The Gauge or Thickness of Speaker Wire

[Fallen Kell]

Why would you run 18 for 35ft? I run 12ga everywhere. Diff in resistance between 10ft and 45ft is 0.05558Ohm. In other words, negligible.

I am not saying to run 35ft of 18ga wire. I was making the point (because a lot of people do run 18ga wire). But that doesn't change the issue. Your 12ga will have a capacitance difference a lot higher than the 18ga due to the larger distance between the centers of the hot and ground wires (due to the wire being that much thicker). Over a longer distance run, this capacitance will be higher, which will also change your crossover points as it now has a larger capacitance than intended. This is not as easy to state directly, as the insulator width used as well as the other structuring of the cable (i.e. twisted pair, etc), will change the capacitance of the wire. Resistance is a direct property of the length of wire+material used, capacitance has a lot more to do with the exact configuration of the wire as well, and thus can not easily say what the difference would be for a 10 foot run vs a 45 foot run. This is why my example of the reason for using the same length wires talked simply about the resistance, but as stated, capacitance is also very much an important part and will affect things even more so than resistance.

 

[sdifox]

Well, I think I just bought the receiver and 5.1 about three weeks ago. All the speaker wires are the ones which came with the speaker set -- 16-guage. And as I said, I'd already installed another wire for the old stereo around bookcases and along the baseboards -- a major chore replacing it -- the old wire being 18-gauge.

But I haven't really noted any difference btween that speaker and the rest.

BTW -- anyone who can answer -- when I set the receiver to surround-THX mode, I mostly get two-channel stereo output for a lot of my cable stations. I notice Netflix movies often have real surround sound. I'm thinking it's best to leave this set up for "All-speaker stereo" mode until I can acquire a BD player or add a BD-burner to my PC. Because -- as I said -- I only seem to get full surround for certain movies on certain movie channels -- the news stations, etc. all seem to come in only as stereo.

Is that about right? You really don't get surround-sound unless its encoded on DVD or BD, or NetFlix (certain movies) -- or certain channel broadcasts?

It does depend on source. Not much call for news in surround sound.

 

[Rio Rebel]

I am not saying to run 35ft of 18ga wire. I was making the point (because a lot of people do run 18ga wire). But that doesn't change the issue. Your 12ga will have a capacitance difference a lot higher than the 18ga due to the larger distance between the centers of the hot and ground wires (due to the wire being that much thicker). Over a longer distance run, this capacitance will be higher, which will also change your crossover points as it now has a larger capacitance than intended. This is not as easy to state directly, as the insulator width used as well as the other structuring of the cable (i.e. twisted pair, etc), will change the capacitance of the wire. Resistance is a direct property of the length of wire+material used, capacitance has a lot more to do with the exact configuration of the wire as well, and thus can not easily say what the difference would be for a 10 foot run vs a 45 foot run. This is why my example of the reason for using the same length wires talked simply about the resistance, but as stated, capacitance is also very much an important part and will affect things even more so than resistance.

I don't know whether to admire your dedication to sound quality or call the networks to suggest a new episode of The Big Bang Theory where they get a new home theater system.

 

[sdifox]

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