Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Which cables??

Hello,
I have this http://www.axiomaudio.com/epicmidi_125main.html

and this http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/451.asp.

what cable brand/size do you guys recommend.

thanks,
jon

How long are the runs? Failing anything else, I'd say Home Depot 14 or 12 gauge. Or other generic 14 gauge or better. It's just electricity. You will get other opinions.

Agree, I just bought all my 12 AWG for my speakers off of Ebay, I think it was a 500ft spool, still have some left

6ft,6ft,2ft,6ft,18ft,30ft.

thanks

Your longer runs should probalby be 12 guage. People will also disagree on this, citing interesting charts, but I'm just more comfortable with a little bit more cable. Then again, I'm running 30 ft runs of 16 gauge flat cable, and that's fine, so pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

I'm with Ken... 14ga. will be fine, 12ga. will be overkill, but didn't keep me from doing it.

Bren R.

thanks,

i think ill go with home depot 12 gauge. 100ft for 30$.

for the subwoofer all i need is coaxial cable correct? no need for balanced cable?

thanks

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for the subwoofer all i need is coaxial cable correct? no need for balanced cable?

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Yeap, that will be fine.

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I'm with Ken... 14ga. will be fine, 12ga. will be overkill, but didn't keep me from doing it.

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Throw me onto the 14 ga bandwagon. I believe unless you have a very long run 12 ga will not be needed, also here where I live both Home Depot and Lowes sells the spooled 14 ga wire but 12 ga has to be special ordered.

This may be some help, I believe Jack originally posted this a while back....Speaker Cable.

Note that Home Depot has two kinds of speaker wire in each gauge -- the stuff with the clear insulation on each wire, and an "in wall" version with thinner insulation on each wire and a coloured jacket covering the wires. I think the jacket is green for 12 gauge and yellow for 14 gauge. The in-wall stuff seems to be both cheaper and better looking IMO...

Anyways, take a look at both. You might prefer the look of the clear insulation...

Oh yeah, don't get fooled by the thickness of the out of wall Home Depot 14 gauge (clear). It's all plastic, and it's a pain to deal with.

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Oh yeah, don't get fooled by the thickness of the out of wall Home Depot 14 gauge (clear). It's all plastic, and it's a pain to deal with.

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I wonder if HD and Lowes both sell the same out-of-wall 14 ga wire? I got mine at Lowes and find it fairly easy to deal with.

Oh, you'd know if you got this stuff. The insulation is thicker than the cable, so the total cable diameter is 3x the size of the diameter of the wire alone. When I saw the spool, I went, "Ooh, thick cable!" but when I got it home I went, "Arg, how am I supposed to strip this crap!"

Beware of the AR Pro wire. I have it (AR PRO 12ga.) in my bedroom system for the surrounds. I bought it (about 5 yrs ago) off the reel at either Lowes or Home Depot (Home Depot most likely).

It has turned dark green and there is some sort of sticky substance imbeded within the strands inside the jacket. It is running under the carpet so I'm SOL unless I pull up the carpet or run new wire through the attic to replace it. I still get sound to the surround speakers but I'm really bummed about the wire.

The lettering on the jacket reads: "Acoustic Research Pro Series oxygen free speaker cable".

So far all the corrosion problems I have heard about with Home Depot speaker wire seem to have involved the clear thick insulation (ie out of wall), not the thin black insulation plus jacket (in wall).

Does this match what you guys are seeing ?

Yes. This crap was clear when I bought it. Now it is green because of the oxidized wire inside. It has a very thick and heavy plastic insulation and is somewhat squarish.

Mike, copper oxides are actually dark red to dark brown(e.g. an old penny). The green stuff apparently is a result of the polyvinyl chloride in the jacket breaking down and releasing chlorine gas, which reacted with the copper to form copper chlorides, which are green. Okay, so regardless of the chemistry involved it may still look crummy, but it shouldn't appreciably affect power transmission if you keep the stripped ends clean where they make contact with the terminals.

John,
Thanks for the chemistry clarification but somehow I still don't feel any better about this crap wire . There is no cleaning this stuff. It is gummy and is imbedded throughout the strands and there is lots of it. It runs the entire length of the cable so if I trim and strip the ends, it is still there. Curiously, the signal still gets through to the surround speakers.

I know this is too late, but I've had good success with PartsExpress' SoundKing cable. Look here.