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There is no such thing as "digital" wire. If a package says that, it's a marketing term.
OFC (Oxygen Free Copper) is a good thing to have. This means that when the copper wire was melted, neutral gas was injected around the liquid copper so no oxygen molecules were present to start oxidizing the copper right from the start. This helps to increase the life-span of the wire.
Even with OFC wire, bare copper will oxidize. There is 2 things you can do about this:
- Keep all bare copper to a minimum. Trim only enough insulation to make a good, neat connection.
- Plan every 2 years or so to do a "cleaning" where you cut off the ends of the speaker wires and re-strip, re-connect. This means adding a foot or so of length to each wire.
MYTH BUSTER: Speaker wires do not need to all be the same length. Scratch anyone who says this and you will find a salesman at the bottom who gets commission by the foot of speaker wire. You DONT want loops of spare wire, but a foot or so is fine to allow for speaker placement & annual trimming.
I really like the dual-banana plugs from Radio Shack (2xx-308). They work great for behind my speakers. But they stick out kind of far for many receivers so the single-bananas (2xx-306) work well for the back of the rack.
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