My guess is that all of the postees have their own experience on what sounds good.
Exactly. This can be a complex subject. Things were much more cut-and-dried back in the days of two-channel stereo, and as you’ve noted, with home theater there are often aesthetic requirements that have to be considered.
But if anything makes a difference with speaker wire, it’s size (gauge). Over the years on both the audio forums and my own personal experience I’ve seen that most people claiming speaker wire makes an audible difference will say so after switching from small-gauge to large-gauge wire.
For instance, years ago a good buddy of mine asked if I thought he would hear a difference if he switched out the 20ga. stuff that came with his 80s Yamaha rack system in favor of some 14ga. wire. The speakers were rather cheap, and it was only about a 8-ft. run -
and he didn’t strike me as a guy with especially fine-tuned hearing. So I told him “I doubt it.” He did the switch anyway, and to my surprise he came back with “It definitely sounds better.”
The reason wire gauge can make an audible difference most likely has to do with its resistance (which is naturally a function of its gauge and length) and how that relates to a
particular speaker’s overall impedance. Not its rated impedance; that’s merely a nominal figure. Anyone who has seen an impedance curve graph for a speaker knows that the speaker’s impedance can vary wildly across the frequency spectrum. If a speaker’s impedance drops particularly low at certain frequencies, then it makes sense that resistance added by small-gauge speaker cable could easily affect the way the speaker sounds at those frequencies. And it makes sense, in that situation, that changing from small- to large-gauge speaker wire would make an audible difference (hopefully better).
It logically follows that speakers with higher nominal impedance ratings of say, 8-ohms may not respond as dramatically to a change to larger gauge wire as speakers with a 4-ohm rating, which often use 2-ohm drivers (!). It also follows that speakers with a fairly linear impedance curve across the frequency spectrum may not respond the same as speakers whose impedance at places dips to very low values at certain frequencies.
This is why you will such get varied responses from people as to whether or not heavy-gauge wire made their speakers sound better. Obviously it heavily depends on the particular speakers involved, the lengths of wire they used, the size of their original wire vs. what they upgraded to, and so forth.
At the end of the day, the typical recommendation to use only 12 or 14-gauge is based on “better safe than sorry” more than anything else. I.e. more practical than scientific. Will it make an audible difference over smaller gauge wire? Maybe, maybe not. But who wants to go through the time and expense of buying speaker wire in various lengths and gauges and conducting listening experiments? Just go with the 12-gauge and be done with it, or at least 14-gauge.
That said, home theater often brings other issues to the table:
I don’t want to blow the speaker drivers by using the wrong gauge wire, I wish then NOT to look so obtrusive going up the corners or along the baseboards, but if the 14ga is not that much thicker than the 16ga,then.....
Well, you certainly aren’t going to blow up any speakers by using undersized wire. Or even cause any fires (sorry, Tony!
). But as you’ve noted, it isn’t always practical to use the “best” speaker wire, especially in situations where it can’t be easily hidden. Often compromises have to be made between performance and aesthetics. After all, we do have to live in these rooms, especially if they aren’t dedicated.
The advice would be to go with the largest gauge you can live with, visibly-speaking. Hopefully that would be no smaller than 16-gauge, at least for the front speakers.
Fortunately with home theater, “all speakers are not created equal.” The front three channels are the most important. The rear channels carry mainly ambient effects and are not the primary focus of your attention As such the rear speakers are much, much less susceptible to compromises in speaker wire choices from an audibility standpoint.
Also, make the lengths to the similar speakers the same, even if the length is not needed - for example cut the speaker wire 32' for the 3 rear speakers and 10' for the 3 front speakers. This balances the resistance.
So, you see my confusion here...is this basically a
BALANCE OF RESISTANCE ISSUE HERE?
Once again, the conventional wisdom from the days of stereo was to keep them the same length. Typically this was an easy thing to accomplish, with home theater you often have other considerations.
Practically speaking, if music listening is important to you, you might want to try to keep the cables for the front left and right speakers the same length. That said, it’s unlikely that having one speaker cable say, 5 ft. and one 10 ft. will make an audible difference. But if it does, it would be a bigger chance of being audible with 18-gauge wire than it would be with 12-gauge. And once again, how big of a potential issue it would be may also be dependant on the particular speaker in question. Clear as mud? : This is why people often take a “better safe than sorry” stance and keep the front left and right cables the same length, if at all possible. )
With home theater considerations the “rules” are once again much less clear. The rear speakers are not nearly as critical as the front L/R, and as you noted it’s a bit silly to cut two 50 ft. lengths of cable when one only needs 20 ft. The worst thing that can happen with drastically different rear cable lengths is that one speaker may end up a bit lower in volume than the other, due to the added resistance of the longer wire. And (again) if there is an issue, it will be more pronounced with small gauge wire. Fortunately, the receiver has level adjustment controls to take care of this problem, if indeed it turns out to be one.
By the way, you might want to check my in-wall speaker wiring article (see the link in my signature). If you can get your wire around the baseboards to just below the speaker location, it’s pretty easy to get the wire in-wall from there up to the speaker. Maybe this would keep you from having to run exposed wiring up the corners and give you more options on wire size.
Regards,
Wayne
