Speaker cable Question

[Fang Dangerchili]

I have changed my 5.1 setup over the years and haven't really paid attention to the speaker cables. A few of my speaker wires are of a different gauge than the rest. Does this matter? Any chance i could be hurting my amp or speakers?
Thanks in advance,
Your brother in blu.

[Johnny Vinyl]

As long as your L/R channels of the fronts and/or rears aren't of different AWG, then you should be fine. It won't cause any damage.

I use 12 AWG throughout, but 14 AWG works good as well. I suppose it's best to keep it all the same.

John

[Sammy]

For a run of less than 50' the gage of the wire is not an issue. Using different gages for different speakes isn't either.

From wikipedia:

Even with poor-quality wire, an audible degradation of sound may not exist. Many supposedly audible differences in speaker wire can be attributed to listener bias or the placebo effect. Listener bias is enhanced in no small part by the popular manufacturers' practice of making claims about their products either with no valid engineering or scientific basis, or of no real-world significance. Many manufacturers catering to audiophiles (as well as those supplying less expensive retail markets) also make unmeasurable, if poetic, claims about their wire sounding open, dynamic, or smooth. To justify these claims, many cite electrical properties such as skin effect, characteristic impedance of the cable, or resonance, which are generally little understood by consumers. None of these has any measurable effect at audio frequencies, though each matters at radio frequencies[2].

Wire gauge

Thicker wires in a cable reduce resistance. The resistance of 16-gauge or heavier speaker connection cable has no detectable effect in runs of 50 feet (15 meters) or less in standard domestic loudspeaker connections. Insulation thickness or type also no audible effect as long as the insulation is of good quality and does not chemically react with the wire itself (poor-quality insulation has occasionally been found to accelerate oxidation of the copper conductor, increasing resistance over time). High-power in-car audio systems using 2-ohm speaker circuits require relatively thick cables.

I can prove this using basic high school physics, but why? It is right there on the web.

[ozzman]

I use 12 gauge for my C,F,R (my rears are floor speakers)and backsurround is 14 gauge.

If you have the manual for your speakers it will let you know what gauge they recommend

[Sammy]

If you are using 4 ohm rears or surrounds with a run in excess of 30 feet or with a lot of bends in the wire running to them, you might want to consider going to 16 gage wire, otherwise 18 gage wire will do the job just fine. That said, I ordered 100 feet of 16 gage, 4-wire stranded conductor from monoprice to go to the rears and 18 gage 2 wire stranded to go to the fronts and center for hooking up my 7.1 system this weekend. All my speakers are 8 ohms. The only reason that I got the 16 gage is because monoprice was out of the 18 gage, 4-wire when I ordered; otherwise I would have saved myself a couple of bucks by doing it all in 18 gage.

[Big Daddy]

LENGTH
If you double the length of a wire, you will double its resistance. This means that you will have to get a wire with better resistance or you will have to increase the power in order to get the same level of sound as the shorter wire.

THICKNESS (CROSS-SECTIONAL-AREA)
The resistance of a wire decreases as you increase its thickness (AWG, gauge number). The gauge number drops as the wire gets thicker. As a general rule, you should use thicker (lower gauge number) wires for longer distances. High-power car audio systems using 2-ohm speaker circuits require relatively thick cables.

Golden Rule: When you increase the gauge number of a wire by a factor of 3, its resistance will be doubled. For example, the resistance of an 18 gauge speaker wire is 4 times higher per foot in comparison to a 12 gauge wire (18 is 6 points away from 12).

Use the following table as a guide:

You can buy good 12 gauge or 14 gauge speaker wires at low prices from many sources, including Monoprice.com. Keep the gauge number of any pair (e.g., FR and FL, or SR and SL) of speaker wires the same, particularly for long runs. There is no point in arguing about this. There is no risk and you will have peace of mind.

[nezff]

i use monoprice 12 awg and it works fine.

[Fang Dangerchili]

Thanks for the info. I just wanted to make sure i wasn't doing damage to my amp or speakers by having miss-matched wires.

[Sammy]

Big Daddy, that table is about what I can calculate allowing for a maximum loss of 5% for 8 ohm speakers. But yeah it is already published, so why calculate it? Because I like to be able to prove published information for myself.

[leov36]

i once had 14 guage wire going to my left front, and some super thin (28-30guage?) going to my right front (i ran out of 14 guage) i swear i couldnt hear a difference between the two speakers. i eventually replaced it becuase im anal like that