LightninBoy
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Well, I've been messing around with audio for many years. But I never gave 2 shits about speaker cables. I went with whatever I had and used bare wire termination mostly. So I have no idea about spade plugs, banana plugs, etc. Basically I'm clueless when it comes to speaker cables. Hence these newbie questions.
Here's the situation. My HT room has the rack on the back wall. 3 speaker cables run in wall to the front wall and terminate at 3 plates (Left, Center, and Right) on the front wall. I'm guessing its around a 25 to 30 foot run. Each speaker cable in the wall actually contains 4 separate wires at 16 awg each. I vaguely remember the HT installer recommending this should I want to bi-wire or bi-amp in the future. Anyways, to connect, I wrap two bare ends together for each terminal.
To go from the wall plate to the speaker, I've just been using the same in-wall speaker wire left over from the installation. Works fine of course, but looks dodgy. So I'm searching for something that will look a little better than this ...
So the requirements are
1. Looks cool, something with a braided look preferred
2. Lays and coils easy (Speakers are typically close to the wall, but I move them into the room for critical listening. So extra slack is needed)
3. Doesn't make the sonics worse
4. Is a finished product, I don't want to DYI anything
5. Less than $50 for 3ft, preferably much less.
Questions:
1. To make sure the wire is similar gauge to what's in the wall, I'll need 12 awg speaker wire. Is that correct? Recall, I'm twisting 2 16 awg wires together for each terminal.
2. Most products use banana terminations. Should I care whether its banana or spade?
3. Is it important that the terminations are soldered on vs some type of mechanical connection?
4. Searching Amazon wasn't a big help. Any other sources I should look at?
5. Did find this on Amazon. Would this be decent? https://www.amazon.com/GearIT-Premium-Braided-Speaker-Plated/dp/B07195V25F
Here's the situation. My HT room has the rack on the back wall. 3 speaker cables run in wall to the front wall and terminate at 3 plates (Left, Center, and Right) on the front wall. I'm guessing its around a 25 to 30 foot run. Each speaker cable in the wall actually contains 4 separate wires at 16 awg each. I vaguely remember the HT installer recommending this should I want to bi-wire or bi-amp in the future. Anyways, to connect, I wrap two bare ends together for each terminal.
To go from the wall plate to the speaker, I've just been using the same in-wall speaker wire left over from the installation. Works fine of course, but looks dodgy. So I'm searching for something that will look a little better than this ...
So the requirements are
1. Looks cool, something with a braided look preferred
2. Lays and coils easy (Speakers are typically close to the wall, but I move them into the room for critical listening. So extra slack is needed)
3. Doesn't make the sonics worse
4. Is a finished product, I don't want to DYI anything
5. Less than $50 for 3ft, preferably much less.
Questions:
1. To make sure the wire is similar gauge to what's in the wall, I'll need 12 awg speaker wire. Is that correct? Recall, I'm twisting 2 16 awg wires together for each terminal.
2. Most products use banana terminations. Should I care whether its banana or spade?
3. Is it important that the terminations are soldered on vs some type of mechanical connection?
4. Searching Amazon wasn't a big help. Any other sources I should look at?
5. Did find this on Amazon. Would this be decent? https://www.amazon.com/GearIT-Premium-Braided-Speaker-Plated/dp/B07195V25F
