re. . .
It all begins with the Speaker Wire / Cable! We here at G.I.N. are Self Proclaimed Audiophiles. I have read many articles about the various kinds of speaker wire and cable. There are as many views as there are kinds of speaker wire / cable. To me personally, it comes down to not what difference between cables we can find with equipment, but what difference can we as true audio lovers hear. It is all about the human ear. There is oxygen free, silver, solid, stranded, twisted and many other kinds of speaker cable / wire out there, but the most important thing I believe is the gauge of the speaker wire / cable. This comes from true install & home experience. I moved into a home that had in wall & ceiling speakers wired throughout, but I found that my Yamaha received that I had for 10 years just wasn't cutting the mustard anymore. Depressed at the thought of finally giving up on the receiver, I inspected the wiring of the system and found that it had been wired with 18 gauge (clear jacket) cable. I laboriously fished and crawled and, well, rewired the home with some 14 gauge in wall speaker wire, it was like my receiver was given a second life. For shorter runs, believe it or not, 16 gauge speaker wire / cable is more than sufficient, not discernible to the human ear in tests I have personally done in a home environment- where ones actually listens to their system, even though companies will tell you that you need 12 gauge, because that is where there margins are. When in doubt, especially when using in wall, you cannot go wrong going bigger, rewiring after the drywall is up in not a fun job! Once we have the correct gauge, then we can move on to the specialty characteristics of certain brands of high end models for very high end audio systems!