cheaper to buy separate wires or amp kit?

[jriley3 10+ year member]

I am going to be installing my 120 watt rms components with my 140 watt rms amp, and i have an 8 gauge kit for that with 12 gauge speaker wire that i might have a bit left over from, i dunno yet.

But i will need wires to hook up my 300 watt rms kicker sub and my 500 watt rms amp. What wires will i need, will it be cheaper to just buy another kit for 40 bucks? what are the pros of getting a distribution block? I dont NEED it do i? what gauge speaker wire do i need from amp to sub and what gauge power wire.

also does anyone have links to info on building a sub box!!

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[dumple 5,000+ posts]

so your going to have 2 amps around 550 or 600 wattts. You need wire to hook your sub to your sub amp (12g speaker wire) wire for hooking your speakers to your speaker amp (same as first). Next you already have an 8g kit prolly ok but maybe 4g would be safer. So 2 amp or 2 kits is your question. There is no need to run 2 kits when u can do basically the same with a distribution block.

 

[jriley3 10+ year member]

will i die if i use 16 gauge speaker wire to go from the amp to the sub?

 

[wong05tsx 10+ year member]

if you have 12ga speaker wire left over, why not use that?

but at 300w rms... 16ga might be fine... maybe just double up on it to be safe... but then again, why not just use that 12ga speaker wire u have left over

 

[jriley3 10+ year member]

i will if i do have some left over. i havent done it yet so i dont know how much i will have left over. given i dont screw up cutting wires, i will hopefully have leftovers. what do you mean by double up? But if theres no leftovers, i decided ill just steal some of the 14 gauge that was running the rear speakers to our home theater audio that we don't use anymore and ill replace it with the 16 gauge in my amp kit just in case we do use them again.

 

[danp129 10+ year member]

http://www.bcae1.com/wire.htm

300 rms is about as high as you want to go on 16g at 4ohm

14g speaker wire for the sub at a 4 ohm final impedance will work upto 700 rms or so.

I doubt your $40 soundstorm amp will put out 500rms and would be closer to 250-300rms, in wich case the 16g would be fine.

You need 8g power/ground to each amp. Whatever combination of kit+distrobution blocks+wire gives you that result will work. I would do a 4g power run from battery to distrobution block near the amps, and run 8g from distro to the amps. The 4g power needs a 125 amp or smaller fuse upto 18in away from battery, and each 8g power wire will need a 50amp or smaller fuse a few inches from the distrobution block. Run an 8g ground to each amp.

 

[jriley3 10+ year member]

hey thanx for your help dan.

 

[danp129 10+ year member]

Glad we could help