Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions What size speaker cable to run?

Since I am about to build a theater room in my basement I was wondering if there are any advantages to different size speaker wire or the monster brand. Should I use these or is it a waste of money? What gauge wire should I use? I won't have a run over probably 25 feet.
Thanks

Wire table

Monster wants a whole heap of change for their speakers cables (wire!) ... I'd personally suggest either 14 or 12 gauge run-of-the-mill Home Depot/Lowes speaker wire. I'm in the process of building me (uh, I mean the family) a personal go-away-and-leave-me-alone room for our system and I'm running Home Depot or Lowes 12 gauge wire throughout encased in PVC for conduit.

Search through the forums here, Axiom's speaker cable sure gets very high reviews.

You can usually find a roll (200 ft or so) of new, high quality 12 guage wire on ebay for $50-60.

For the price difference, I wouldn't consider 14 guage unless the actual size difference made a problem in running the wire.

Monster cable is definitely overpriced for what you get. No doubt about that.

I purchased a spool, 250ft I believe, off of Ebay of 12 gauge, and used it all the way around for all speakers, may have been overkill, but that is just me.

I too used 12 guage (axiom's) for the whole set-up. Just easy!

I used 12 gauge Monster speaker wire for all my speaker connections. A 100 ft. spool costs about $65, and it's a one-time expense. I know other brands are cheaper, but after spending thousands on speakers, why not get some good quality speaker wire? :-)

I used 12 guage from Blue Jeans Cable, quality cable for about 38 to 40 cents a foot. They will measure and cut cable to the lengths you need.

Richie, any of the copper wire available in places such as Home Depot at quite low cost is in fact "good quality".

JohnK:

Thanks for the info re copper wire. My nearest Home Depot store carries only 16 gauge and 18 gauge speaker wire. The 12 gauge wire would have to be specially ordered. That's why I was forced to buy the Monster 12 gauge wire at Best Buy! :-)

I bought a spool of 12 gauge speaker wire off of Ebay for my entire 7.1 setup. It is great quality, and your not paying for the name, like MOnster.

Not to bring up the ol' fight... but looks like sometime this week, depending on time, a long time buddy and I are doing an ABX comparison on copper.

He's agreed my Axiom 12ga. wire is a good example of quality "boutique" wire, and is pretty sure it'll sound better than my wire of choice - SJ-2... 2 conductor, 16ga. extension cord he had sitting in a box... I'm giving him 4 AWGs and I won't clean the oxidation (about 10 years worth) off the ends, just to prove a point. Single-blind ABX comparison, 10 tries... we both agree on a score of 7-8 (7 being a cusp of sorts) or above "correct" being a good number to indicate that there is a difference heard, 3-6 being equivalent to a coin flip, and 0-2 would be an odd result to achieve.

Program material will be a female pop vocalist (something from Lisa's collection - probably Sarah McLachlin) and a jazz piece, both pieces will be something neither of us are familiar with.

Kind of looking forward to it... we're both going into this open mindedly... he wants to know if he "drank the Kool-Aid" (his words) when his boutique cables made his speakers sound better and I wouldn't mind another listening session with even higher stakes (I've done this before with less difference between cables - going to try this real torture test, and if this proves it again, I'll probably try it again with spit-soaked string to find that area where it will finally make an appreciable difference)

Bren R.

Also, for those living near a Princess Auto - 14ga. primary hookup wire is on sale until the 15th - 100ft roll for $8.99, comes in red, black, green, brown, white, blue and yellow.

(that's a single conductor)

Bren R.

Be sure to let us know how it goes. I'll be very interested in your assessments.

I don't know why you are bothering unless you are bored and just want to have some fun screwing around?!@#@!???

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I don't know why you are bothering unless you are bored and just want to have some fun screwing around?

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It came up in discussion when I mentioned that lamp cord at Home Depot had gone up in price... we've had the discussion before, I've had it numerous times and he's now very curious about the phenomena of perception.

Some people will ignore others' point of view, some will immediately accept it, and other, like Missourians ask "Show Me"

Bren R.

This article describes reltively inexpensive cable "upgrade":

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_10_2/ultralink-CL414-cable-5-2003.html

Isn't that Peter's knee-jerk URL post?

Someone here used to keep that on their clipboard ready for posting.

Doubling 14ga. gives you 11AWG effective which is more than plenty for most home runs... unless your rec room is a converted basketball court or something.

Bren R.

Useful 'FAQ' information posted on the top of this page.

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Your Link.

That's my knee jerk post. I haven't used it for many moons, though. I'm sure everyone was sick of clicking it.

I'd like to say that making that cable was fun, but it wasn't. It looks kind of cool, but I've got too much, so it mostly just gets in the way. Oh well...

