ric Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 i would like to use a good quality speaker wire and theres so many to choose from. are there any real diffrences in the wire other than just gage? thanks for the tip. ric. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 Some will say yes. What I have been able to gather from research is that some wiring with exotic components will peroform better under scrutiny of electronic meters, but seldom if ever do anything for the human ear. I know some people who are VERY particular about their sound who use 12gauge spools from Home Depot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chinoloco Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 Personally, I think the biggest difference in speaker wires are cosmetic. Clear or white? Round or flat? In-wall or out of wall? Can you paint over it or not? Other then that, the gauge is the main difference. I use monster flat cable because... its FLAT. its easier to run under carpet or slap against a wall. To be honest, after testing many speaker wires, Radio Shack wires are as good as Monster and better priced too. I have been installing most of my wires with RS wires now instead of monster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
love_hertz Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 Same here dude, I used 16 gage oxygen-free copper speaker wire for my whole setup from Home Depot. Name brand stuff(RCA) its clear jacketed it is almost looks just like Monster Cable XP wire! I believe if you are running a wire longer than 60 feet or so then you should get a thicker wire to carry the signal. But everyone I talk to uses Home Depot or Lowes wire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovemyhorns Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 I like Kimber Kable, my personal preference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ygmn Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 I recently found some 10awg speaker wire at about 40 cents foot delivered.....no name stuff....very good though .... I have long runs....2 at 65' and one at 73'....I wanted large... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picky Posted September 12, 2003 Share Posted September 12, 2003 Although I am currently using 12 ga Tributaries-brand cable on my HT and 12 ga Monster cable on my living room setup, I can remember when I used good, old 14 ga lamp cord from the hardware store and never had any problems. (Lamp cord polarity can be discerned by the edges or grooves in the insulation on one side and smooth on the other.) It was 14 cents a foot and I'd run amplifiers having as much as 150 Watts per channel (RMS) with no problem at all with runs up to 30 feet. When I ran commercial sound for bands in the local Detroit bar/club-circuit, I used wiring snakes that I had custom-made. Anything between 250 & 1,000 watts and up to 50 ft was 10 ga and anything over that in wattage and/or footage I ran 8 ga cable. HEAVY AND VERY EXPENSIVE! In most cases, lamp corp should work fine under 30ft. If you are going up to 50 FT, I recommend 12 ga cable. Buying the more-expensive stuff is good for one's conscience, but I'm not so sure the equipment really "knows" the difference. But, I can only speak for my own experiences. -Picky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrPyro Posted September 12, 2003 Share Posted September 12, 2003 Someone will probably shoot me for always touting Canare cables, but I do happen to like the DIY route and Canare makes some good cables. Canare also makes some speaker cable, the StarQuad. It can be configured as biwired, biamped or direct with little or no effort. It's also quite reasonably priced at $0.67/foot, IIRC. Almost a HomeDepot/Lowes option, but with slightly thicker copper, up to 11 gauge. To terminate the cable for easy use just get some of the RadioShack plugs, but they are like $5.99 each. -Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted September 16, 2003 Share Posted September 16, 2003 There is alot more hype than discernable difference in cable types, IMHO In fact, the listener is usually so prejudiced by already knowing what to supposedly expect. Blind listening tests show there's not squat difference Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minn_male42 Posted September 16, 2003 Share Posted September 16, 2003 the replies on this thread on this forum shows that klipsch speaker folks will not flame you for asking this question... (unlike some other forums) as well as providing very sensible answers to your question..... i also concur with the majority here...get a good solid cable of reasonable thickness.... 12 to 14 gauge.... copper is copper... and electrons really don't care what name is stamped on the jacket of the cable..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 ---------------- On 9/16/2003 11:24:47 PM minn_male42 wrote: the replies on this thread on this forum shows that klipsch speaker folks will not flame you for asking this question... (unlike some other forums) ---------------- Actually I was kinda surprised myself at the consistency of the responses... very different from what you frequently find at other forums. Everyone here who attended the open house at klipsch this year failed to identify the difference between std zip and a pair of braided cat5 wires in an ABX test. I think that says something... