Wire type
Sep 27 '00
When choosing the type of wires to use when hooking up speakers whether it be home or car, you must first determine the length of the wire run and how much power you will be sending thru it.
If the run is less than 20-feet (typical head-unit to rear speakers) then Monster Cable is pointless. Go down to Radio Shack and buy a 50-foot roll of 16-Gauge zip cord (lamp cord) and use that. Use the extra and fix that old reading lamp next to your armchair.
Remember the output voltage from your car stereo or amplifier is pretty much an AC signal because of it's fluctuating voltages. AC current likes to travel on the surface of wiring as opposed to DC current that likes to travel thru it's thickness. So ideally the best type of wire to use for audio purposes is solid wire and not stranded wire.
With stranded wire, the AC signal is travelling along the outside of each of the many wires. When you have many wires bundled together the twisting of each wire around another will create a phasing error and can subsequently cancel out an adjacent wire's signal thus reducing the final output signal at the end run.
Solid core wire on the other hand will use a single large surface area for which the audio signal can ride on. You have one unbroken and in-phased signal at the end.
That's why house wiring is always solid wiring and car battery jumper cables are stranded. Also AC voltage on stranded wire tends to heat up that wire. With enough heat build up from excessive current draw, you will have a potential fire threat to your car and it's occupants.
In my car I have used 22-gauge 4-conductor solid telephone wire to run my left and right speakers from a 50-watt Sony head unit with no signal loss even after a 20-foot run. I even run this wire for my home dual-voice subwoofer at 40-feet at 100-watts with no signal loss.
Using the right type of wire can keep your speaker installation costs down as well as unsightly. Don't spend a lot of money on "High-End" speaker wires, especially those that advertise, "Digital Ready", give me a break your speakers produce only analog signals. If you were to play a digital signal thru ANY speaker, you'd hear either clicks, buzzes, or hissing sounds depending on the bandwidth of that digital bitstream.
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craigwatanabe
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Member: Craig watanabe
Location: HOnolulu, HI
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