Speaker wire from Electrical Shop

Dennis1188

I just got a pair of SDA SRS's and I have access to anykind of wire from the warehouse at our Electrical comapny.
Does anyone have any suggestions on the kind of wire I can use for these speakers, 12 gauge, 10 gauge, copper, aluminum, solid, stranded, etc., etc.

mantis

electrical huh....well I'm thinking your gonna get Liberity and get there best wire.Liberity makes a good quality speaker wire.Sounds pretty good.I'm also thinking around 14 to 12 guage...that should do it.

F1nut

Dennis,

I don't mean to pick on you, but I don't think you know what you have. Those are some of the finest speakers ever made and should be feed the best that you can afford. If you can't afford the better stuff, then beg, borrow or steal it. Just kidding about the stealing.

Dennis1188

OK F1nut,
I appreciate your honesty and I respect your opinion but if I'm going to spend this kind of money on speaker wire please help me out with some ideas on an amp. What does your system consist of?
If you want you can e-mail me at work: dennisf@griffith-electric.com

Tour2ma

Dennis,

First, if I have not already done so, let me welcome to the Club. You’ve got a great pair of speakers there. I also am an SRS owner of many years. Did you get the interconnect with the SRS’s? The manual?

I recommend you start with 12 ga, copper, stranded. 12 is about as heavy as you need for run of any reasonable length. Copper is the better conductor vs. Al. Stranded is easier to handle and eliminates breakage from the equation with any reasonable handling. If you have reduced O2 Cu among your choices nab it.

Also nab some gold banana plugs at Radio Shack for the terminations. Run roughly equal lengths to both speakers. Do not coil any excess. Avoid parallel runs with AC power cords.

F1 and I are buds. He has already made the move, upgrading to esoteric wire and likes it. His system is VERY fine sounding, but he also has good electronics in his 2 ch rig. I haven't made the wire journey yet. I am upgrading electronics at present and am an admitted wire skeptic, but will likely play in the future. We both agree on higher quality interconnects than the standard RCA’s that come with most equipment we buy.

Since you are just starting out equipment is where you should put your bucks IMO. Save the "high-wire" for later. Give some idea as to what your budget is, whether you are looking for 2 ch or jumping to HT right off the bat, what sources you plan to buy and whether or not you are open to buying used equipment. Do this, and you’ll find folks lining up to help you spend your money. We love to help folks spend…

Dennis1188

I would like to buy new. How about if I start off with a great 2 ch system for now. I would like to stay under 5K to start and all I have now are the two SRS's along with an RCA DVD/CD player. I like NAD and Carver amps but am open to any suggestions.
Later (in 9 months) when I start to upgrade to HT I can go up to 10K to start than 15K per year until the system is complete.
PS
I did not get an interconnect cable and the manual is being mailed to me via the great folks at Polk.

gidrah

I love the concept. I like industrial/commercial wire. Get a double length of 14 AWG (2 conductor) and twist them together down the length, connect the two conductors of each paired wire and you're set.

Good luck!

You might also check into the cost of CAT5 wire and do something with that. It's good copper and is individually wrapped.

Tour2ma

Dennis,

For the wire you can double the 14 ga as gidrah suggests or go with 12. But either way, I’d grab double the amount so at least you can play with bi-wiring.

5/10/15k... We can work with that, but unless you plan to keep the 2 ch as a second system you’ll likely lose a lot of value buying new equipment for a quality 2 ch rig. So that’s your next question to ask yourself.

For the electronics, I’ll get a couple licks in here, but you really need to post over in the Electronics area. Before you post, you might want to look through for threads with questions similar to the ones you’ll be asking. Source wise we can upgrade your DVD player and get you one that will nicely double as a CD player, or get a very nice CD only player for $500 to 800, so if there are no more sources you want that leaves $4200 to 4500 for the pre-amp/ amp or receiver. If you want a turntable, obviously the pot for the amp shrinks.

As for Carver, other than the Carver pro series, which I don't know, there is no new Carver out there. But Bob owns Carver again so it's likely up to the standards he set years ago. He did in the interim start Sunfire... great, very powerful stuff that right now is in the middle of a line change, so deals are out there. I own both Carver and Sunfire.

NAD has its backers here as well. Other names you’ll see are Rotel and Adcom. Both are high quality mid-price lines, again with owners around here. B&K is around as well, but a bit pricier.

So think about the future of the 2 ch rig and the sources you want, do a little reading in the other threads and I’ll see over in Electronics… or back here if you post here again.

BTW, did you get a manual and the interconnect with the SRS's?