Good Inexpensive Speaker Cable? (1 Viewer)

[chris_everett]

If your running new cable, IMHO, you might as well run 12.

 

[Chu Gai]

Well, one thing you haven't said is if your wire runs are inside the walls for your surrounds. In most locales, proper adherence to building codes is that the wire should be CL2/3 rated for in-wall runs. It's basically a fire thing that has to do with retarding the burning. So, if you want to change what you've got, you'll have to use the existing wire as a 'pull' for whatever wire you plan on using.

As far as what I think you ought to do, I'll simply present some ballpark numbers that have to do with attenuation losses assuming a 50 foot run for various gauges and then you can make the call based on what you feel is important. Now the attenuation losses are a function of the speaker's impedance. So what's given is what the attenuation loss would approximately be for a minimum impedance of 8 ohms, OK? If you want to 'estimate' the attenuation losses at say 4 ohms, double (8/4) the values given. The reason why I also presented a value at 20K has to do with the inclusion of skin effect, which while largely insignificant, should be taken into account for a more proper characterization.

[c]18 gauge[/c]
8 ohms @ DC: 0.7 dB
8 ohms @ 20K: 0.7 dB

[c]16 gauge[/c]
8 ohms @ DC: 0.4 dB
8 ohms @ 20K: 0.5 dB

[c]14 gauge[/c]
8 ohms @ DC: 0.3 dB
8 ohms @ 20K: 0.3 dB

[c]12 gauge[/c]
8 ohms @ DC: 0.2 dB
8 ohms @ 20K: 0.2 dB

[c]10 gauge[/c]
8 ohms @ DC: 0.1 dB
8 ohms @ 20K: 0.2 dB

As to what's audible, consider that our hearing sensitivity is greatest in the region of 1 ~ 5 kHz. Using test tones and headphones the limits of detectability are about 0.1-0.2 dB. The older you are generally the worse your discriminatory power. With music it's even worse. Depending upon your ambient noise level (headphones isolate you from the environment) it can be even worse.

 

[Mike Coady]

Thanks for the enlightening info. I went ahead and ordered 12 gauge even though it may or may not be necessary. By the way my wire runs to my surrounds are above a suspended ceiling and then down a paneled wall about 5ft that I ran myself so hopefully I can use the old wire to pull the new wire. Anyway I guess I'm all fixed up now.

 

[Chu Gai]

I'd probably have done the same thing. In bulk, it's cheap enough