Is 12G speaker wire enough for subs?

[ghart999 10+ year member]

Have 800W going to each of two IDMAX subs. Is 12G enough or should I go bigger?

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[espguitarist91 10+ year member]

How far are the wires going to be ran. Usually the wire from the amp to subs isnt too long. I think itll be fine.

 

[POLKAT 10+ year member]

The enemy you are fighting is resistance. Wattage really has nothing to do with it. The lower the impedance that you subs are wired to, the more that resistance will affect their output.

Some really good reading if you have the time:

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

A wire resistance of less than 5% of the nominal speaker impedance is chosen to work well with almost all speaker systems and can be considered conservative.

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

You'll be fine.

 

[wlmrs 10+ year member]

12 is fine,do not go higher though.

 

[xpl0it 10+ year member]

12AWG is plenty, I'm running near 4k to my 4 12s off 12AWG and works fine.

 

[ghart999 10+ year member]

thanks all. I will only be going about 4 feet

 

[danteBirosel 5,000+ posts]

Sorry but thread jack,

what if im doing 12awg. and then it was too short so i spliced it and added 16 awg. is that bad??????????????????????