What speaker wire to use?

[Neatweak]

I am running a whole house system with an Adcom GFA 5400 amp a pioneer vsx 815 as the preamp and a Niles SS-4 speaker selector. I have read a lot about speaker wire size and I am getting conflicting advice. I want to know what speaker gauge is the best to use for a foot long run from the amp to the selector. I have seen in car setups they use low gauge speaker wire but on charts that websites about home audio they suggest high gauge speaker wire? What are your thoughts?

 

[j_garcia]

Small awg wire is OK for signal, but not for amplified applications for long runs. Depending on length and speaker impedance, 14 or 12AWG should handle all your needs. Lower AWG = larger wire.

Here is what you need to know and more:

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#wiretable

 

[markw]

The longer the run, the thicker you want it.

First off, the lower the wire gauge number, the thicker the wire is. Conversely, the higher the number, the thinner it is.

Everything you need to know about wires can be found here. Page down a little to get a distance/gauge chart. There's a lot of other useful stuff there, too.

 

[JerryLove]

Larger (lower) gauge will not hurt, except your wallet. If you are borderline between two gauges, choose the lower gauge: otherwise the already referred to chart is the way to go.

 

[dapack69]

I just used 12 awg with everything.

 

[GranteedEV]

anything 14 or under is usually more than enough for most in-home runs. I personally went with 12 just out of compulsory need to fit it perfectly with the banana plugs I was using.

 

[Fowl]

First off, the lower the wire gauge number, the thicker the wire is. Conversely, the higher the number, the thinner it is.

Everything you need to know about wires can be found here. Page down a little to get a distance/gauge chart. There's a lot of other useful stuff there, too.

That was good reading, thanks.