I use 12 guage wire for my fronts and center channel. I use a flat wire that I tacked down to the baseboard (white) that is 16 guage for my QS8s. I then use some really cheap 18 guage wire for the rear surrounds. I have never noticed crackling, break-up, weak signal etc. from the lower guage wires. My runs are all pretty short - less than 20 feet to the rear of the room - so this might play a factor. Also, I've never done a side-by-side comparison to see what I might be missing. But my sincere suspicion is that I am missing nothing, and saved a little bit of money (with which I likely bought some beer, which actually has quanitfiably improved my enjoyment of listening to my speakers) .

Anyway, I see the issue as one of insurance. For longer runs, you will need heavier guage wire. For shorter, maybe not so much. But, many prefer (and are willing to pay for that preference) to have peace of mind, knowing that their guage is adequate.

I'm sorta new at this, but in my research, (asking questions at BIG stores, and small, private businesses, reading lots of reviews) I've come up with a couple of points of interest. 1. If it sounds good to your ears, it's probably OK to use. (I wasn't too impressed with that answer.) 2. Bigger is better. (From a BIG store with lots of wire stock.) 3. It's the overall resistance from one end of the wire to the other that will make the difference. (That began to make more sense to me.) 4. The signal, or current, travels mostly around the outside of the wire, so the more strands the cable has (more outside surfaces to travel on) could make a bigger difference than the size of the wire (AWG: 18, 14, 12, etc) For shorter runs, up to about 25 ft, 14 guage, multistrand cable will most likely be adequate, unless you have 100's of watts going through the wire. Most moderate listening situations only require a few watts, even if your amp is capable of producing much more, so 14 ga. cable will likely be plenty. (I got this from the small shop, a high quality car stereo installer, and also a Marantz dealer) Also, the quality of the copper is important, but the degree of improvement from high quality (read EXPENSIVE) cable over cheaper, multi-strand cable (e.g. speaker wire from Home Depot...) won't be picked up by most people, only sensitive instruments. If you have a very powerful amplifier (150W plus per channel) and listen to VERY loud levels, than 12 ga. or maybe 10 ga. would be called for.
Personally, I use an inexpensive 14 guage, multistrand speaker cable for my system. I can easily rattle the windows without approaching max volume. I have a Marantz 4500 receiver (80W X 7 channels), and plan to soon upgrade to some Axiom speakers.

The number of strands in the cable make no difference... called "the skin effect"... and 14ga. romex (in wall mains cable) and 14ga stranded would be the exact same.

Also, the listening levels don't make a difference either... but the length of your runs do.

Copper quality and # of N's... wow... 13N OFC? That's 99.99999999999% free of oxygen! "Most people" won't hear a difference between that and 2N OFC? Most people in this case is 100% of all listeners.

Bren R.

Right ... well, surprise us with your results.

Surprise us with your cynicism.

Well, finally got time this afternoon to do the ABX testing.

Wire compared was Axiom's 12ga speaker wire versus Leviton SJ 2/16 LL26332 (as imprinted on jacket) extension cord - 16ga. 2 conductor... lengths were 7' 6" (+/-1" by the time they were stripped and prepared). Music selection (since I found out - disturbingly - that he's a Sarah McLachlin fan) was David Foster - Man in Motion.

First off, we did a "bias test"... this is A - Axiom wire, this is B - the Leviton... he wholeheartedly agreed that A was, in fact, better.

Secondly we did a single-blind ABX test. Ten samples, in each case, he determined the audio levels, the portion of the track to listen to, and the listening length and cable to listen to (A, B or X). He correctly determined the unknown cable 4 out of 10 times.

All throughout the test (all ten samples) he made the subjective analysis that B sounded clearer and brighter, so he was especially shocked to hear that B was the Leviton during the first 5 tests and the Axiom during the second half, proving that his perception was skewed.

Though we did further torture testing whereby I spliced together "Frankencable" by twisting together 5 different pieces of assorted cable I had around, about 18" apiece of the Leviton, some pink 12ga. "speaker wire", 14ga. Romex, Cat3 (separate hunks - 8 conductors for +, 8 for -) and some 18ga. "primary wire" that I had. Each splice was lovingly twisted together in a matter of a few seconds with a pair of Craftsman linesmans pliers and taped with red 3M electrical tape. We did observe that at reasonable listening levels, Frankencable and the Axiom were interchangable, however the Frankencable did exhibit more audible distortion at a lower level (at -32dB reading on the volume control, rather than -30dB)

After all the testing by ear, the equipment came out in the form of an SPL meter (thanks, Dennis!) - one interesting tidbit was the resistance of the Leviton cable was increased with the amount of oxidation on the cable - I mean this was NASTY, it was stored in a damp basement for about 9 years, I'd refer to the conductor colour as brown, and it wasn't cleaned off before the tests. Afterwards the SPL meter did indicate a difference of ~0.5 dB SPL between this heavily oxidized cable and the Axiom cable (full spectrum pink noise @ 75dB SPL reference), but this difference disappeared once the cable was cut back to expose moderately clean copper (which technically also shortened the cable by ~ 3in)

So, again... the copper at these run lengths were impossible to distinguish, even giving up 4AWG sizes and a LOT of oxidation... and only oxidation was a factor (to instruments only, not to the naked ear) in affecting sound quality.

