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Best Place to Buy Speaker Wire

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dmw16

Diamond Member
I know there is a lot of debate about what kind of speaker wire is best. Whether Monster really is better than other brands, etc. But my question is, what is the best place to get good quality cable (be it internet or brick and mortar)? I am hooking up an Onkyo HT-S780 7.1 surround system. So it is a decent (but far from high end) system so I dont need the most expensive stuff out there.

I figured that I will need 30ft of 20gage, 30ft of 18gage, and 120ft of 16gage. If the prices are better if I go with all 16 or just 16 and 18 then please let me know. I am pretty new to all of this stuff. It's times like these that I miss my best buy discount 🙂
 
I haven't shopped there, but last I heard, PartsExpress seemed like a decent place to get speaker wire.

Personally, I found by-the-foot speaker wire from Home Depot (12 gauge) to work fine.

In my opinion, there's no reason to pay a premium for Monster cable when even Radio Shack cable will achieve the same basic results.
 
I had gotten home depot wire in the past. It was good enough for my computer speakers. It's good to get confirmation tho. Thanks.
 
Menard's, Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace Hardware, etc.

Stranded copper wire labeled for low voltage landscape lighting is occasionally cheaper than wire labeled for other uses.

As long as the gauge, flexibility, and insulation is sufficient for your purposes, copper wire is copper wire is copper wire. Brand means nothing.
 
Avoid Monster cables all around. I made a mistake of buying a super-duper toslink cable ($80) a while back. After doing a blind test with a $12 toslink, I could not tell the difference.

Buy Monster only if you have money to burn.
 
I found rolls of monster wire at Fry's. 100 ft. of XP-CI CL3 rated was $80. If you are pulling wire through walls there is a code covering that and you need CL3 rated wire to pass an electrical inspection.
 
Originally posted by: ricochet
Avoid Monster cables all around. I made a mistake of buying a super-duper toslink cable ($80) a while back. After doing a blind test with a $12 toslink, I could not tell the difference.

Buy Monster only if you have money to burn.
Click to expand...

Monster digital cables make even less sense than their speaker wire. After all, the TOSLINK is passing a digital signal (binary). The cable will perform or it won't.
 
Originally posted by: Thegonagle
Menard's, Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace Hardware, etc.

Stranded copper wire labeled for low voltage landscape lighting is occasionally cheaper than wire labeled for other uses.

As long as the gauge, flexibility, and insulation is sufficient for your purposes, copper wire is copper wire is copper wire. Brand means nothing.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by: TheTony
Originally posted by: ricochet
Avoid Monster cables all around. I made a mistake of buying a super-duper toslink cable ($80) a while back. After doing a blind test with a $12 toslink, I could not tell the difference.

Buy Monster only if you have money to burn.
Click to expand...

Monster digital cables make even less sense than their speaker wire. After all, the TOSLINK is passing a digital signal (binary). The cable will perform or it won't.
Click to expand...

😀
 
Originally posted by: TheTony
Originally posted by: ricochet
Avoid Monster cables all around. I made a mistake of buying a super-duper toslink cable ($80) a while back. After doing a blind test with a $12 toslink, I could not tell the difference.

Buy Monster only if you have money to burn.
Click to expand...

Monster digital cables make even less sense than their speaker wire. After all, the TOSLINK is passing a digital signal (binary). The cable will perform or it won't.
Click to expand...

I have read that there is some loss in digital signals. All digital devices (CD, DVD players, ect) have error correcting circuitry so it would stand to reason that errors do occur in transmission.
 
Originally posted by: dmw16
Originally posted by: TheTony
Originally posted by: ricochet
Avoid Monster cables all around. I made a mistake of buying a super-duper toslink cable ($80) a while back. After doing a blind test with a $12 toslink, I could not tell the difference.

Buy Monster only if you have money to burn.
Click to expand...

Monster digital cables make even less sense than their speaker wire. After all, the TOSLINK is passing a digital signal (binary). The cable will perform or it won't.
Click to expand...

I have read that there is some loss in digital signals. All digital devices (CD, DVD players, ect) have error correcting circuitry so it would stand to reason that errors do occur in transmission.
Click to expand...
Yes, no matter what the medium (copper, fiber, etc.) you will always have some slight power loss (dB). But for most home or automotive uses the losses are negligible and inaudible.
 
walmart has 14/16/18 gauge wire in there ghettoblaster isle. Its worked great and i can rarely notice an audible difference
 
Originally posted by: Drakkon
walmart has 14/16/18 gauge wire in there ghettoblaster isle. Its worked great and i can rarely notice an audible difference
Click to expand...

Second Walmart's wire.

If you can hear an audible difference due to the difference between this wire and another brand, then...uh...you have the greatest ears ever

Didn't really have anywhere to go with that...but yes, Walmart's wire will produce similar results to the priciest stuff.
 
I am not saying that you need Monster cable to get good speaker performance. What I want to emphasize is that there are electric codes about what you can attach permanently to a nouse. If you or your folks own a home it will probably need an inspection to get financing. They may make you remove all ordinary wire first. If you rent, the landlord may object to such wire too. You need to discus this with someone other than an equipment enthusiast. I no longer use such wire.
 
Originally posted by: michaels
People who think Moster and the like make a difference are guillable tards.
Click to expand...

What do you call someone who uses the word "guillable" in a sentence?
 
Originally posted by: TheTony
Originally posted by: ricochet
Avoid Monster cables all around. I made a mistake of buying a super-duper toslink cable ($80) a while back. After doing a blind test with a $12 toslink, I could not tell the difference.

Buy Monster only if you have money to burn.
Click to expand...

Monster digital cables make even less sense than their speaker wire. After all, the TOSLINK is passing a digital signal (binary). The cable will perform or it won't.
Click to expand...

Stupidity on my part from the get go. As for speaker wires there are comparable quality wires for far less than Monster.
 
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