Suggesstion for Speaker Wires

[magator]

Does anyone have recommendations on where to buy 12 gauge speaker wire? either 100ft or 500 ft spools? Obviously, I am trying to avoid overpaying for monster cable. Thanks.

 

Sam

[blackdaniel]

You can buy speaker wire at home depot even I've heard, but depending on the quality you expect to get and the application I would keep in mind "you get what you pay for" Monster cable may be pricy but there is a reason that it is more expensive than other cheaper stuff.

[saturnboy01]

Try here:

 

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-atkT2EvstH5/

[Marcster]

Everyone's going to hate me, but I've used Monster for my inside installation... But when I installed the outdoor speakers, I used heavy guage speaker wire designed for auto use (car/truck/van) from Wal-Mart. It was much less expensive then "home use" speaker wire.

[blackdaniel]

There are a couple of reasons to use monster on outdoor and custom install jobs but price is not one.

1. Monster xp (monster standard) is oxygen free copper wire which will stand up the best to corrosion and will function the best for the long haul

2. Monster in-wall is UL approved to be in your walls in the case if custom installation. If, god forbid, there was a fire and your house burnt to the ground you would have a hard time explaining to your insurance company that you wanted to use cheap wire.

 

The type of wire you use should definately depend on the results you want to see. Of course I would always recommend in-wall wiring for custom install, but if you're just powering a couple of 20$ outdoor speakers you obviously don't want to spend more than that on wire. On the other hand if you are listening to a 5000$ pair of speakers than you want the best speaker cables available. It's an old saying but the chain is indeed only as strong as it's weakest link

[jpeyton]

You can buy speaker wire at home depot even I've heard, but depending on the quality you expect to get and the application I would keep in mind "you get what you pay for" Monster cable may be pricy but there is a reason that it is more expensive than other cheaper stuff.

No offense, but the only reason Monster is more expensive is so retail stores can make a killing off selling people cables and accessories with low-profit-margin electronics purchases.

 

Having personally spoken to many people in the retail business, I know for a fact that the markup on Monster cables is shockingly high. Their consumer grade cables are no better than cables from any other reputable brand, and the cables themselves have a similar wholesale cost to other comparable-quality brands.

 

Monster just sets their MSRP much, much higher and lets the salespeople do the work.

 

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=100-742

 

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=100-153

 

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=100-155

[blackdaniel]

Absolutely, I agree! Monster is full of margin, in fact when I worked for a retailer Monster let all of the employees buy Monster products at, get this: 90% off! They were giving us 90% off of their products provided that we made our purchases at pre-approved times (like once a year). I would routinely give customers a deal on Monster instead of selling them cheaper wire. When you get into higher end stuff it does make a difference to have higher end connections for your equipment. I have done side by side comparisons with monster products up against off brand stuff and you can see a difference. Well I should say I could show you the difference between the two. I have also done side by side comparisons with monster z series speaker wire and the cheap stuff hooked up to a good pair of speakers and you can also hear the difference. I was so impressed with the difference in the quality that I set up a dvd player with four different levels of quality of video cables and let the customers decide for themselves. 9 times out of 10 the customer would want to purchase something in the middle like a thx certified cable because they could see the difference too.

 

I guess my point is I agree that Monster has a ton of margin, but if you read any Sound and Vision or Audiophile magazine, all the experts will agree that you should use good quality cables when you hook up your equipment. I don't know if you can see or hear the difference, but I can!

 

By the way I would never pay full retail for any electronic product that I bought. Always ask for a deal when buying anything from a tv to a 500ft spool of speaker wire. TV's don't have a ton of margin but there is a lot of room to negotiate in wire, cables, power centers and speakers.