Now, boutique cable guys, start up those skeptical machines... anything short of a time machine which allows for identical variables will still leave a little seed of doubt in your mind (already my brother suggested that the subjects hearing must be flawed and that he'd be able to hear the difference given THAT big a discrepancy between cable - after all, he had to deal with nearly identical wire during HIS ABX... so another of these might be in the works)

Didn't have time for me to sit in the listener's chair today, since the subject took as long as he needed to make comparisons, but last time I took a single blind, I scored the same (4 - 6/10).

Bren R.

It seems this test was more of a condemnation of Axiom's speaker wire than anything else. Although, some "audiophiles" swear by Home Depot's orange and black extension cord for speaker cable (for real).

Depends how you look at it... the subject in this case said that absolutely, yes, he would give that the Axiom wire was a good example of "audiophile-grade" speaker wire. I've run the same test with a different subject (the above mentioned brother, who considers himself a golden ear being a musician and all) with 12ga. standard speaker wire and 12ga. Monster speaker cable... again, within any parameters; correct minimum gauge for run length, near identical length runs, no external issues that would colour a sound and make a cable easy to detect (ie: a coil, cap or other passive crossover) the results have been the same.

The Axiom wire is nice, really nice... tons of really small strands... nice, flexible dielectric... it's definately good-looking and well-built, to the point where I'd give it the nod over Noel Lee's stuff - but if you're expecting something more sonically, ain't gonna happen.

Bren R.

Aha! There you go Bren, you should have used a nice $500 speaker cable in the test instead of that crappy Axiom!

Amazing how some people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into audio reality, and others have their heels dug in so firmly(or heads buried so deeply in the sand)that they can't even be dragged.

Good Show!!!!!

So we decided to do a test here in our house.

We had an old HTIB with 20WPC for center and surrounds, running thru 24G wire.

One rear channel needed about 36ft of the 24G and the other side about 42, so we ran the 24G center wire on the end of one of the wires to produce the required 42ft.

After connecting one M3 to one end and the receiver to the other end of each 24G wire, we began the test.

.....about a year ago.





....I know, but it's such a hassle to climb up there and string new wire

...besides, hey, it sounds just fine!!

< gratuitous jab >
I demand a re-test! Only this time, put that leviton stuff up against the curiously thin Mapleshade Clearview Golden Helix wire.


< /gratuitous jab >

I have a question: Were the speaker cables touching the floor or did you put them on those little tripods?

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or did you put them on those little tripods?

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They were on my personal tripod... so as not to change my body position relative to the speaker (and possibly reinforce the bass or colour the sound in any way, I squatted and remained in the same position throughout the testing with the cords across my lap.

I have not measured the dielectric properties of my wedding tackle, but I believe them to be pretty inert.

Bren R.

Interelectrode capacatance of wedding tackle consistencly varies proportionally with the level of excitation of the overall system.

Hey JohnK,
Who ever said anything about using a $500 set of speaker cables? Actually, I would expect the Axiom speaker cable to sound very similar to the extension cord because of their similar construction. Magnet wire would be less expensive than the Axiom speaker cable, but I would think that would sound different. I would guess better, but at that point it's subjective.

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Magnet wire would be less expensive than the Axiom speaker cable, but I would think that would sound different. I would guess better, but at that point it's subjective.

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Magnet wire? Like the 32ga. enameled stuff? Yes, it would sound different. It would sound like light zip wire, only worse - I think most of us here agree that ~18ga is a minimum for even short speaker runs. Unless you mean some Litz-braided configuration... in which case, here we go again on the whole "if it's good enough for CAT5, it's good enough for me"... if you want to braid together 64 conductors of that to end up with the equivalent of 14ga. stranded or solid, be my guest... this might make it less tedious.

Bren R.

Magnet wire comes in a huge variety of gauges. I'm talking about running say 6 runs of 23 gauge to each speaker. That gives you 15 gauge at each pole. You don't have to litz braid them if you don't want, simply twist them up.

And the benefit of that over speaker cable would be?

Unfortunately, I don't have magnet wire around anymore... I gave up "rolling my own" passive crossovers 13-14 years ago and haven't started rolling my own toroidal transformers yet.

If you want to make a set and send 'em out, PM me and I'll give you my address... but then again, you'd always have a back door that I didn't use the right amp/speaker/set of ears/amount of Caig spray... so the results would be meaningful to me, but not you.

Bren R.

