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16 gauge or 18 gauge speaker wire? any difference?

P

pglbook

Member
Is there any difference between 16 gauge and 18 gauge speaker wire in terms of whether one is better than the other to connect a vintage Yamaha CR 2020 receiver to a pair of Dahlquist 10 speakers?

I have to buy speaker wire and do not know what gauge wire to get and if it matters. The fellow at Radio Shack told me either 18 gauge or 16 gauge wire would be fine. Is there a difference.

Thank you.
 
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pglbook said:
Is there any difference between 16 gauge and 18 gauge speaker wire in terms of whether one is better than the other to connect a vintage Yamaha CR 2020 receiver to a pair of Dahlquist 10 speakers?

I have to buy speaker wire and do not know what gauge wire to get and if it matters. The fellow at Radio Shack told me either 18 gauge or 16 gauge wire would be fine. Is there a difference.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Probably not, but I would get the 16.
 
A lot of debate on wires here.. Thicker is usually always better. If speakers are less than 10 feet away probably won't matter too much...
 
The difference is that the thicker gauge wire (16) can be used for a longer run. But like others have said it's best to use 14 gauge or lower.
 
Both are too thin. 16 would be better, but I recommend 12 or 14 gauge. Years ago I did a test, which you can repeat. I had been using 16 guage zip cord for speaker wires. A friend gave me some 14 gauge Monster cable to try. My amp had A and B speaker outputs. I connected the 16 gauge wires to the speakers from the A outputs, and the Monster cable from the B outputs. This way I could easily switch between the 2 kinds of wire and hear the difference. I expected none. I had been hearing a boominess in the bass which I had thought was caused by the crawl space under the house. As soon as I switched in the Monster cable, the boominess disappeared and the bass was nicely controlled and solid. So I called my wife in, sat her down and just asked her to tell me if she heard anything. She immediately said "The bass is less boomy" when I switched in the Monster cable. The idea here is that the thicker wire has lower resistance and the rope lay construction, made of many fine wires probably has lower impedance as well, allowing the amplifier to better control the speakers. Anyway you can try this test and see if you can hear any difference between the wires. If you can't hear any difference, use whatever you want.
 
which 14gauge wire would you use?

wire001.jpg
 
18 gauge on a decent power output amplifier is like using a garden hose with a fire hydrant. Bigger can be better, to a degree.

The Yamaha is not a monster but 105 wpc would like to travel through some decent cable. The DQs are power hogs and anything you can do to help them is good. 12 gauge is what I would use if the Yamaha would accept it.
 
pglbook said:
Is there any difference between 16 gauge and 18 gauge speaker wire in terms of whether one is better than the other to connect a vintage Yamaha CR 2020 receiver to a pair of Dahlquist 10 speakers?

I have to buy speaker wire and do not know what gauge wire to get and if it matters. The fellow at Radio Shack told me either 18 gauge or 16 gauge wire would be fine. Is there a difference.

Thank you.
Click to expand...
I'm in the 16-14 camp too. However, the length of run, first and foremost, followed by how much power. Dr. certainly makes a very valid point about "quality" of wire, and this is not to be confused with over hyped oxygen free wire. Put 100 people through a true blind test and likely none will distinguish the difference in wire used, assuming good quality 16-14 gauge wire is compared to hyped audio wires.

Where the investment truly pays off is in the interconnects since you are dealing with signals in the milli-volts as opposed to ~3v or higher in speaker output.

Under 15 feet I would simply regard 18ga or thicker to be quite sufficient.
 
At West Marine or Boatersworld you should be able to find individually tinned multistrand marine wire. Very high quality copper, the tinning keeps the oxygen out and keeps the copper high Q. Consider 10 or 12 awg for your speakers with gold plated ends of choice from Parts Express. 16 or 18 gauge is just too small.

No affiliation with any of em.
 
Switching from 16g to 12g on my 12wpc tube amp made a difference with a 12 foot run to efficient speakers.
I was a bonafide cynic and doubter on short runs!
You can buy 12 or 14g outdoor extension cords, clip the ends off, and use two of the strands. Cheap.
 
Recently, I wanted to replace my 16 gauge wire in my main setup. The reason, because I wanted something that laid down better, as the particular 16 gauge was sort of stiff.

I bought some 12 gauge wire from a car audio shop that looks to be of decent quality.

Anyway, when I first swapped it out I thought "man, my speakers seem a little more forward than before". I'm not a believer in speaker wire sounding different, but it sure seemed to. My amp has A/B outputs, so I put the old 16 gauge wire in the B outputs and simply A/B'd them a number of times. Guess what, it was all in my head, both wires sounded identical to me.

With that said, you may as well just get 16 gauge.
 
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