Monster XP cable, not enough WIRE? (1 Viewer)

[PaulKH]

Hoping not to start another cable war...
My home theater speakers are connected to the receiver by miles of white, flexible, Monster XP cable. I think it all sounds fine, but I've always wondered about the cable itself because the cable has a 'core' (plastic?) surrounded by copper strands it seems. It seems to me that the cable overall doesn't have a whole lot of copper in it. Does it compare to a 16, 14, or 12ga 'regular' copper cable?
It would be a big effort to rewire my setup, but I am curious as to whether this cable is really limiting my system because it seems to have so little copper in it.
Please save me any sermons on why I should spend 10 times as much on speaker wires though.

 

[Kevin. W]

No need to spend tons of cash when you can goto your local Home Depot and get 12G(100ft) for about $25CDN. You will notice a difference in sound from the Monster Cable. How far do you have to run it? Is it going through walls, or under carpet? When I switched over from my Monster 16G to 12G Home Depot I noticed the difference.
Kevin
[Edited last by Kevin. W on November 08, 2001 at 09:40 PM]

 

[JohnZ]

You mean $0.25/foot 12G HomeDepot wire is better than $0.6/foot Monster XP? I was planning to buy some Monster XP on ebay for about $0.3-0.4/foot. If the 12G wire from Home Depot is really better, I'll go the local Home Depot store this weekend.

 

[Nick G]

John: Yes, Home Depot or Radio Shack 12G is better than 16G Monster or 16G anything else (well maybe not better than 16G pure silver, but the equal of it for speaker cable purposes) for that matter. 12G Monster, 12G Home Depot and 12G Radio Shack would sonicly be the equal of each other. If you want to know more about speaker cable use the link below. Enjoy the music.
Nick
http://www.sundial.net/~rogerr/wire.htm

 

[Sean Conklin]

I switched from XP 16g to Home Depot 12 guage and I can't say for sure I can hear a difference but maybe, but I have the piece of mind that I definitely have enough copper to deliver the goods!
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Sean
"I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates who said.......I drank what?"

 

[PaulKH]

Thanks everyone. Still don't know though whether Monster XP is, from a copper amount perspective, similar to 16ga, or what?? Is their line about improvements through that core a line of BS?
Nick G - great article at that link!
Glad I bought my XP at Home Depot anyway where it was HALF the price of other 'hifi' stores.
[Edited last by Paul Higginbottom on November 09, 2001 at 10:48 PM]

 

[Sean Conklin]

Well in all fairness, without knowing your equipment list, you are probably just fine with the XP.
But the HD 12g is cheap enough to give it a try.
------------------
Sean
"I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates who said.......I drank what?"

 

[PaulKH]

My home theater...
http://higginbottom.com/paul/homethtr/homethtr.htm