate (the best one from the first part) fare against other budget to mid-priced speaker wires as I enumerated below:

DH Labs (T-14 &amp; Q-10)
Bettercables (Premium II &amp; Blue Truth)
QED (Silver Anniversary)
Nordost (Solar Wind &amp; Blue Heaven)
Monster (Z2 Reference)
Signal Cable (Double-run Single-wire)
Analysis Plus (Oval 12 &amp; Oval 9)
Electrofluidics (Monolith 2020)
Axiom Audio (provided in your sneak peek)

Thanks!</font>