[jtwrace]

What do you guys use?  I'm almost ready for that part and was thinking should I use some of my speaker wire or just use something else.  Thoughts?

[avahifi]

Since we all use only tens of feet of speaker wire at the most, and the voice coils of the speakers themselves use hundreds of feet of tiny gauge wire, why isn't the question, "what kind of wire do you use for your voice coils?" 

Frank Van Alstine

[Wind Chaser]

Frank is right, all serious audiophiles re-wire their voice coils.

[srb]

Electrical motors that have certain current and wire gauge requirements of their supply cords, have windings of smaller gauge wire, so it must have something to do with inductance rather than pure resistance.  And I wouldn't think a speaker motor is much different, just on a smaller scale.
 
But I've often wondered when a speaker is internally wired with say 16 ga wire from binding posts to crossover and from crossover to drivers (which I've found is not uncommon), what's the point of wiring with 8 ga wire from the amp to the speaker?
 
Steve

[JoshK]

Yesterday I made up some internal wiring for my bass bins, which I nick-named Donner.  I bought some 12awg THHN wire in two different colors from the big box.  I cut 2 pieces of each color a bit longer than what I need.  I then twist the four wires with the two reds opposite, the two blacks opposite.  This is known as star quad.  The resulting wire is pretty darn thick.  This way there is no pratical added resistance inside the box.

[Brown]

We have had consistent results using magnet wire of the proper ga. for the drivers. Silver or copper whatever floats your boat.  IMO no need for exotic wire, just the correct ga, and electrical needs. Call the driver manf. for the criteria of the hook up wire. They helped me big time.

[srb]

Yesterday I made up some internal wiring for my bass bins, which I nick-named Donner.  I bought some 12awg THHN wire in two different colors from the big box.  I cut 2 pieces of each color a bit longer than what I need.  I then twist the four wires with the two reds opposite, the two blacks opposite.

Josh,
 
Excellent.  You are now certified and approved to use up to 9awg wire from your amplifier to your bass bins!
 
Steve

[owenmd]

Hi Jason,

I've used DH labs Q-10 and T-14 for internal wiring to good effect in the past.  Daedalus Audio used to use that wire in their speakers.... not sure if they still do...?

Mark

[face]

Cardas or Neotech if you have the patience to work with solid core wire. 

[BrianP]

I've always been fond of the Stinger 18 ga from Meniscus:

http://meniscusaudio.com/stinger-18ga-speaker-wire-p-221.html

High purity copper, supple insulation (not stiff), solders extremely well, and did I mention CHEAP? For amp-to-speakers connection, the Stinger 12 ga is nice:

http://meniscusaudio.com/stinger-12ga-speaker-wire-p-385.html

[sts9fan]

I use 16ga generic hookup wire from Partsexpress...GASP!

[Browntrout]

If you have two wires joined together as in speaker cable then internal speaker wire the resistance of the total length is the two added together. So if you have thin wire inside the speaker and thick outside the resistance is less than having thin for both and the sound is clearly better.
  I use Kimber 8vs for the amp to speaker then two equal length runs of Kimber 4vs inside the speaker giving equal resistance and capacitance throughout. Did it make a difference using high quality speaker cable inside the speaker, of course it did, it made a very noticable difference. The original internal wire was like something you could buy in a DIY building store being insulated with PVC and very thin poor quality copper.
  The idea that the type of wire used to wind the coils of a speaker should determine the speaker cable is ridiculous, that wire is designed to produce the strongest magnetic field which requires the smallest air gap between windings. Hopefully that comment was meant as a joke?

[JLM]

Why not use the same cable inside the cabinet as outside?

Frank makes a good point, all the bits of wire, pins, leads, inductor coils, transformer coils, caps, resisters, volume controls, etc. that are in the signal path affect the sound.  My system uses a modded Behringer DEQ2496 as a DAC/DEQ with attenuators (no pre-amp) that plug directly into chip amp monoblocks that with famously short circuit runs (measured in millimeters).  Next the signal travels via speaker cables (same brand as the interconnects) directly to the single drivers.  Can't get much simpler/shorter signal path than that.

[JimJ]

I've always been fond of the Stinger 18 ga from Meniscus:

http://meniscusaudio.com/stinger-18ga-speaker-wire-p-221.html

High purity copper, supple insulation (not stiff), solders extremely well, and did I mention CHEAP? For amp-to-speakers connection, the Stinger 12 ga is nice:

http://meniscusaudio.com/stinger-12ga-speaker-wire-p-385.html

Maybe they have great deals on shipping, but that price seems a bit high.

http://www.darvex.com/SHW512G/Stinger+12+Gauge+Speaker+Wire.html

I've used them before with good results for car stuff