What type of speaker wire should I use to wire my basement?

Question

I plan on putting speakers in different zones to have total surround sound.

Answer 1

Depends on the speakers and amp you are using. For (second zone), 14 or 16 gauge wire is fine.

Now for your actual home theater you need to give more details.

More questions? Just e-mail me. I have owned a home theater business.

Good luck

Answer 2

Wow - the myth that the wires are "..more important than the electronics" is still around.  The Monster marketing department is cheering.

This is total bunk.

Here is what you do:

If you are running in-wall, you need to find wires that are CL3 or in-wall rated. This is often the fire codes in many cities.

Long runs of wire have a roll-off issue in the higher frequency's.  Thicker wire reduces this.  Most of us standardize on 12 ga wire even for short runs so we can just buy a spool and use it everywhere.

Buy a spool of good 12 ga wire from www.partsexpress.com long enough to wire your house.  The "Carol" brand is decent and you can even get it at your local Home Depot.

If you cannot find in-wall rated 12 ga, many high end systems have been made for years with 4-wire, 16 ga.  Two of the wires are twisted at each end for the "+", and the other two twisted for the "-".

"I plan on putting speakers in different zones to have total surround sound."

Sorry - but this is a bit useless.

Many people run Stereo to a different room for music. This is why we have multi-zone receivers.  But whats the point of sending movie soundtracks to rooms where the TV is not visible?  You will NOT find any receivers that have Zone B speaker outputs for all 6 speakers because of this.

Some people think playing 1 movie in 1 room, and piping it to a bedroom/kids room is a good thing, but it's not. It's actually complicated, expensive and difficult to control.

A cheeper and easier solution is to buy a good HTIB for the second room. (we are talking $700 here for a separate system).

Answer 3

There is more money wasted on cables and connectors than anything else in HT.

Unless you have "golden ears" the vast majority of people (and in my view most of the others are fooling themselves!) will be fine with normal bulk speaker wire from Home Depot (or wherever). The real issue is how far you will run the wires. That said 14  gauge wire is almost always adequate and even 18 gauge is fine for 8 ohm speakers at any distance under about about 30 feet.

See the link for a good article on what matters and what doesn't.

Answer 4

Use monster cable so you do not lose much signal.

Answer 5

16/2 -65 strand coper

Answer 6

Get the best type of wires you can. Go to a store specializing in sound equipment and entertainment centers. The wire, interestingly enough, is almost more important than the surround sound system quality. This is because the resistance in the wire can translate to loss in audio quality.