Your link had me rolling, I always thought that hair thingy looked like an accident waiting to happen.

Please don't get me wrong. I believe all cables sound very similar, but there are slight differences. Granted they may be distorting or causing some sort of frequency roll off, but that is acceptable to me if in the end it sounds more like music. Who knows, I could be fooling myself, but then again so could you.

I think they sound smoother than stranded wire. I realize you have the majority of the forum on your side, so go easy on me.

By magnet wire, you simply mean solid core copper, right?

Solid core enameled copper.

That's kind of the thing... is if a cable does sound different, it's because it changes the sound. For instance, my brother would be the kind of guy that having a passive coil inserted into a cable would be "better" for his listening. He swears his paper cone and horn tweeter 1980s speakers are the ultimate audio experience, and we now use nearly identical micro monitors at work - I have Edirol MA-10s and MA-20s, he has MA-15s... I run the bass and treble controls at "6" (of 10) and "8" respectively... he runs them at "10" and "2".

That's what sounds good to him, but I don't let him mix any audio besides voiceovers for projects... or else all the audio sounds like it's come off 2" quad.

What I've found is that as long as minimum AWGs (either through multiple conductors, strands or solid extruded wire) are met, and no other factors are added in (resistive loads, induction coils, etc) that they're indistinguishable from each other.

And if the cable does one of these things to colour the sound, truthfully it would be a lot easier to use an EQ to find the sound you like rather than trying cables until you find one that attenuates the frequencies the way you like.

Bren R.

You mean I didn't have to buy Axiom speaker wire to run my Axiom speakers? Doh!

No, but it sure does look pretty.

Bren R.

Couldn't agree with you more, Bren.

Pretty indeed.

Here is a great way to wire your speakers.
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_10_2/ultralink-CL414-cable-5-2003.html

link

Funny you should mention that. I am getting ready to do this with 16ga 4 conductor wire for my in wall wiring. I spent a big .25 a foot on it.

Hey, that's my link!

Puff, welcome. Since you're new you can be excused for using the link that Ken has exclusive rights to on this board. Incidentally, don't get too enthusiastic about making that since it doesn't really amount to anything significant unless you'll enjoy the project(Ken didn't). The article itself is a good read.

I am in a similar situation.

I had purchased 150' of "standard" Monster Cable at Menards, a regional home improvement store. Now, is it me, or is Monster Cable going out of their way to either hide, or eliminate listing of the wire gauge?

Anyway, upon reading this article, I learned that 12-14GA was recommended. This prompted me to more closely examine the spool of MC where I learned that it was 16GA.

Thus began my quest.

Home Depot - HD had 100' spools of 14GA RCA "100% oxygen free" $34 each.

Next stop Best Buy, where I found 50' spools of 12GA from Accoustic Research for $50 each. This stuff appears to be 80% casing and HUGE casing at that!

In the end, I opted for Axiom's wire. The specs were every bit as good as Monster Cable, the price per foot was less than the AR at BB, and the casing appears to be of resonable size (making it easier to pull multiple runs through conduit).

Other than the 14GA RCA, my local Home Depot only had 14GA bulk stranded electrical wire which, for some reason, looked far smaller than the RCA "100 oxygen free" "Digital" cable.

Okay, the Axiom is on order, I could have probably found other 12GA on eBay for far less, buy I have an assurance (along with a possible "illusion") of quality in that it will perform well and last a long time.

I am REALLY looking forward to hearing my Axioms for the first time. They have sat on the floor of our formal dining room, in their boxes, awaiting the day that the "Serenity Home Theater" is finished and comes on line.

Boy, that always gives me the heebie jeebies--when people who have been around awhile say that they've never heard their Axioms.... What if you don't like them? Oh noes!

I'm taking them on faith, backed up by the many reviews that I've read over the past year.

Add that to to the glowing posts on this site and the fact that I am upgrading from 12" 3-way Cerwin Vega mains, a pair of 2-way 6 1/2" Cerwin Vega Surrounds, a 5" 2-way Cerwin Vega center, a 15" down firing Cerwin Vega sub, a very small pair of Cambridge Audio cubes with a passive sub for rears and an inexpensive 10" Sony sub.

Now I've got a 7.1 Epic Grand Master v350 waiting to erase childhood memories of BIG, LOUD, and "boomy" Cerwin Vegas (which served me well) in favor of the accuracy and realizm of Axioms.

Now I haven't listened to my Cerwin Vegas for a year so any sound will be good for me at this point!

Spence

P.S. I'm keeping my 15" CV sub.

I'm sure you'll like them, but there have been a few cases...

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Now I haven't listened to my Cerwin Vegas for a year so any sound will be good for me at this point!

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CVs - the one DOWNSIDE to them is they're bulletproof. You can't "accidentally" blow a driver to have good reason to get a new set-up.

Bren R.