Highest quality brand of car audio speaker & power wire?

[skylineTT 10+ year member]

i use RF 4gauge power and ground with kicker fuse, scoche 8guage power wire for the amp-to-speaker wire, and the remote is built into the kicker RCAs that i have. everything sounds great.

 

[SplChoice- 10+ year member]

i woudld only ever buy knukoncepts, kicker, or stinger wiring products unless i was in a crunch.

dam that girl needs to get to know me.

 

[btnhfan 5,000+ posts]

Use Knu.

Great cs, great product.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

more info please.
from msmith "The KLM stuff is copper-clad aluminum, not pure copper, and is only 60% as conductive as pure copper."

so what should the wire be made out of for best bang for the buck, i guess oxygen free copper is a good thing, and what % of copper overall. the KLM is like 90% Al and 10% copper

should we be looking for pure copper wire... 100% oxygen free or what. ive never really looked into this.

thanks.

"Bang for the buck" is probably CCA like the KLM wire......that's the reason it's used.....lower cost. I do believe the KLM wire is oversized to compensate somewhat for it's decreased conductivity. In situation where cost was a significant factor and/or you weren't going to be operating close to the wire's max capacity it's a viable option. Not the "best", but definitely the cheapest and in lower-current situations it would be sufficient.

"Best" wire would obviously be pure copper due to it's higher conductivity. If you didn't want to run the risk of issues with the aluminum wire (voltage drop, for example) or if you were going to be operating at the upper level of the wire's current capacity I would definitely go with pure copper.

From my understanding, there's no conductivity benefits to OFC.

I'm no wire expert, but that's my opinion.

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Regarding OFC....

There are three primary compositions of copper wire that are used for electrical transfer. They are:

1. C10100 - This is 99.99% pure copper with less than 0.001% oxygen and is the most expensive of the three. It's sometimes referred to as OFE (Oxygen Free Electronic).

2. C10200 - Made of 99.95% pure copper and has at least 0.001% oxygen. This is sometimes called OF (Oxygen Free).

3. C11000 - This is called ETP. If I remember correctly, that stands for Electrolytic Tough Pitch and is by far the most common form of copper. This is at least 99.90% pure copper with somewhere between 0.01% to 0.05% oxygen.

Now, as far as how they compare to each other, you can clearly see by their ratings that there is almost no difference from copper that is considered oxygen free, and copper that isn't. Based on conductivity requirements for each grade of copper, ETP and OF are identical! They both require at least 100% IACS conductivity. The practical difference from ETP to OFE is less than 1% IACS conductivity.

Paying for more expensive wires for the sake of conductivity is ridiculous. Oxygen free copper is yet another clever marketing scheme used in the audio wire world, right up there with strand count and the infamous "skin effect."

 

[AudioAnonymous 10+ year member]

Rockford Fosgate

 

[SocMunky 10+ year member]

Regarding OFC....
There are three primary compositions of copper wire that are used for electrical transfer. They are:

1. C10100 - This is 99.99% pure copper with less than 0.001% oxygen and is the most expensive of the three. It's sometimes referred to as OFE (Oxygen Free Electronic).

2. C10200 - Made of 99.95% pure copper and has at least 0.001% oxygen. This is sometimes called OF (Oxygen Free).

3. C11000 - This is called ETP. If I remember correctly, that stands for Electrolytic Tough Pitch and is by far the most common form of copper. This is at least 99.90% pure copper with somewhere between 0.01% to 0.05% oxygen.

Now, as far as how they compare to each other, you can clearly see by their ratings that there is almost no difference from copper that is considered oxygen free, and copper that isn't. Based on conductivity requirements for each grade of copper, ETP and OF are identical! They both require at least 100% IACS conductivity. The practical difference from ETP to OFE is less than 1% IACS conductivity.

Paying for more expensive wires for the sake of conductivity is ridiculous. Oxygen free copper is yet another clever marketing scheme used in the audio wire world, right up there with strand count and the infamous "skin effect."

A useful bit of info no doubt. I'll keep that in mind the next time I go wire shopping.

 

[verb1999]

I'm checking out this KnuKoncept website...this stuff is incredibly cheaper than Monster Cable. You guys are sure the quality is up to par, and each song will still sound like a symphany, but at the fraction of the cost?

 

[LBC99 10+ year member]

monster is way overrated and overpriced, like JL.

 

[dleccord 5,000+ posts]

get the krystal rcacables from knu. the karma one kinda sucks.

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

Regarding OFC....
Oxygen free copper is yet another clever marketing scheme used in the audio wire world, right up there with strand count and the infamous "skin effect."

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To take it a step further...

do some google searching and you'll find an article about the development of OFC wire.

It had nothing to do with its electrical properties. It was developed for industrial uses where high heat and vibration were problems. The NON OFC wire got brittle when it was exposed to high heat, and over time would become brittle, and eventually break.

There is no difference in corrosion between ETP and OFC, but I'm not sure it matters -- from what I can gather OFC is the standard manufacturing process of wire.

 

[Max_Power 10+ year member]

I love my Stinger products. It may be more expensive than Knu, but I go with what works.

I buy it off cardomain.com - seems to be cheaper than anywhere else.

 

[fwb_1234 10+ year member]

My roommate is going on and on about this stuff called "straight wires" or some crap. What's the deal? I know its really, really expensive, so why does it still exist?

http://www.straightwire.de/en/home_en.html

 

[jmanpc 5,000+ posts]

I installed a lot of Tsunami and was never really impressed with it. Not bad, but not good, either. Pretty dang expensive, too. I just use Audiopipe 1/0 and it's been excellent so far. I just got a spool of 16awg from walmart as speaker wire.

 

[SocMunky 10+ year member]

I'm checking out this KnuKoncept website...this stuff is incredibly cheaper than Monster Cable. You guys are sure the quality is up to par, and each song will still sound like a symphany, but at the fraction of the cost?

The quality is up to par, but I don't tend to think your wire is gonna make "each song a symphony". So long as you get the wire that will best match your power requirements then you will be set. You have to remember, the interior of a car is not like a typical home theater. Wire brand is going to have a significantly less affect on your sound as would say a good head unit, or top notch speakers or even speaker placement/deadening.