kthemmes

Need some help folks,

I just bought a house, and I am getting to wire in my Home theater system. We have a small living room.

I dont know too much about speaker wire and the guages, so any help would be appreciated.

I am looking at purchasing MONSTER CABLE Speaker Wire 14Ga THX Cables, at a good price.

Will thsi type of speaker wire be okay for a small living room, or should i get a higher gauge.

The surround speakers will be about 22 feet back from the reciever if that helps in deciding a speaker gauge.

Thanks again for any help

broadwayblue

14 gauge should be fine for the surrounds at 22 feet. i would suggest 12 gauge for the front and center speakers if you can swing it.

namlook

What is an example of thin speaker wire that still sounds good? Anyone have any links online? I can't hide my speaker wire so I want it to be as unobtrusive as possible.

broadwayblue

white
black

by no means are you required to go with monster for good performance...but they should give you decent results. i'm sure there are other brands that make ribbon cable for unobtrusive installations.

Sonicflood

Why would you go with a lower/different guage for the front than for the rear? If anything, the reverse should be considered due to the length.

14 guage will be fine for FL, C, FR, LS & RS speakers in kthemmes HT room. If it makes for a warm and fuzzy feeling, then go with 12 guage all the way around. I just don't see/hear the logic in using different guages for the front.

gotapex

There's some guy on Home Theater Forum's for sale page selling the monster cable superflats for $1 per foot (less in quantity). He had some left over in a huge spool. I'd go for that over the 16 gauge mini superflats considering the difference in price (mini's are normally 60-75 cents/foot).

OldDude

Try the search function, there have been numerous threads in the past. The word "gauge" gets ten returns in the past six months. Probably the incorrect spelling "guage" or speaker wire gets more.

You will get better performance if you use whatever you are willing to spend to buy thicker wire (lower gauge number) at Home Depot instead of buying brand name at Monster Cable.

All that really matters is the total resistance of the two wires, which should be a lot less than the rated impedance of the speaker (this ratio is called damping ratio). It should certainly be more than 40, and if you are fussy, maybe more than 100 (speaker impedance/wire resistance). This simple ratio is far more important than being 'aligned,' 'oxygen free' or any other marketing mumbo jumbo.

Sonicflood

OldDude:

thanks for the heads up on my misspelling of gauge! I did it not once, but twice!

You are correct in all points that you made as well! I couldn't have said (or spelled) it better!

Sonicflood

raytseng

What home theater components are you wiring together? if they aren't that great (comparatively), then it might not be worth it to use expensive wiring.

Like using caviar on a big mac.

kthemmes

Im not wiring a home thetaer in a box. I have a Yamaha htr-5590 Reciever (Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES Discrete, DTS-ES Matrix, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS Neo: 6 decoders)

In the front of the living room, I have two Yamaha Tower Speakers and One Yamaha Center speaker.

In the back of the living room. I have two Yamaha Book shelf speakers that I am using for the left and right surround speakers.

(I am still working on purchasing a subwoofer, and another center channel speaker fot the 6th channel)

Instead of buying a Home theater in a box, I decided to build my own system.

raytseng

For the surrounds I would suggest either 12g or 14g, HomeDepot brand is fine.

For the mains, since they are your mains, I would suggest spending a couple more bucks for some interconnects instead.

I think you should just follow the 10% rule-10% of original component cost for wiring.

OldDude

The 10% rule must be invented by wire companies. That rule doesn't even tell what gauge to buy. And if the wire meets the resistivity for its gauge and the insulation holds up, thats all that counts.

My rule.
1) Measure the length of various runs and double it (there's two wires). If you use same gauge for everything, just measure longest run. If you want to use smaller wires for shorter runs, measure all.

2) Look up your speaker impedance, usually 4 or 8 ohms. You'd really like to know the minimum impedance, impedance varies wildly with frequency. The "rated" impedance will usually suffice.

3) Decide on a damping factor. I'd recommend 40 for low end speakers, 70 for mid-price speakers, 100 or 120 for high price. Divide your speaker impedance by damping factor you select. That's the resistance your wire (a double length can have). Express your answer in milliohms (ohms x 1000). Now divide by the (double) length you need. This gives you a number in milliohms per foot which is acceptable.

4) Find a wire gauge table. It will give you resistance per 1000 feet of wire (which is also milliohms per foot). Lower wire gaude number = lower resistance. Starting from larger gauge numbers, look until you find a wire gauge with little less resistance per foot than you can accept.

Example
8 ohm speaker
22' wire run x 2 = 44' of wire
selected damping ratio, 70
8/70 = .114 ohms = 114 milliohms
114 milliohms/ 44 feet = 2.6 milliohms per foot.
14 AWG is 2.5 ohms/1000 ft or milliohms per foot, use 14 AWG.

The only variation between cheap and expensive speakers is damping ration you select (and its rated impedance). The rest is silliness. I posted a wire gauge table in one of the older threads. If you searched, you'll find it.

lordzeppelin

Check out this article...it may change your mind...

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...le-5-2003.html