I have an amp that runs about 700 watts. I am running 3 12's off of it. The guy at the stereo shop said 16 gauge speaker wire was good enough. Is this right? It just sounded too small to me. Any help would be appreiciated.

 

For what wire? To the speakers, power ground...

I would only use 16 gauge for a remote lead personally. 12 gauge for the subs. I would use 4 gauge for power and ground if that is 700 watts rms.

 

16 guage would work fine. Infact, alot of Audiophiles (the ones who set their home receivers and other related equipment on air bladders so the "vibrations" don't interfer with their quest for perfect sound) believe you should use the smallest cable possible (within reason) to help keep the bass and treble signals together. Rather odd people though, if you ask me....

 

def too small for subs.. imagine pissing through a straw.. thats what its like... if you **** through a pvc pipe you'll get more flow.. so use something like 12 ga or even 10.

 

Yeah for the subs

 

Actually from what i've seen most audiophiles use cables with miltiple wires inside of varying diameters to achieve the ideal sound. For example my audioquest speaker wires have 12 wires total, 6 for each side. all of them are different sizes.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by queez &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">.. imagine pissing through a straw.. thats what its like... if you **** through a pvc pipe you'll get more flow.. .</TD></TR></TABLE>

The straw would overflow and it would be very messy

 

16 guage would be fine. we're dealing with AC currents here, not DC. i had a 16 gauge on my e15k (had about 800 watts to the sub) and switched it to 12 gauge. no difference there..


and if your amp and subs are in the trunk, then you'll be ok. i mean..the wire is gonna be less than 5 feet if the amp is mounted near the subs..unless..u have 500 feet in your trunk for the fun of it. heh