|
Bronze Member Username: Axlrose19802002Post Number: 57 Registered: 12-2003 | i purchased a pair of bp2004tl, a pair of bp2x surrounds and a 2500 center channel(all def-tech) along with a marantz 6400. it's grading week this week at school, so my students come first, but this weekend i'm going to spend as much time as possible testing out music and dvd's. a question for anyone that would be able to help pertaining to wiring...I have an uncle who is big into professional lighting and sound for stage performances and he gave me a big spool of wiring that he uses and wasn't using any longer. it looks to be 18 gauge wire which from what i have gathered works fine for speakers, but it is solid copper instead of the threaded kind i seem only to be able to find in stores. is that good or bad and is it even usable for speakers. i purchased monster caps to plug the wire into my speakers and receiver hoping i can get them to work as they are designed to work with the threaded wire that is more common. i have a spool of five hundred feet that came free to me so i'd love to use it and save the wiring money on the five speakers not having to buy more wire to use instead. any knowledge on this as at all? thanks. (the only other information i can find useful is that the spool does say 'signaling wire'???) |
|
Anonymous | Greetings; While there is great contention about speaker wire and what to use, to answer your first question, solid wire would work fine. My concern is not over the solid/stranded issue, but rather one of wire guage. 18 guage wire would be fine for about 3 feet, but if you are running any length, you should be considering at least 14 guage minimal, 12 preferable. You could simply take three strands of the 18 guage, twist the wires together at each end, place them in a banana clip and that would work. Three strands of 18 guage should be the equivalent of 12 guage wire. The only downside to this is it might look a bit messy. Good luck |
|
Bronze Member Username: Axlrose19802002Post Number: 59 Registered: 12-2003 | hmmm....that kind of stinks. i'll have to check what information i can get off of it for sure, but if anyone could reassure me that is the case, i'll probably have to go spend some more money on 12 gauge wire instead then. i don't want a pile of six wires going back to the surrounds on my ceiling not to mention how much wire that would take anyway. |
|
Anonymous | Yeah messy it would be, and running six wires back is a bit much. It would probalby sound fine though. I was taught, as a rule of thumb that the impedance of the wire should never be more than 10% of the load. So, if that is true, than the impedance of the wire should not be more than .8 ohms for an 8 ohm speaker. (There are some that say that it should not be more than 5% in which case it should not be more than .4 ohms for an 8 ohm speaker.) The resistance per foot of 12 guage wire is 0.0017. Therefore you can run pretty long lengths without suffering too much loss due to resistance or making your amp look like a current source. I recently saw this page that talks about this you might check it out... http://www.pcavtech.com/techtalk/wire_size/ |
|
Bronze Member Username: NcavmanPost Number: 62 Registered: 12-2003 | Just fyi... In case you are looking for some large guage wire, already terminated with nice banana connectors, check these out. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2597111340&category=26213 He has different length pairs as well as center-channel singles, and all are a fraction of the retail cost. The guy is legit and I have purchased from him before. |
|
Bronze Member Username: Axlrose19802002Post Number: 61 Registered: 12-2003 | i looked at the wire i have today again, and comparing it, the 18 gauge is pretty tiny in comparison. i suppose i'll go throw some more down for wiring. no sense in getting great speakers and crappy wire. |