Ok, help me out here...

[Texass]

I need to wire up some surround speakers at home. I already have mains and center wired with Monster cable, and have the sub taken care of too. However, I dont have my rear speakers wired yet....which is where I need your help.

1) Is Monster the best bet, or could I do something cheaper and still get good performance? Amazon has Acoustic Research cable, 100ft, 16 gauge, for $22. Good deal, bad idea, or "I will never hear the difference"?

2) What gauge to use, or does it make any difference? They are Bose speakers if that matters, but not running them on a Bose system. They are probably 40-45 feet (total wire run distance) from the Receiver.

Thanks!!

[JSE]

I would use 14ga or 12 ga standard speaker wire. Look at Lowes, Home Depot, Radio Shack, Target, Walmart, Partsexpress.com, etc. Just as good as Monster and you will not hear a difference. Monster is way overpriced.

If running the wire around or near electrical you might need some shielded wire. That's about the only thing I would be careful of.

JSE

[Texass]

Why 12 or 14? What's the difference between 12, 14, 16, 18, etc?? I'm a newbie...so go easy on me. ;)

[JSE]

I can't give the science behind it but, the longer the run, the larger the guage you need. Maybe someone else will chime in with the scientific rationale. You would probably be OK with 16ga, but for such a small price difference, I would go with 14ga or 12ga. You can usually get 14 ga or 12 ga wire at Lowes about .30/ft.

JSE

[Texass]

Thanks. Amazon has 100' of 16 gauge in white for only $22. Guess that might be the way to go.

[markw]

I'd suggest spending a few more bucks for 12 gauge. It's a little more than twice as thick as that 16 gauge. It's a lot longer a run the the rears than the fronts.

[Texass]

D'oh. Order was already placed.

[r3dline]

I sense some clarification is needed. In measuring the actual "size" of wire gauge, the LOWER the number, the bigger the wire. Thus, 12 guage is actually bigger than 16 guage. ;)

[omikey]

I sense some clarification is needed. In measuring the actual "size" of wire gauge, the LOWER the number, the bigger the wire. Thus, 12 guage is actually bigger than 16 guage. ;)
That's righ, but I think that's what Mark said.

ok let's see ..... sound, this is an analog signal, which equals electricity in all sense of the word, albeit very small and would not shock you.

The smaller the wire (meaning the higher the gauge number) the more signal strength is lost over a given run (distance) of the wire.
So - given this, we want to maximize the strength of the signal at the speaker, so we want to use a large enough wire (smaller guage number) to minize the loss of signal over the distance of the speaker wire.

So - the closer the speaker to the receiver the smaller the wire you can use and still have good signal strength at the speaker ..... the further the speaker from the reciever, the larger the wire needs to be in order to maintain the signal strength at the speaker ..... get it ?

IMO - unless you have a huge house and a very large run, 12ga is gonna give you everything your speaker can use. In most cases 14ga will more than suffice in the average room.

Hope this helps ....