Jonathan T

The manual for the Kit81M speakers says I need this: 14GA/2C 14GA twin conductor cable for use as internal wiring. Is this 14 gauge 2 conductor wire? I just want to check. If it isn't, can I just use 22 gauge wire? I'm buying the parts myself because the 81M kit is the nearfield kit and was discontinued. The tech guys just gave me a schematic and the parts list.

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Wayne A. Pflughaupt

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On Minimal EQ, Target Levels, and a Hard-Knee House Curve / In-Wall Wiring for your Home Theater
A Comprehensive Guide to Splicing Speaker Wire / House Curve: What it is, why you need it, how to do it

Jonathan T

Ok, can you recomend some good 14 gauge wire?
Also, would you have a recomendation for some good solder?

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cacu

I personaly use 12 gauge wire for internals and xover myself. Any 12awg from Homedepot or Ratshack would do. Since you only need a short length why not go for 12awg.

I use the solder from Ratshack. The one that says silver core for fine electronics. I'm no pro, but heard good things about silver core solders. Make sense, cuz silver's suppose to be the best conductor there is. Goodluck.

Patrick Sun

I use generic 16 gauge wire for wiring up crossover components, and don't lose sleep over it.

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Jonathan T

I decided that I'm just gonna use the regular radio shack solder seeing that this is my first audio project and the speaker placement is gonna make a much greater impact on sound than solder choice.

Also, the 12-16 gauge wire is used to join the crossover to any other parts of the speaker such as drivers or binding posts correct? I can just use pre tinned 20 to 22 gauge wire on the board, for point to point connections, if the actual component leads are too short, right?

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Brian Fellmeth

Right, but you want to keep these to a minimum- none if possible. Lay the components loose on the board and experiment with the relative positions until all or almost all of the connections can be made without jumpers. I like to have the two input wires (from the binding posts) enter one side of the board and the 4 output wires exit at the other end. It is sometimes helpful to run a bare solid copper wire "ground bus" across the center of the board and solder leads that go to ground directly to this bus. Triple check polarity before soldering to the drivers.



Not everyone would agree, but I think 12 or 14 is overkill for such short runs and its more difficult to get a good hot solder joint to such bulky stranded wire. 18 guage lamp cord is the right tool for this job.

Jonathan T

Ok, thank you very much.

Square Rooms=teh scuk