What gauge of wire? (1 Viewer)

[Desmond]

I got the e100's for the front, ec35 center, and e10's surrounds; what is a good gauge of wire to use for this?

I was thinking of this Soundking brand, because they said it was good one another website, or maybe the monster cable xp stuff.


Oh yea: it is best to have the front 3 speakers the same length wire, right?

Ok, Thanks in advance

 

[Chu Gai]

The SoundKing is a fine wire that's reasonably priced and is quite flexible. 12 gauge will be more than adequate for your speakers and would be even if you paid 10x their price. If you don't like clear vinyl or want something different, Knukonceptz has a nice blue vinyl for a few more cents a foot. Although you may find people advocating bare wire for their connections, I tend to think its an accident waiting to happen as there's a possibility that a stray wire may short the outputs of your receiver. When you buy the wire consider getting some bananas to terminate the ends that go to the receiver and spades for the speakers. That'll give you a nice connection at the speakers and an easy to remove one at the receiver in case you've got to go pulling things out.

The distances don't have to be the same at all. You should leave a few feet of slack in case you want to reposition things around a bit. A 100 foot spool should cover all your bases.

 

[Desmond]

Thank you Chu Gai.

Does thicker wire allow for a better sound to pass through?

 

[Chu Gai]

Confining ourselves to speaker wire the amount of attenuation at say 20kHz depends upon several factors: resistance, capacitance, and inductance. Given those #'s, one can very accurately model how much the signal will be down. If we ignore the latter two, then yes, the thicker the wire, the less the attenuation. However, it takes an awful lot of attenuation before you can audibly hear a difference. I could tell you that 16 gauge is completely adequate to the the task and one can't audibly distinguish it from 12 or 10 gauge. If you feel like a thicker wire suits you, then go for it.

 

[Desmond]

Well, the rears will be mounted on the wall and the wire going into the attic. So that is why I don't want very small wire for that.

Also my cats chewed throught the cheap 16 gauge wire that we had set out as a temp solution.

Is Monster cable brand wire a good choice, or are there other ones that are better for less?

Thanks.

 

[Mike_Skeway]

Monster is a bit pricey IMO. The soundking you mentioned is good. That is what I run. I will second what Chu said about the length not needing to be the same and 16 AWG would be plenty.

Oh yeah, the cats will still be able to chew through a heavier gauge, it will just take them longer... LOL!