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dome Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 I have not been able to tell a major difference in my personal blind listening tests. For me it came down to cosmetics. I spent twice as much (per foot) on my center channel cable because it looked better and was more visible than the rest of my speaker cable. It sounds no different than the rest of my cable however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 Some of us who attended the Klipsch Indy Tour subjected ourselves to a truly blind speaker cable test that each of us could control ourselves. No one who has taken the test, has even approached the statistically significant percentage thats required to prove that they could consistently tell the difference. Klipsch has been keeping a tally on the results. I was doing pretty well (about 66% correct) but then the tide turned the end result was slightly less than 50% correct with 17 tries. All you really need is to use reasonably high quality cables & connectors (in other words dont use 75 year old cloth insulated solid non-OFC electrical wire that you found thrown out from some old house on a demolition site), and make sure the wire gauge is large enough for your power requirements & length of run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 minn_male42, "and electrons really don't care what name is stamped on the jacket of the cable....." Yes they care! The salesman who made a 80% profit told me so. Electrons are very picky and hate cheapo hardware store inexpensive wire,imagine traveling in a Trabant or Lada and then moving to a Maybach or MB S600! Being serious about my audio my least expensive wires are Monster M Series M2.4B 15ft runns. Yeehaw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chinoloco Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 Actually... to apply this logic to real life.. You go to work. You can sit in a crowded bus or a luxury BMW. Happy Electrons make harder working electrons.. Lets give our electrons some love... If moving audio electrons could speak.. they would say.. BOSE sucks!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 I have type 4 and type 6 AQ. THe type 6 is biwire into the RB-5. They are the best I will ever buy. I cannot hear speaker wire. I can hear biwire. I can hear some interconnects.(probably due to sheilding more than conductor) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vavoline Posted September 17, 2003 Share Posted September 17, 2003 ric: "are there any real diffrences in the wire other than just gage? thanks for the tip. ric." Yes....price, as those who took the ABX test in Indy will tell you. Go down to Home Depot and buy a 250 foot roll of 14 or 16 gauge speaker wire for 40-60 bucks. The only difference you will notice will be in your wallet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzannucci Posted September 18, 2003 Share Posted September 18, 2003 Ok, flame away... I have noticed that gauge is a major factor in the bass response of speakers and the type and the quality seemed to make a difference with the high frequency response. Of course this is all dependent on the speakers you have. I was amazed at the difference a set of Tara labs speaker wire made on one of my sets of speakers vs the braided cat 5 that I was using. At the time, I was trying to get away from bright shrilly highs with my home built speakers (using a Morel MDT-33 tweeter) and when the Tara Labs was hooked up, it even added more high frequency content. Suffice it to say, not what I was looking for. The cat-5 cable smoothed out the highs much more so I was happier with that. It also seemed that the braided cat-5 cable tamed the tweeters on my old KLF-30s and killed some of the raspiness of the horn vs the Sound King 12GA. rope lay wire. Of course these changes are not major but are noticable. Bottom Line: use what you can afford and are happy with. Spending $1K on a set of speaker wires might not do what you want depending on the overall system interaction. Peter Z. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZAKO Posted September 18, 2003 Share Posted September 18, 2003 I like 12ga razer wire it sounds sharper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onionrings Posted September 18, 2003 Share Posted September 18, 2003 I am using Audioquest Type 4 and CV4 on my KLF20's. I heard a dramatic difference between these cables and Monster cable XP especially in the highs. The XP were extremely bright while the AQ's were much milder. I am using a Sony STR DB 930 which is a bright receiver. Also auditioned MIT Terminator 4's which were not as tight in the bass and muddy in the mids. So, in my opinion there is a difference between speaker cables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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