Nat, I'm not sure what you mean by "a pair of 12 ga." If you mean you used a run to each speaker that had 4 wires, like this
and you twisted two of the wires together for the positive connection, and the other two together for the negative connection, you end up with resistance equivalent to about a single, two lead, 9 gauge wire. This is unnecessary (but I don't think it's harmful), even for a run of 50 feet. As the Wire Table linked to above shows, your standard 12 gauge wire is sufficient for almost any length run in a normal home, even if the speaker has an impedance of 4 ohms.