What do you use for RCAs, speaker wire, and power/ ground wire ?

Are you brand loyal, or are you a whatever's cheapest kinda installer ?

What do you use, and why..... ? Any tricks, or things that set you apart from the rest ?


discuss

 

I'm brand loyal when it somes to the speakers. I have all rockford all around from RCA to ground to power to speaker. They tend to have better quality and design therefore enhancing the crispness of the sound.

For the subs i have cheapo RCAs because face it, you are only sending a low signal. You dont need crispness for boooooommm boooooommm but you do for voice...

 

I am using Stinger RCAs and Monster Cable speaker wire. I am not really brand loyal though. On the RCAs I just look for something that is thick enough that the wires will not get pinched, on the speaker wire it was cheap in bulk and looks good where it terminates.

 

RCA (interconnect) cables do no make a difference in sound quality. The electrical characteristics (inductance, resistance and capacitance) responsible for what can alter the sound have to be so far off in order for us to hear the difference. What you want to look for is a quality soldered or crimped connection and good shielding to fight off noise.

In the car, there won't be a significant difference between 16 gauge and 12 gauge since the runs are short.

You'll find that a lot people are brand-name loyal (i.e. all Stinger or Monster). Streetwires and Scosche have been in the car audio business for a long time and put out quality products. I've seen suspect/inconsistent quality in Monster, Stinger and Rockford interconnect cables (poor solder joints mostly) so be careful when looking at these brands.

I'm a DIY type so I like to make my own stuff (car and home use) from Belden and Canare stock. It's extremely cheap to make your own once you aquire the tools to do so.

 

I hear good stuff about http://www.knukonceptz.com

Good pricing, I will try them next.

 

hehe, can of worms are open....

 

Just get a cheap kit off of ebay, and get some stinger dream series rca or something. The Wires themselves are all the same material the only difference is that the rca's are only made to carry a 2v output on you deck and most decks now have at least 4.4v outputs and as high as over 6v. You'd be suprised on how much a difference a good set of rca's will do!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">hehe, can of worms are open....

</TD></TR></TABLE>
LOL!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by puddz27 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Just get a cheap kit off of ebay, and get some stinger dream series rca or something. The Wires themselves are all the same material the only difference is that the rca's are only made to carry a 2v output on you deck and most decks now have at least 4.4v outputs and as high as over 6v. You'd be suprised on how much a difference a good set of rca's will do!</TD></TR></TABLE>hmmmm....... *bites tongue*

 

For RCA's I went with Lightning Audio. I wanted to get the Top End Strike model, but the price was insane, went with the blue ones. Much more reasonable in price, plus they fit my wiring coloring scheme of blue and silver, which looks really good with my amps. For speaker wire I went with Phoenix Gold ZeroPoint wiring, the blue and silver twisted.

I'm happy with it. I think I spent about $350 just on wiring. My friend just went with Street Wires in his integra and his wiring was $750.00 for RCA, power wire and everything.

 

While we're on teh topic of cabling, why isn't balanced XLR connectors used in cars? to me it seems like the most simple way to block unwanted noise easily.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EBP_SI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">While we're on teh topic of cabling, why isn't balanced XLR connectors used in cars? to me it seems like the most simple way to block unwanted noise easily.</TD></TR></TABLE>

HEHE - they are when you run Image Dynamics Processors!!!!

Balanced lines have never really taken off - Soundstream had them, Phoenix Gold processors, and most famously Zapco. But they just never really got that popular.

Impossible to induce noise into - I've always wanted to do all symblink, but I don't like their choices in the crossover market. I wish my H700 had balanced outs on it, then I would have considered going a different amplifier route.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">hehe, can of worms are open....

</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's friday.... let's fight

I usually just install what ever the guy buys. if he has none, he gets 99 cent rca's. I 'warn' him about it. I've had some guys come back after a few months and replaced the 99 cent-ers with brand name stuff. I've only seen the cheapies make noise in a few cars ( less than 10 ) and all were cured with proper shielded name brands.

for my car, I made my rca's out of this tweaky high end speaker wire. it was made up of 3 or 4 braided wires for each polarity. so these two braided things are braided together somehow..... anyways looks really cool, and there's tons of wire in it.... made them with that, and some scoche (sp ?) 'gold' rca ends.

I know this tweaky Home audio ( not home theatre... home audio) salesmen who did his car in kimber kable. The speaker wire was some retarded silver strand bla bla 125 $ a foot. Trust me, this guy was crazy, his home stereo was one of the most accurate sounding systems Ive ever heard. The way this guy used to talk about sound would give you a hard-on, Im telling you. That was a guy to fight with.
"Dude, does it make the electricity travel faster, or what ?" can of worms, more like a can of whoop *** with this guy.


happy friday.

 

I think the reason is cost, and most wouldn't know what it is or its benifits.

I prefer Fiber to the trunk.

My soundstreams have the balanced inputs.

 

i've actually had experience with some really really shitty cabling before in a friends car. he had a 4channel amp for the mains and a 2 channel for his subs. i was trying to figure out how it was wired because there was splitters everywhere so i unplugged the RCA's that came from teh front going into the 4 channel amp and there was still sound coming from teh mains. i started scratching my head and it turns out that the splitters that were connected to the amp were running very close the the speaker wire going to the sub so as i pulled the wires away the sound from the main speakers would fade .