Highest quality brand of car audio speaker & power wire?

[verb1999]

What do you guys like for both speaker and power wire? I always thought Monster Cable was a reputable brand name, but looking at their website they seem to be quite spendy. Nothing wrong with that, I'm planning on spending a lot so I can get the best out there, but if I'm gonna be spending hundreds on wires alone, I might as well find out if I'm getting the best for my money. Any recommendations?

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[SocMunky 10+ year member]

I suggest getting your wiring from KnuKonceptz. Good wire, you assumably won't spend hundreds on it unless your driving a land yacht thats 25 feet or so long......

Bottom line, wire is wire, make sure you get the proper gauge and fusing for the application!

 

[Qbenjamin 10+ year member]

Why would you spend hundreds on speaker wire? I myself use monster everything, but I make sure that I get it at the best price. I also like Knukonceptz wire, but I was a bit disappointed in the KLM 1/0.

The strand count and making sure that it's oxygen free or copper should be more what you need to pay attention to.

 

[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

Power wire, Kicker.

Speaker wire brand isnt very important as long as you dont use too small a size.

 

[hoss 5,000+ posts]

Power wire, Kicker.
Speaker wire brand isnt very important as long as you dont use too small a size.

even though the wire only makes up for a very minute difference in the sound or performance of anything, this is the most ass backwards answer i have ever heard...

this is one of the few cases where i would say get whatever is cheap. unless you are trying to color coordinate your install, or are that anal that you have to have name brand stuff, you arent going to notice a difference.

the only wire i have ever noticed a difference in has been signal cable and speaker wire. and it wasnt that the cheaper wire sounded bad, just that the more expensive wire sounded better. and for the price, it was far from being justified.

 

[verb1999]

Why would you spend hundreds on speaker wire?.

I'm not talking just speaker wire, I'm talking speaker, RCA's, power/ground, the works. The high end Monster RCA's are $150-$200 alone.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Boycott Monster Cable

Never ever pay for that overpriced wire, and don't support their egotistical and unnecessary antics.

As was said previously....no point in overspending on wire. For speaker wire just be sure it's adequate gauge. For power wire, just be sure it's adequate gauge and the higher the strand count the more flexible the wire is.

RCA's are pretty much as unimportant as the rest of the cable. Just be sure it's decent quality as some of the very low end cheap stuff can have build quality issues (ends falling off, etc). Shielded vs UTP is highly debated so you just need to research and go with what you feel is better for noise rejection.

 

[hoss 5,000+ posts]

spend your money on the RCA's, and i wouldnt spend the money for the monster RCA's... i dont think they do much more than improve the shielding, and nicer packaging...

power/speaker wire, save your money and get cheap stuff. and look into high end RCA's if you want real performance (you can get much better for the same price or less as those monsters...)

 

[GI 10+ year member]

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

 

[btdickey99 5,000+ posts]

Stinger

 

[dragnix 5,000+ posts]

scosche

 

[nauc 10+ year member]

Boycott Monster Cable
Never ever pay for that overpriced wire, and don't support their egotistical and unnecessary antics.

As was said previously....no point in overspending on wire. For speaker wire just be sure it's adequate gauge. For power wire, just be sure it's adequate gauge and the higher the strand count the more flexible the wire is.

RCA's are pretty much as unimportant as the rest of the cable. Just be sure it's decent quality as some of the very low end cheap stuff can have build quality issues (ends falling off, etc). Shielded vs UTP is highly debated so you just need to research and go with what you feel is better for noise rejection.

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.

 

[LBC99 10+ year member]

http://www.knukonceptz.com

 

[SocMunky 10+ year member]

http://www.knukonceptz.com

Yep, just got my wire/fuseholder/battery terminals from them. Seems to be good stuff.

 

[TurdFergueson2 5,000+ posts]

I used kicker everything. This flea market i go to has the stuff. Nobody wants to buy it. Those cheapo kits cost 20 bucks and sell like crack on the first of the month. The kicker stuff just sits there and the sellers want to move it so they charge decent prices.

I get 4 gauge power wire for 2.75 a foot. or 50 dollars for the 4 ga kit (no rcas)

and i get 20 foot RCAs for 15 bucks. They used to carry the streetwires rcas for 10 dollars. the ZN 2.0 cables. I liked those because they had remote wires built in. I have a 100 foot roll of Monster THX wire for my door speakers if i can get a decent shop to run it for me.

Has anyone ever used the Tsunami stuff?

 

[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."