Will the expensive speakers wires make your surround sound system sound better?? Answer - only if you've been convinced that it will.

There is no discernible audio difference between lamp cord  and high end "speaker wire", as long as the wire has an adequate diameter for it's length. Find out more from the founder of Macintosh Speakers by going to his web site roger-russell and look under speaker wires. All the hype will do nothing for the sound, just the thickness of your wallet.

     Just go to your local home repair store and get a spool of 16 gauge lamp cord. I defy anyone to HEAR the difference between lamp cord and “speaker wire” costing $5.00/ft. The exotic speaker wire guys will want to convince you otherwise using all kinds of technical specs and test results with audiophile buzz words. Remember that the least accurate gage that they will ever refer to in their testing, is the human ear. If you already fell for the $5.00/ft. wire, don't feel to bad; their are companies selling speaker wire for almost (get this) $1000/ft., BUT it does come with it's own brief case.
     Speaker wire can be solid, stranded, copper, oxygen free copper, silver, etc.--or even "magic" wire--as long as the resistance is kept to less than 5% of the speaker impedance. There is an exotic formula that can be used to determine wire diameter to impedance ratios, but if your wiring a system that is all in the same room, 18 gage wire will be fine, 16 is pretty much a sure thing. Wiring the whole house may be different; go with, 16 being probably good, 14 being a sure thing.

      Think of it like this: if you were to use a higher gauge extension cord, would you expect the bulb to be brighter, or the motor in your drill to turn faster? If the wire gauge is too small for the task, you can run into problems, but that's due to length of the wire. So unless your amp is in the basement and your speakers are in the attic, standard 16 gauge wire will be fine, and nothing fancy will do you any better. You could probably get away with using standard 18 gauge wire, but for the cost savings between 16 and 18 gauge, go with the 16. Statements like, "you get what you pay for" or "there’s a reason they call it speaker wire and not lamp cord", are cliché’s that don't apply, unless of course you selling "speaker wire". If you want a way to spend some extra money on something really useful, I’ve got some gourmet donuts for sale for -------- how about 100 bucks each, or would they taste even better if I charge $200?

 How many of you saw the bogus speaker wire demonstrators at your local Circuit City? Monster Cable was "comparing" its THX Certified  XP 16 gauge wire to a 50 ft. spool of a standard 20 gauge wire? Sure you’re going to hear a volume difference between 20 gauge and 16 gauge if you’re using 50 feet of wire. Monster should be in the donut business.

 Also, just because a wire's (or AV cable for that matter) outside diameter is larger than another brand's, don't assume that it's a higher quality because the wire inside may not be any larger in diameter. The plastic insulator that wire manufacturers use is cheap (compared to the wire inside), and many of them will use extra plastic to make their wire look like higher quality. For some reason, Monster comes to mind. Maybe I could get $250 for one of my donuts if I claimed that they made using only 99% oxygen free milk!!