Best speaker cable bang for the buck (Acoustic Research, Monster, (1 Viewer)

[Boka]

Sorry to open the can of worms.

My options are below:

Acoustic Research 12AWG - about $0.80 a foot
Monster XPMS - about $0.50 a foot
Sound King 12AWG from partsexpress.com - about $0.35 a foot

This wire will be used on a HT system comprised of JBL studio series speakers and a 100W x 5 Pioneer receiver. Longest run is ~30ft for the surrounds.

Thanks for any help

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Boka,
I highly recommend the new versions of Audioquest. Cheap and effective.
Of the three listed, I have heard good things about Acoustic Research and Chu seems to like Sound King.
Lee

 

[Chu Gai]

Worms? We going fishing? Can't we have steak?

 

[David*RT]

Go with Sound King as it's the cheapest and works well.

 

[Phil A]

Home Depot also sells 12 gauge worms at about $0.30/ft. I believe.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

You get what you pay for!

 

[GordonL]

The Monster and SoundKing wire are high strand-count, very flexible, rope braided, OFC wire. Not sure about the AR wire because I haven't seen it but I suspect it is also. The Home Depot wire is made by Carol and is low strand-count and very stiff. Sound quality-wise, it shouldn't make a difference but the HD wire just has a cheap quality look and feel about it. I recommend SoundKing because, of the zip cord style cables, it's the cheapest and you're not giving up anything in terms of sound or flexibility. If you believe wire topology/geometry makes a difference, try the Audioquest.

 

[Danny Tse]

Do the color of the copper make a difference? I have both Radio Shack 12 guage MegaCable and the Home Depot 12 guage speaker cable in 2 separate system. I noticed the RS cable has much deeper copper color, whereas the HD cable's seem to fade over time (I had these for over 5 years by now).

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Do the color of the copper make a difference?

I think only to the extent it indicates purity of the copper and/or total cable manufacturing quality.

 

[Chu Gai]

Don't tell me you're going to slice open the Cardas'? I've never heard of a fading color for copper, if anything I'd think there's always a chance that it might darken...turn green or something like that. But unless you've sprayed something like an enamel on the wire, you'll find in time, regardless of the purity, it'll chemically react with the environment around it. In any event, its a surface phenomena that will go down a few microns.

Well I can't let my friend Lee have the "you get what you pay for comment in without my own"

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
PT Barnum