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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 1 response by garfish

garfish
1,840 posts
 
I guess I don't totally understand the question. Whole houses are wired using 12 ga. Romex and many of those circuits serve much more than 150 watt devices (combined).

That said, I like big wires, and when I put in a dedicated AC system, I used 6 ga. stranded copper for 60 ft. from my main breaker panel to a sub-main dedicated breaker box. I knew the 6 ga. was "overkill", but it was more or less in place so I used it-- worked great and sounds good.

I don't know what gauge my Syn. Res. Sig. #2 speaker cables are but they are about 1/2" or more thick. Bigger can't hurt, and if you go large, you won't want to replace it later. Good Luck. Craig
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