I am purchasing a used 950 so I need to get wiring done as well. My runs four will be 40 ft each. Maybe more. After reading posts about the belden cable I discovered that they have a 10 guage version 5T00UP. There is also a stranded one as well. I found a place in Chicago area where 500 ft spool can be had for $122.35. They also have Genesis Audacious OFC 14/2 for 112.23 for 500ft spool. Which is better? I also see that the same cable maker has a 12/2 OFC but cannot yet find a price. As you can see I am confused and would like some advice. Thanks, John.

One drawback to 10ga is that it can be hard to fet into connectors (either speaker binding posts, wall plates, or spade/banana speaker terminations).

Gonk, couldn't the terminations be soldered? Is 10 guage overkill?

The terminations could be soldered, in which case you will have an easier time working with 10ga, but it is probably overkill for a run of under 50 feet.

ive had no problem with 10ga wire... yes it is more difficult to put into a connector, but they make connectors for lower gauges... or you could use no connector at all.

i would think the drawback would be in the added difficulty pulling it through the walls...

Griz:

Unless you've got some ungodly exotic requirements, use this, or the equivilent:

In wall wire, click me!

It seems to sell for about $0.20 a foot, and is UL approved for most in-wall use. Exotic cables are eye-candy, not ear-candy, so why put them inside walls?

I ended up not wiring it thru the walls.


it was a pain when my friend helped with the electrical. he is a contractor so had the tools to do but, around the coners he had to drill thru 4 -5 2x4's both ways then trying to get the wire pulled thru was a pain. He was free help it would have been more pain in the but. :p

The father -in law when he built used so much wood in the room it's not moving anyware lol


So i think it will be wired along the floor on the edges before the carpet goes down, or behind the molding.

I have been using Belden 5T00UP 10 AWG speaker wire for some time and am very happy with it. Remember that the lower the ga the less resistance, this is especially important for long runs. If you can successfully run the 10 ga, then I wouldn't hesitate to use it. I use it for all my surrounds. It wasn't any harder to run through the walls then other wire in fact the stiffness seemed to help me. This wire is the same that Blue Jeans sells and calls there favorite. There are many electrical supplie companys that will order this for you in bulk 1000' or 500' rolls. I get it for .15 cents a foot, 500' for $75.00 from a local company, Graybar. I use WBT crimp sleeves www.ramelectronics.net/html/speaker-con.html#slv , and thats it. The crimp sleeves work great with no connectors for most any application, and save you of having to re - cut and strip the wire so often. Remember that connectors can be an area of signal loss as well. Bare wire works the best, it's Just not always practical, bare wire needs to be maintained and redone at regular intervals but it does provide the least resistance @ the connection point.

If you have no choice but to run your speaker wire along the wall ceiling etc... Then you may want to consider www.decorp.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=DA&Category_Code=FLTW I have a few friends that have opted to use this wire, hence avoiding running the speaker wire through the walls. They seem to love this wire. I just can't seem to get over the price. Therefore I choose to do the labor intensive runs through the walls.

Another useful trick to run speaker cabling through walls is to use CAT5 ethernet cable. It's very resistant to noise and is low resistance.

Strip both ends.
You'll have 4 pairs of conductors.
Each pair has a solid and a "striped" conductor.
At each end, untwist the pairs a couple of inches.
Connect the "solids" for one channel.
Connect the "stripes" for the other channel.
I usually put cardas banana plugs on the ends.

For all but the highest current requirements, I'd put this up against almost any affordable speaker cable out there. I used to bi-wire my Dahlquist DQ-20i's to my Adcom GFA-5802 this way and my buddies who were spending thousands on MIT Oracle cables thought they sounded VERY transparent.

Cheers,