Where do y'all HT guys buy speaker wire from? People buying from Home Depot, please read!

[Entity]

I've been looking around for what I should get with my Denon 3802. I have some 16 gauge right now, but most people are recommending to go with 12 gauge (on HT Forums). Many of them have said to buy from Home Depot (.21 / ft.), but my Home Depot only has RCA pre-coiled speaker wire. What other good places are there?

Edit: Please read my last post if you get 12ga from Home Depot. Thanks!

Rob

 

[minendo]

I've always bought spools of Monster Cable from Best Buy. Of course I used to get at least 50% off.

 

[Entity]

I'd love to go with spools of Monster Cable, but I don't get that kind of discount.

Rob

 

[Thegonagle]

You could go to your local hardware store if your Home De-Pot doesn't happen to have electrical wire in bulk. I'm quite certain I will never buy high-priced "speaker wire." IMO, electrons don?t really care what brand of copper thy flow through, only that enough are able to flow.

 

[Entity]

Hmm. They have electrical wire in bulk, but I didn't see anything split like speaker wire is. Maybe I'll see if any of the other Home Depot or electrical stores have 12gauge speaker wire.

Rob

 

[Migroo]

electrical wire works.

'specialist' speaker wire DOES work extremely well as long as you have the type of system which would show up the flaws in using inferior wire.

Try this: If you have extra 16 guage, why not fit two runs to each speaker, thus doubling the current bandwidth etc (you can wire them to the same terminals). Although this isnt a completely solid test (ie: 2 x poor quality wire is still poor quality...) it would give you some idea of what simply doubling the thickness would do!

HTH

 

[Harvey]

Regular lamp cord of the appropriate guage will do as well as Monster cable. Wire weenies are weird (not wired).

 

[Raincity]

OH no, another magic wire debate is coming on. I will stay out of this one. If your rear suround wire runs are less than 30' then 16 gauge is just fine. If you need 12 gauge then try a local HT shop that does installs also and buy some Sound King speaker wire for a quater a foot.

Rain

 

[EvilYoda]

one of your local Home Depot stores SHOULD have them, but if not, look online at www.partsexpress.com........I asked the same question a while back, and they have some pretty good deals too. I also know of a site called www.spidergear.com.......they sell mostly refurb stuff, but they seem to have some pretty nice cabling, at a good price too.

goooooood luck.

 

[Bulldog7000]

USE CAT5! I SH!T you NOT! take the 8 wires and split them into two groups and twist together for two conductors! There are quite a few audiophiles that swear by it. I used it and I must say they sound pretty good! It all has to do with the solid-core speaker wire movement. You have several solid wires conducting your signal.

It's cheap, so if you are in a pinch for money, you can have some speaker cables for $2

BTW: MONSTER CABLES ARE OVERRATED!

BDOG

 

[BatmanNate]

I just pick up the spool of copper 12 gauge wire from the Depot. Can anyone illustrate the difference between speaker wire and conventional wire? I can imagine the shielding perhaps, but you'd need a pretty high end system to be able to differenciate between the two...

 

[kami]

Do you have any of those local army surplus stores? They carry a ton of junk, but some of the stuff is like finding a gold mine. This particular one had an audio section and I could buy 50 feet of 14 guage for like $8 i think it was (i use bare wire connections), but I already had some 12 guage at home that I use for my mains.

 

[Entity]

Looks like it's time to give my local Lowe's a call and see if they have it spooled.

Rob

 

[FrustratedUser]

Home Depot

 

[Triumph]

It's surprising your Home Depot doesn't have them, all the ones I've been to have a large wire selection. How about Loew's then? Don't waste your money on high priced cabling.

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

Originally posted by: Bulldog7000
USE CAT5! I SH!T you NOT! take the 8 wires and split them into two groups and twist together for two conductors! There are quite a few audiophiles that swear by it. I used it and I must say they sound pretty good! It all has to do with the solid-core speaker wire movement. You have several solid wires conducting your signal.

It's cheap, so if you are in a pinch for money, you can have some speaker cables for $2

BTW: MONSTER CABLES ARE OVERRATED!

BDOG

If you are gonna use cat5, do it right
http://www.geocities.com/venhaus1/diycatfivecables.html
You need the right cable and the good twist

EDIT: the way you did it sucks ass

 

[yellowperil]

Was at one of the big mall music stores a few weeks ago (think it was Spec's/FYE) and they had 50' spools of 16-gauge Monster Cable for $20.

 

[fatbaby]

if "workin'" is still around, he'll come in and say that theres no audible difference between monster cable and everything else

25 ft. 18 gauge for $.88??

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

Originally posted by: fatbaby
if "workin'" is still around, he'll come in and say that theres no audible difference between monster cable and everything else

25 ft. 18 gauge for $.88??

Although monster cable may be good, it's wayyyy too hyped up and is too expensive. Better cable can be had for a lower price.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Originally posted by: minendo
I've always bought spools of Monster Cable from Best Buy. Of course I used to get at least 50% off.

Wow, exact same here. I was an employee there for just last summer and got a 100' spool of just plain Monster Cable speaker wire (not even sure what guage, but it's pretty beefy...) for 30 bucks. Sounds terrific. I also got some Monster Cable interconnects and AR optical TOSlink cables for a few bucks each at that time... and so can you! Similar prices can be had on eBay.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Originally posted by: Harvey
Regular lamp cord of the appropriate guage will do as well as Monster cable. Wire weenies are weird (not wired).

Maybe to YOU- I was able to hear a distinct difference between lamp cord and just the basic Monster Cable speaker wire- it was 30 bucks well spent (otherwise would have been $70).

EDIT: And $70 would have been too much, IMO. The sound is better, but not $70 better. I would have looked elsewhere too... wow, Cat5? I'm gonna look into this. If anyone else is interested, I've got a huge 1000' spool of LG Electronics Cat5 that I'm looking to get rid of- if you want 'speaker cable', lemme know.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Originally posted by: NuclearFusi0n1

Originally posted by: Bulldog7000
USE CAT5! I SH!T you NOT! take the 8 wires and split them into two groups and twist together for two conductors! There are quite a few audiophiles that swear by it. I used it and I must say they sound pretty good! It all has to do with the solid-core speaker wire movement. You have several solid wires conducting your signal.

It's cheap, so if you are in a pinch for money, you can have some speaker cables for $2

BTW: MONSTER CABLES ARE OVERRATED!

BDOG

If you are gonna use cat5, do it right
http://www.geocities.com/venhaus1/diycatfivecables.html
You need the right cable and the good twist

EDIT: the way you did it sucks ass

Dude! I read some reviews and people are saying it's noticably better than Monster Cable 16guage! I think that's what I've got... wow, I'm going to look into this... thanks for the link. Here is my HT setup, btw.

 

[Entity]

What the hell? Everywhere around here (Seattle) is charging around $.70/ft. for 12/2 speaker wire. Bleh. (Home Depot included). I'm just looking for something like this:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=100-740&DID=7

Rob

 

[Entity]

Can someone give me the store # of a Home Depot that sells 12 gauge for around $.21-$.25/ft? Mine sells it at $.39 for the Carol stuff I linked to below. :|

Rob

 

[Entity]

Anyone? Want to buy tonight to get my setup going!