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.

[dusty2221]

Looks like re-running the tower wire just got added to the list.

[KG's Supra24]

Well not exactly what i was hoping to hear but thanks. Were you able to fish the wiring pretty easily? I was hoping to just tie the 12 awg to the existing wiring and pull it through. Possible?

[KG's Supra24]

anyone see a reason not to run something like this ...

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...mat=4#feedback

this way i would only have to run 1 wire to each pair of speakers, once i get near the speakers i can cut the sleeve and keep just the amount of + and - i need to each speaker. Basicaly i would only need 1 run of this to each pair of speakers. The bow would be the only difficult part as they are spread much further apart.

[KG's Supra24]

Also, i am using the stock roswell light/speaker bar. I'm assuming i will be running wire to a wiring harness and not the speakers themselves? Do I need to rerun the wires from the harness to the speakers?

This is where it starts going over my head ...