In wall speaker wire/connector question (1 Viewer)

[Sankar]

I'm considering using the PartsExpress for the in-wall speaker wiring and had orginally thought of their 12 gauge wire all around. However, from their description, it appears that their 14 gauge wire is "superior".
So I am now wondering if I should use the 14 gauge 4 core wire instead of the 12 gauge 2 core for the mains/center ... i.e. use all 4 cores for just one channel (2 wires twisted). Any thoughts?

For the wall jack I found this Sonance 7.1 Wall Jack by pure chance! Has anyone used these?

 

[DaveHo]

I have done the same thing that you are considering, only I used IXOS in-wall wire from AC4L.com. The effective gauge of twisting 2 14's together is 11, and works great IMHO. I would skip the wall jacks and just bring the wire straight through. Buy blank plates, drill holes, and use grommets for a more finished off appearance. Cheaper, simpler, and less chance for signal degradation.

-Dave

 

[Sankar]

Thanks! That was indeed one of my questions! I suppose I'll do that then for the mains and center. I've bought the 14-4 from PartExpress in the past and it was pretty decent wire. The surrounds can stay with 12ga.

 

[Edwin_H]

What about if you twisted together 4 conductor 16 gauge into 2 conductors? What gauge would that effectively yield??

 

[DaveHo]

AFAIK, twisting two same gauge wires together creates a wire with the effective gauge of one of the originals plus 3. So 2 16's twisted would yield 13. This is probably not an exact number, but it's pretty close. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

-Dave

 

[Sankar]

Is the surface area of 2 16s about the same as a 13 or is it that the volume is the same (per unit length)? I recall reading somewhere that most of the audio frequencies travel along the surface ... even though 2 16ga wires may have the same volume/mass as a 13ga wire, wouldn't it be that the surface area is larger?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Sankar, the reason to use larger-guage has nothing to do with wire surface area. It’s to reduce resistance. I really don’t buy that tweaky speaker cable stuff myself, but in any event I doubt it would be a factor unless you have high-end speakers costing thousands of dollars. If not, don’t sweat it.

Also, because Dolby Digital is a lossy compression scheme, you’ve already lost more of the original signal via the processing than you’ll ever loose with “incorrect” speaker wire.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt