Gauge of Speaker Wire

[KG's Supra24]

What is the optimal gauge for speaker wiring? What is the gauge needed for HLCD? What is needed for coaxials? And how much does it matter?

What is best? What is acceptable?

[you da man]

I rarely used less than 12 gauge wire but I believe you can get away with 16 guage for under 75ft runs. I just think I would rather run more than less in speaker wire gauge

[Brianinpdx]

KG - use a good 12Gauge and you'll be a happy camper. 14Gauge is acceptable. Anything less and you should question the reason for upgrades in the first place. I'm sure people have lots of fancy idea's but thats the core answer.

And if it makes you feel better, we had a Malibu at our facility that just had a retailer install either-net cable for speaker wire. *ahem, really! suffice to say, we set him straight.

-Brian
Exile Audio

[sandm]

^^lots of the home audio guys are running whole house audio over cat6e, so I can understand how that could happen.

shouldn't if they know what they are doing, but I can see it

[dusty2221]

Sandm, do you by chance remember what was ran factory in your 06 through the tower?

[sandm]

lamp cord



it was a major brand, think it was stinger, but I seem to recall it was 16gauge and not their top end 16 gauge. I think it worked fine for the factory setup, but if you are planning on upgrading the system, the entire wiring, from speaker to rca was pretty cheap stuff and seemed like it was installed after the fact and not much thought put into it's placement around the boat. I will give them that it's 10x better than what I have found in ANY factory car install I have replaced tho...

I had to drill out the tower holes much larger at the pivot point when I installed the 12gauge that I replaced it with.