Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Wiring

If the exterior of the wire oxidizes, you risk having a high resistance connection at the connection/ connector. That would not be good!!!!

If the wire only oxidizes where is exposed to air, then how would it oxidize at the contact point?

The wire i am talking about oxidized inside the jacket running the entire length of the cable. Weither it affects the sound or not is debatable but nobody should spend any money on some crappy wire thats going to oxidize. It just shouldnt be happening.

Hi Mike. You can order really nice 12 guage wire from Axiom with your speakers. It is great wire and a good price. And the shipping will be free with your package.

Shane D

Quite honestly....if you are good with a aluminum or fiber fishing line then you dont need a professional. However, get ready for a fun time fishing wire in and out of walls...depending on your build it could be loads of fun or a real quick install. I did my install myself in a small room...but the construction was so lousy (bought the house..not my choice) that it took me a good few hours to pull speaker wire in a small room. 20x10 or so...

As for the cable itself... I have read and argued this with myself over and over again. As it turns out...the wire that gave me the best bang for my buck was a large 100' spool of RCA 12gauge that I bought at Home Depot... I have tried Monster XP and others...they are all good. But price wise this RCA did the job and upon measuring signals I noticed that it was actually better then the monster xp cabling (same receiver used for testing). I use a old school RAT SHACK analog level meter...works great.

Hope that helps some.

Did you return the Monster wire? I think that I would have given it a thought or two.

By the way, do any of you "tin" the end of your wires with solder before using them in banana plugs or putting them to the jacks on the back of your gear?

Bernard, if the exterior of the wire oxidizes(it's unclear whether the discoloration Brandon described was oxidation from the air or a chemical reaction with the jacket material, since cutting open even decades old wire usually reveals bright copper inside)it doesn't significantly affect the power carried as long as the connection points are clean. A tight connection tends to be essentially airtight at the actual connection point and any oxidation can be cleaned off with a mild abrasive such as a pencil eraser, or the end can simply be trimmed off and re-stripped.

John: it isn't clear whether the reaction, he was discribing, was from air or a chemical reaction.

I have recently seen some discolored copper wire that was attached to one of those 5 way binding posts. The wire was "snugged down" fairly tight. It was all discolored. The binding post did not leave a bright copper mark.

Did it make a high resistance connection? I don't know. I didn't measure it. But, the speaker sounded just fine.

I've seen some strange things happen with wires and connections over the years. Dissimilar metals can present quite a problem. But, I digress.

Could be that humidity down there in Alabama.

I did not return the monster cable, by the time it had oxidized i had already upgraded to something better. Not to mention i cut the ends off of it. I would imagine the oxidation was caused by a reaction to the dielectric material they used