Combined together, what gauge would 4 18GA wires make? How about 4 16GA? And two 14GA? I'm looking at wire prices and it looks like I can get a lot more 16/18GA wire for cheap, then just double it up. Does the same thing, I figure, and save me a couple of bucks.

In reply to:

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Combined together, what gauge would 4 18GA wires make? How about 4 16GA? And two 14GA? I'm looking at wire prices and it looks like I can get a lot more 16/18GA wire for cheap, then just double it up. Does the same thing, I figure, and save me a couple of bucks.

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Doubling # of conductors drops the AWG by 3:
(ie: 4 conductors of 18ga would be the same as 1 conductor of 12ga) course there can be some capacitance problems depending on the gauge and rating of the wires - but that's been flogged to death here.

Try Home Depot's 16 or 14ga lamp cord.

Bren R.

A wire's gauge (AWG) number is a measure of its cross-sectional area. The rule of thumb for calculating gauge size when doubling up wires is that each doubling of wire will lower the gauge number by 3 steps.

Therefore:
Four 18GA wires = One 12GA wire
Four 16GA wires = One 10GA wire
Two 14GA wires = One 11GA wire

I'm doing the double up thing with the Canare 4S11 cable, but I'm just twisting together two of the four conducters each. This makes 14 gauge approx 11 gauge. I don't know that you want to quadruple the cable.

Thanks for the help/suggestions. I'm just curious about all this stuff, and am pretty new to the game.

KS, the previous replies are correct, but it would be a bit unusual if you could actually save money by combining two or four thinner wires into one thick wire. I'd suggest that you simply follow Mr. Russell's suggestions for gauge in the article that I linked and you read a few days ago. Don't get wire heavier than you need and it would almost always be cheaper, neater and simpler to use just one wire from a low-cost source such as Home Depot or an online seller such as Parts Express.

I just got my Canare 4S11 (I think that's the number...) today. It's enormous. I had no concept of how large the cable was. It's about 3/8 inch in diameter. Also, I ordered 2 banana plug sets from Blue Jeans, under the impression that I would get a total of 4 bananas (2 black, 2 red) and received 8. Just an FYI. Great company, reasonable shipping prices (unlike the highly vaunted Parts Express)

Thanks again. Kcarlile - I hate it when that happens. I did the same thing.

I use New Monster Cable (approx. 11 ga.).

I got 328 ft. for $123!

The "knowledgable" CC salesman 'measured' off 250 ft. Charged me for approx. 200 ft. @ my cousins discount.

I had no idea how much I ended up with until I got home & started measuring it out to cut it from spool.