Speaker wire help..

[zicmubleu]

Originally Posted by John72953

I love speaker wire questions , but I'll say you're fine!

John

Exactly what is the problem with running under sized wire to a speaker? I can see some power loss, but I would think balancing the speakers handles that issue. As far as increasing the resistance of the circuit which is almost trivial, 16 gauge copper has 4 ohms in a 1000', that would possibly be beneficial to the receiver's output stage power dissipation. It is hard for me to understand how much current a speaker is really using on average say in a very loud interlude, is it enough to heat the wires?

With power tools the wire gauge of an extension is critical simply to reduce the low voltage condition they would experience under full load which causes the motor to pull more current, results in a lot of heat in the windings and breakdown of the wire insulation, etc. However power tools don't have the cooling fins I see on modern speakers, but they do have fans. But a power tool really pulls a lot of current consistently, I just don't see speakers doing that. Does the speaker coil get hot when the wiring is too small?

I would think things like how you run the cable to avoid inductive coupling from a lamp cord, or using balanced pairing, etc. would be as important as the gauge itself but that doesn't seem to be discussed much.