What are these speaker cables?

Polaris

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Hi,

I've got some speaker cable already wired by somebody else. I'd like to know more about it (see attached).

  1. What kind of cable is this?
  2. What is its gauge?
  3. How much will it affect quality?

It certainly looks nice and thick. I don't see any branding or specs written on its sheathing.

Thank you for your guidance.
 

Attachments

  • speaker_cable_small2.jpg
    speaker_cable_small2.jpg
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I would be guessing- but it looks like 16 guage speaker wire. A quick way to check is to cut and take about 2 inches of it to a local store and ask them to compare


As I have posted before-
Speaker cable gauge is short for American Wire Gauge, or AWG. This is a expressed in numbers that get smaller as the wire gets thicker. So, smaller numbers (12 guage) mean a larger thickness of wire, and larger numbers (16 guage) mean a smaller thickness of wire. Most bulk speaker cable is between 16 and 12 gauge (AWG).

So how does this matter to you? In general- you would select the guage of wire based upon the distance between your Amplifier and Speaker- below are a few suggestions

Less than 30 feet: 16 gauge
30 - 50 feet: 14 gauge
50 - 100 feet: 12 gauge
100+ feet: 10 gauge (or us 14/4 cable which works out to 11 gauge)
Audioholic: 10-12 gauge, regardless of distance
 
Thank you :) Assuming that such information can be gleaned from a photograph, could you please also comment on shielding and other aspects of the quality of the cable?
 
@Polaris

It is regular speaker wire-- With no shielding. This type of Speaker Wire in general does not have any shielding. It should be fine for Home Theater use

If you are listening to music and have keen ear -- and depending upon the audio equipment that you have- You may want to upgrade to better quality (Smaller Guage)-- speaker wire
 
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