Need some speaker wire?

Kings County

Whats some good speaker wire and subwoofer cable to get?

I was told for the subwoofer to get the Monster Cable one, what about the speakers? What wires would you guys recommend ?

jjpeter

I buy all my stuff from http://www.cablegiant.com/. I think you could get by with 14 AWG no problem. You can get great Oxy Free cable at a great price. Plus they don't use recycled copper. It is the real stuff!

Freak When C

You can also find some good deals on Audiogon if you want to take it up a level from Monoprice and BlueJeans. I recently scored a 15' pair of Zu Julian in excellent condition for $150 plus $10 shipping. Regularly like $400 for 8 ft and probably like another $100 or so for the length I needed. But deals go quick there but worth taking a look every now and then. Just might get lucky.

Kings County

Well let me tell you what I'm hooking up, but my budget is def lower than $150 for 15' cables.

I'm hooking up a pair of tsi400's, tsi200's, rm101's and a cs20 to a txsr607

can anyone check this site out and show me what a "good" speaker wire is from here, I dunno if 18 gauge is better than 12 gauge or worst

http://www.jr.com/category/audio/cables-and-connectors/speaker-connection-wire/page-20/

danz1906

Freak When C wrote: »

You can also find some good deals on Audiogon if you want to take it up a level from Monoprice and BlueJeans. I recently scored a 15' pair of Zu Julian in excellent condition for $150 plus $10 shipping. Regularly like $400 for 8 ft and probably like another $100 or so for the length I needed. But deals go quick there but worth taking a look every now and then. Just might get lucky.

Also look for Audioquest.

gdb

Kings County wrote: »

Well let me tell you what I'm hooking up, but my budget is def lower than $150 for 15' cables.

I'm hooking up a pair of tsi400's, tsi200's, rm101's and a cs20 to a txsr607

can anyone check this site out and show me what a "good" speaker wire is from here, I dunno if 18 gauge is better than 12 gauge or worst

http://www.jr.com/category/audio/cables-and-connectors/speaker-connection-wire/page-20/

12ga is MUCH BETTER than 18ga as far as capacity goes but, it's also a lot bigger/thicker and more $$$;)
Unless you're pushing big watts, I'd say 14ga is plenty, a couple links below to a decent seller:

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=109-160

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=109-062

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=100-025

Kings County

Here's a dumb question, the speaker wire can be cut can't it?

And do I need any adapters to plug them into the speakers and receiver? O or will they just clamp on?

Pauly

Kings County wrote: »

Here's a dumb question, the speaker wire can be cut can't it?

And do I need any adapters to plug them into the speakers and receiver? O or will they just clamp on?

If youre buying bulk wire most likely will not be terminated. Depending what you buy from where you could get them termd. All depends on if you want that. Pros of having them terminated is ease of use for plugging unplugging from speakers and AVR, but bare wire will work.

Depending on what Speakers/Amp you have my limit on what connectors you can use.

Pauly

Kings County

So I did a quick search, and It seems easy to just cut it to the lengths I need. But still have a couple of questions.

When I cut the wire to the lengths I want, what does "stripping" mean? Is that just basically taking the cover off the tips of the wire to expose the strands?

And I have read you have to separate the strands. Does that just mean the neg/pos or each individual strand?

and lastly, once I'm done I'm assuming I could either just connect the wire to the receiver/speakers as is or attach banana plugs? For the banana plugs, do I need to buy anything other than the plugs? Or do I need other things to actually attach the wire to the plugs?

messiah

Ok, I'll try to make this as easy as possible for you. With speaker wire, the lower the number of the gauge, the thicker the wire. The thicker the wire the better it will transmit the signal especially over longer distances. So 12 gauge is better than 18 gauge. Don't buy the monster cable, not only is the cable inferior, but they have poor business practices and try to sue anyone that uses the name monster in their company's name or products. If you are looking for inexpensive cable monoprice.com is probably going to be the cheapest for entry level cable that is decent. Bluejeans cable would be an upgrade and audioquest an even further upgrade while still not breaking the bank (although breaking the bank differs from person to person). As far as the "ends" of the wire are concerned, you don't NEED banana plugs, and they are something you can consider in the future. Stripping the wire is simply removing the vinyl jacket around the wire itself at the ends that you are plugging into your reciever or speakers. Do yourself a favor, go to the hardware store and buy wire stippers. They will make your job much easier. As for separating the wires, you just need to keep positive and negative separate. If you get the cheaper cables (copper cables with clear insulation) the positive side of the cable will have the majority of the writing on it, a white line, or something similar so you are able to establish the polarity when you are hooking your speakers up. Any other ?'s just ask.