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Help me find speaker wire...

5

50

Platinum Member
Hello, I just purchased the Athena MKII 5 channel speakers from bestbuy. Right now I have really crappy stock speaker cable from my old crappy speakers. I'm thinking about getting some monster cable about 50 feet. Is this a good deal?
 
Depends on how far you are planning to place your speakers, and your speakers and amp rating, 16 gauge is a little small IMO.
 
The center will be about 8 feet away, front l/r will be about 13 feet and rear l/r will be about 6 feet. Do you think I should get 14 gauge?
 
Originally posted by: cr4zymofo
I never hooked anything up that's smaller than 12 gauge, but that's just me.
Click to expand...

Same here, 12 or nothing. Except when I ran out one time and made due with 18 guage stock speaker wire until fry's opened the next day.
 
What factors necessitate 12 gauge wire? I've always just used 14 since it's easy to find and sort of middle of the road.
 
Can someone help me choose the right 12 gauge wire for me from partsexpress? I really don't know which to choose. Right now I am going to measure and see if I can get 30' b/c I really wasn't expecting to spend more than 30 dollars on speaker wire. Thanks for all the help
 
honestly its probably not going to make much of a differance. When I bought it it was something called king or kings or something like that.
 
I build my own out of Cat5 cable for WAY cheaper.

I've built:

a) speaker wires
b) s-video cable (30 ft)
c) composite video cables (35 ft)
d) Component video cables ending in a VESA 15pin d-sub (SVGA) connector
e) Stereo RCA audio cables

Heck, my whole home theater is wired with the stuff.

Cat5 is very good quality and well-shielded (100 MBS doesn't work well over crummy shielding) AFAIK.
I learned about using it over at AVSForum (http://www.avsforum.com) and I'm very pleased with both how easy it was to work with and the results.
 
Originally posted by: Optimus
I build my own out of Cat5 cable for WAY cheaper.

I've built:

a) speaker wires
b) s-video cable (30 ft)
c) composite video cables (35 ft)
d) Component video cables ending in a VESA 15pin d-sub (SVGA) connector
e) Stereo RCA audio cables

Heck, my whole home theater is wired with the stuff.

Cat5 is very good quality and well-shielded (100 MBS doesn't work well over crummy shielding) AFAIK.
I learned about using it over at AVSForum (http://www.avsforum.com) and I'm very pleased with both how easy it was to work with and the results.
Click to expand...

Do you use UTP or STP? UTP isn't shielded. 🙂
 
Home Depot outdoor extension cable works great.

The twisted 14 gauge stuff... most listening rooms don't have that much EMI floating around.
 
Originally posted by: Apex
Originally posted by: 50
I think I will get either this or probably this one since it comes with banana plugs for only an extra 1.50
Click to expand...

Those are pins, not banana plugs. I personally hate pins, but you may prefer them.
Click to expand...

Sorry, can you tell me what is the difference? Also my receiver has (i don't know what they are called but) twisting kind of speaker inputs. It is basically a cylinder and you twist it out, then stick the wire in and then twist it closed. Is there a specific kind of plug I should use on the end of my wire to connect with these? Banana/pin plugs don't seem like they would fit well. Thanks
 
Well, much of it is personal preference. If you're going to just leave em in, you may as well just use bare wire.

Some say that spades are the best because you get the tightest connection. Locking bananas are good too (I'm using some of these. They work great). Bananas are what most people use with the 5-way binding posts you normally see on the back of most receivers.

Pins are made for those cheaper receivers with spring clips. They can be used with 5-way binding posts, but aren't generally designed for that.
 
Question: Is the thicker gauge wire potentially bad for long runs because of the increased resistance of the wire? It seems like you should buy a cable not too thin and not too thick (attenuation).
 
Originally posted by: Optimus
I build my own out of Cat5 cable for WAY cheaper.

I've built:

a) speaker wires
b) s-video cable (30 ft)
c) composite video cables (35 ft)
d) Component video cables ending in a VESA 15pin d-sub (SVGA) connector
e) Stereo RCA audio cables

Heck, my whole home theater is wired with the stuff.

Cat5 is very good quality and well-shielded (100 MBS doesn't work well over crummy shielding) AFAIK.
I learned about using it over at AVSForum (http://www.avsforum.com) and I'm very pleased with both how easy it was to work with and the results.
Click to expand...

uh, cat-5 is unshielded twisted pair.
 
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