Decent speaker wire for surround sound system?

[Cookson]

I will be decorating soon, and looking to sink my surround sound wires into the walls so its a neater finish.

I am assuming I will be fine to just make a channel with a chisel and fill it in with plaster, or do I need to sink it in with some conduit too?

Also, whats a decent gauge wire, without spending a fortune? It's no Bang and Oulfson, but I dont want the kind of wire you get free with a pair of 6x9's

 

[realnumber 1]

QED micro wire's good. I use it for my surrounds (as it's not too thick) and it was loads better than the cheap rubbish that I had before.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000UO8THM/?tag=cliospnet01-21

 

[Norris_309]

I'm no use with what cable to use, i bought some off ebay for my speakers, as i'd been using the thin rubbish that came with them fine, so anything 'should' be better.

But installing the cables, i chased the channels in & put small conduit plugged and screwed to the wall, then plastered over that. i then fed the cables through afterwards.
This made it easier for plastering & decorating by not having cables poking out here & there. Also i gathered there'd be less risk of you pulling the cable a bit too much & getting cracks in the new plaster along the line of cable. (overkill? i'm not sure, but it's done the job)
I'm not expert though..

 

[Sym0n]

Unless your set up is in to the thousands, which knowing you it isn't, don't waste your money as you'll not notice the difference. Just buy some 2.5mm oxygen free cable off ebay for a couple of quid.

 

[Ol’ Tarby]

Unless your set up is in to the thousands, which knowing you it isn't, don't waste your money as you'll not notice the difference. Just buy some 2.5mm oxygen free cable off ebay for a couple of quid.

This! If it was me I'd use some half decent stuff for the fronts, and then cheaper stuff for the rears. I doubt I'd notice the difference no matter what cable was used lol

 

[realnumber 1]

If it was me and I was going the the effort of putting it into the wall I'd want to be using something half decent (like what I posted above).
Even with poor speakers it can be amazing the difference good cable can make and with putting it in the wall you'd be daft not to future proof it!

 

[Sym0n]

Amazing like the difference you'd notice between a £1 eBay HDMI cable and a £60 Monster HDMI cable?

 

[The Fatty]

Unless your set up is in to the thousands, which knowing you it isn't, don't waste your money as you'll not notice the difference. Just buy some 2.5mm oxygen free cable off ebay for a couple of quid.

+1.

Amazing like the difference you'd notice between a £1 eBay HDMI cable and a £60 Monster HDMI cable?

exactly. Probably none at all at normal listening volumes.


if you actually work out power is going to be sent down the cable (i.e. how many amps it needs to handle before brakedown occurs), then you would probably find that almost any speaker cable will do unless you have something amazingly powerful.

 

[Munson]

Please don't confuse digital cables with analogue, and please don't listen to IT guys when talking about HiFi. The comparison between HDMI and speaker cable is utterly ludicrous.

It's going to be a pretty permanent setup if you put it in a wall, so buy the best you can budget. To be blunt, people who will tell you that all speaker cables are alike, have no clue what they are talking about. Fact.

 

[DannyR]

Ideally want something like a 16/2 or 16/4 cable. 16 strands x 2/4 cores

16/2 for individual runs and 16/4 if you wanted to run from one speaker to another, mainly for in ceiling speakers so the loop is hidden as such. And running different lengths nowadays do no matter as a decent amp setup up correctly will compensate for the extra length of cables.

We charge £1 p/m or £1.50 p/m for 16/4.

We use it daily with no issues and is fine for anything up to around 150/200w per channel.

Anything else higher we use QED silver anniversary but that's ludicrously expensive at about £4/5 p/m.

I can supply cable if you want to PM me?

 

[Sym0n]

Please don't confuse digital cables with analogue, and please don't listen to IT guys when talking about HiFi. The comparison between HDMI and speaker cable is utterly ludicrous.

It's going to be a pretty permanent setup if you put it in a wall, so buy the best you can budget. To be blunt, people who will tell you that all speaker cables are alike, have no clue what they are talking about. Fact.

Do you know what is Ludacris, this.

Anyway it's an accurate comparison when discussing passing signal (digital or analogue is of no consequence here) to low end equipment? What's ludicrous is assuming that people that work in IT will have no knowledge of HiFi. Come on Roy, go back to trolling in GC or actually posting something useful in tech chat.

Low end equipment doesn't require top end cabling and the average user on this sort of setup will witness little to no improvment so it's not worth the expense. Fact.

Now if DannyR posts something different to this I'll take that as fact, but not the angry old man from foreign lands.

 

[DannyR]

Your about right Symon but if putting cable in walls using a 16 strand cable is standard really, mainly from an upgrade point of view.

If your only using a cheap £200 all in one system with the 0.5mm cable it's not going to be man enough to take 100w. The 16/2 or 16/4 we use is relatively cheap in comparison to some cables but it does a job well and can be used on almost any speakers.

You can expect loss on smaller cored cables but you'd never get the length in an all in one system to notice it and you'd only ever notice it by bench testing on thousands of feet!

 

[realnumber 1]

Please don't confuse digital cables with analogue, and please don't listen to IT guys when talking about HiFi. The comparison between HDMI and speaker cable is utterly ludicrous.

It's going to be a pretty permanent setup if you put it in a wall, so buy the best you can budget. To be blunt, people who will tell you that all speaker cables are alike, have no clue what they are talking about. Fact.

I work in IT lol.

 

[realnumber 1]

Amazing like the difference you'd notice between a £1 eBay HDMI cable and a £60 Monster HDMI cable?

Lol at trying to compare digital to analog.

 

[Munson]

Do you know what is Ludacris, this.

Anyway it's an accurate comparison when discussing passing signal (digital or analogue is of no consequence here) to low end equipment? What's ludicrous is assuming that people that work in IT will have no knowledge of HiFi. Come on Roy, go back to trolling in GC or actually posting something useful in tech chat.

Low end equipment doesn't require top end cabling and the average user on this sort of setup will witness little to no improvment so it's not worth the expense. Fact.

Now if DannyR posts something different to this I'll take that as fact, but not the angry old man from foreign lands.

Yadda yadda blah blah. My point is that the comparison between HDMI and speaker cable was pony. Quality speaker cable does make a difference. Apple for apples, it always does, and if someone is putting it in a wall, it makes sense to buy something decent. The odds are that he may upgrade his equipment before he decides to replace the plaster on his walls.

Capiche hombre?

 

[KDF]

I work in IT.

I installed speaker cable through walls and ceilings.

I understand the difference between digital and analogue.

I installed Van Damme cable.

 

[The Fatty]

Please don't confuse digital cables with analogue, and please don't listen to IT guys when talking about HiFi. The comparison between HDMI and speaker cable is utterly ludicrous.

It's going to be a pretty permanent setup if you put it in a wall, so buy the best you can budget. To be blunt, people who will tell you that all speaker cables are alike, have no clue what they are talking about. Fact.

no body said different gauge cables are alike, what we said was that for a short run on household equipment, you are unlikely to notice the difference. If you hooked it up to a scope you might see some difference, but tbh the THD of the amp is probably going to be a greater concern. 16-12 gauge (1.6mm - 2.5mm) speaker cable is fine for short runs (10-20m) on normal home equipment that probably wont even be used at full capacity anyway. An average 100w amp works at about 30v anyway.

 

[Vish]

What amp and speakers are you using?Likely to ever upgrade?

I would go with the best you can afford.

Lol at the HDMI comparison.