i want to get different kinda of wires for my own kit because i've been reading around and some wires are better then others liike rcas, 16-4gauge wires, etc some companies seem to offer better quality for different wires

so my question is

which company offers decent rcas' to run from my amp to my Head unit
which wire would be good for remote turn on
which would be good for speaker wires
which would be good for sub wires

 

wire is wire is wire, especially when your talking about the kinda power needed to drive a speaker or a remote turn on. ive never found any difference between cheap and expensive rca's.

 

thanks anymore input from anyone else? cause i seen some really cheap wire but iono how much interference there would be because of the quality or "noise"

 

usually the difference is in the strand count which more or less effects how flexible the wire is

 

for rca get some magneticly sheilded ones helped alot when i changed mine from cheapos to sheilded rca's

 

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that an rca can SHIELD noise in the audible frequency range. An rca can REJECT noise through twisting the pairs. For an rca to shield from noise, at the very least, your shielding would have to be over an inch in diameter, its pure physics, for wavelengths that long you need a specific diameter (not thickness) to be effective. I know what marketing would have us believe, and I used to argue with many people that shielding did make a difference, but it's the twisting that makes the difference.

For customers, I will sell them shielded rca's, I will never push them into expensive rca's, but my own vehicles I use 16awg speaker wire, twist it with my drill and solder ends on. Several times, I have had customer's vehicles with noise from fuel pumps, etc, and have removed expensive "shielded" rca's, and replaced them with twisted 16awg speaker wire rca's and had the noise completely gone!

 

sounds interesting should try that when i rewire my speakers... but as of rca's sheilded does make some difference ( that i noticed anyway ) and just for the fun of it did anyone try using a RG-6 coax cable for satelittes and use it as RCA's ( cause you can get the ends for rca ) i was wondering how good it would be

 

It works, but not great. For short runs in a car, not a big deal, long runs in a house, the impedance is wrong and you get signal loss. Also, Coax is designed for the 2 GHz area (+or-), we're MUCH lower frequency. Also, coax is not twisted, which means no noise rejection. That's my point, coax is the proper diameter for frequencies in the GHz range, we are in the kHz and down range and the same diameter. The wavelength is physically longer. 100 Hz about 3.5meters, 25 kHz 1.3cm, and 2 MHz is in between 1mm and 2mm. 2 GHz is VERY small physical length.

As far as you hearing a difference, I would put money on the fact that it was either placebo effect, or the new ones were twisted. Keep in mind different twists/more twists make a difference.

Rockford Fosgate used to have great rca's that were braided with a third wire (that had no copper, just insulation). These were excellent as they rejected noise because they crossed back and forth, but they didn't twist around each other (this was to help with the whole balance between inductance and capacitance of twisting pairs of wire).

 

can't say i've noticed a difference in RCA's in car audio but home audio thats a different story, Better cables make a difference, I like the monster cables....great warranty, no questions asked they just replace if something breaks. I wouldn't spend $200 on RCA's for car audio though, put that money into sound deadening instead.

 

I agree. Home audio's a different story, but you usually have more options too (balanced vs unbalanced, analog vs digital). Not many options in car audio for carrying signal.

For your original question Carlos:
Make your own RCA's by using 16awg speaker wire, twist it in a drill and solder your own ends on. Alternatively, you could braid 3 wires per RCA end and just use the 2 wires with the 3rd a dummy, this imitates the high end Rockford cables I mentioned earlier, but is overkill I think.

Remote turn on can be the cheapest 18awg you can find.

Size of speaker wire depends on power to speakers. Typical is 16-18awg for spks, and 12-14 awg for subs.

For power wire, that also depends on size of amps, but typically go as big as you can afford. This way you can upgrade, add an amp, and there is less voltage drop. Also do what's called "the big 3". Do a search, basically upgrades alternator power wire, engine ground and battery ground.

When buying the power wire, the higher the strand count, the more flexible and easier to work with the wire will be. That's it, more strands does not mean better, usually just more expensive. Lots of guys go with welding cable, others car audio stuff. Also, OFC means Oxygen free Copper. Look for that or 100% copper, or solid copper, something along those lines. If it says aluminized copper, you have to buy bigger wire to get the same current rating. Rule of thumb is get the next size bigger (10 awg would move up to 8 awg, 4 awg to 2 awg, etc.) This is done to cut costs since copper costs alot now.