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8 Gauge Speaker Cable

Hey. I recently moved to a new house and just finished ripping out a closet to make my audio room bigger. :-) I want to run my rear speaker cable through the ceiling and behind the wall I haven't put up yet.

1) Is this a good idea? There is nothing up there now except some plumbing. The outlet power lines are 6-8 feet from where I'm running the speaker wire.

2) Extrapolating from www.alphacore.com, in order to run 150 Watts 35 feet, I should use 8 gauge wire or larger. Does 8 gauge mean per terminal (+ or -), both terminals, the outer cover, or something altogether different?

3) Considering the cost of 8 gauge cable and that I only use the rear speakers 2-4 hours a week I'm considering using car audio grade wire and soldering the spades on myself. I used a blue/silver wire twisted into clear tubing in my car. It's $1.50 a foot on eBay. Anyone have experience with this? Good idea or am I missing something? Do I even need the braided wire or can I go with cheaper 8 gauge that isn't twisted?

Thanks!
leoturetsky

Showing 4 responses by bomarc

bomarc
501 posts
 
I wouldn't put any faith in a chart that told you to base your cable gauge on rated amplifier power (which is an almost meaningless number in any event, and a completely irrelevant number for this purpose). The proper gauge is a function of loudspeaker impedance and cable length. I recommend the following as a guide:

www.pcavtech.com/techtalk/wire_size/index.htm

Once you get the gauge right, various "grades" are pretty much meaningless in most cases.
bomarc
501 posts
 
Leo: That chart is pretty conservative. Especially if it's your surrounds that require the length, and you don't use them much, you can get away with smaller wire. 8 AWG is almost certainly sufficient, and Sean's pseudo-11-gauge might even do the trick. Maybe you can try a few things out, since you're not talking about huge outlays here.
bomarc
501 posts
 
Sean's mostly on target here. I didn't mean to ignore factors other than resistance, but to provide a simple guide that was more meaningful than the one Leo had been using. Capacitance can be a factor in longer runs of ANY cable, though I'd tend to worry about resistance first and foremost. Interference is situation-specific (and less common than usually imagined, IMO). We'll agree to disagree about the sonic superiority of solid wire. But his specific product recommmendations are good ones, at zipcord prices. (But, of course, I think all cables should be sold at zipcord prices.)
bomarc
501 posts
 
JV: Not to worry. The guy says he's using Thiels.

Sean: Fair points all. Perhaps we should have asked what amp he was using; I assumed it was a pretty conventional SS. I personally don't know anybody who's had an RFI problem with speaker cables, so my instinct would be to concentrate on other factors (like keeping resistance and reactance down) unless you know there's a problem. But your proposal would add a little insurance at a very reasonable price. (If Leo were considering a megabuck cable to prevent RFI, I'd tell him to find out if he's got an RFI problem first.)
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