What Gauge Speaker Wire? (1 Viewer)

[Evan R]

I need new speaker wire, and I was wondering what gauge I should look for for fronts and surrounds. Longest surround is about 40 feet. If I read some of these manufacturer websites, it makes me think I need like 9 gauge for good bass but that's big, huge, dollars... :frowning:

Thanks!

 

[chrisCo]

All the speaker wire you'll ever need:

http://www.htd.com/speakercables.html

 

[AlanZ]

For your surrounds, I'd go with some 12ga from Home Depot. Either that or pick up some Sound King wire from Parts Express. As for your mains, I'm not touching that one

 

[Reginald Trent]

"For your surrounds, I'd go with some 12ga from Home Depot. Either that or pick up some Sound King wire from Parts Express. As for your mains, I'm not touching that one"

The same 12ga should be just fine for the mains also.

 

[frank manrique]

I would also recommend you use 12 ga. on all speakers, regardless where they're positioned...

-THTS

 

[Chu Gai]

What I wouldn't do though is to make bare connections though. It's sloppy and one day you'll be making a post that says my receiver suddenly stopped working and now goes into protection mode.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Frankly you probably don't need anything more than 18G.

 

[Evan R]

Thank you...

 

[John Garcia]

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#wiretable

I'd say 14awg for everything. 12awg is just a bit overkill usually, but certainly won't hurt anything.

 

[Dick Knisely]

And with the price of wire I've found that it just makes sense to buy a spool of 12awg and not worry about it.