Which company sells the best wires

[Duran 387]

what

how is that a gay joke.... you say you work for the man....

i ask what it is you do for him.....

and then you tell me you have rules for bumping.... i donno im confused

but i still wanna know how you work for him.....

and now i wanna know your riles for bumping sir!

I install for him.

The rules of bumpin' are simple, respect other drivers. I value my hearing, so I might bass for a few minutes, or for certain songs, and then turn the bass down. I don't bump at a stop, and not in crowded parking lots. If I wanna let it wang I go to an empty parking lot, of outside of town, even then I use earplugs most of the time. John knows that and thinks its cool, hes tired of these arseho kids that just let it wang with an 80 year old lady next to them at the light.

[KU40 173]

kicker for power wire. monster for interconnects, and knu for speaker wire, thas what i am using.

Some people swear by there Monster cables.

I wonder if there is any truth to there boner.

No.

For everything I've done I just buy pretty much the cheapest stuff. wire is wire, no need to pay for the name on the jacket. RCAs can be different though, but not because of the quality of wire. It usually comes down to the ends and how well they stay connected to both the cable and the RCA input on the amp/HU/whatever.

and yeah, $140 is way too much for a 1/0 kit.

[helotaxi 46]

The wire that so many people rave about isn't any more conductive or really better in any way that actually benefits the system. That people are willing to spend significantly more money on wire that is merely more flexible just baffles me.

[seanbw 1]

ok, so everyone has negative opinions about the 140 dollar kicker kit. does ANYONE want to provide a POSITIVE solution, rather than just scoffing at how expensive mine was? let me clarify, what im asking for is a reliable easy to access source for wire that anyone sitting behind their computer screen with a credit card can purchase. I'm not talking local distributors, hook ups, or mystery sources. Suggestions would not only help the thread starter but those who are paying too much for wire like me. not all of us need 4/0, and not all of us want to wrestle with welding cable. i'm not saying the kicker wire is anything fabulous, i'm just asking for some constructive answers to a valid question.

[95Honda 486]

Have you ever used welding cable?

You can tie Suplaflex 4/0 into a knot that is about 4" in diameter, do you understand how flexible that is? The 1/0 is a few thousand strands. This type of welding cable is more flexible that most "car audio" cable....

I am not sure where you aren't understanding that this is the best (most constructive) advice there is for power cable, unless you want to pay for looks...

People tend to have negative opinions about things that are a rip-off.

It is probably easier to buy welding cable, from a computer, with a credit card than most car audio sites....

[///M5 2,833]

Considering "best" was the question, budget should be involved. Personally I wouldn't pay for the best as normal cable is fine and I will never see the need to spend $500+ a foot.

[akjay907 0]

yeah ive read somewhere about those high end wire companies and how much they rip you off

hell, when i didnt know anything about car audio, i was using RCAs from my dvd player, speaker wire from old ass boom boxes laying around my house and some random frayed wire as my power and did fine.

[///M5 2,833]

yeah ive read somewhere about those high end wire companies and how much they rip you off

hell, when i didnt know anything about car audio, i was using RCAs from my dvd player, speaker wire from old ass boom boxes laying around my house and some random frayed wire as my power and did fine.

Imagine that, copper is pretty much copper. Diameter and strand count can vary, but meh not what I'd be concerned about in a car for sure.

[seanbw 1]

Have you ever used welding cable?

You can tie Suplaflex 4/0 into a knot that is about 4" in diameter. The 1/0 is a few thousand strands. This type of welding cable is more flexible that most "car audio" cable....

http://store.weldingdepot.com/cgi/weldingdepot/0010x.html

so im guessing you mean something like this? i haven't found a supraflex or suplaflex, but i did find some super flex....

is there a preferred distributor for cable you have? im assuming flexibility is just a matter of the strand count, more strands = more flexible? this is starting to get more helpful... a link or two would be appreciated though.

oh, and the partsexpress advice for interconnects/speakerwire was great Honda, thank you.

edit: since i've got my ignorance out on full display here let's go all the way..... ///m5: perhaps as a sq guy u can direct me towards a couple more answers; grounded vs ungrounded rca's? twisted pair >, = or < regular speaker cable and why?

sorry for the hijack

Edited October 9, 2008 by caligreen

[Adrian_D 520]

Copper is copper, but I have used some speaker wire in which there was a discernible difference in clarity in a blind A/B test.

Curious on the pricing of the better speaker wire

I agree on the copper is copper idea

That people are willing to spend significantly more money on wire that is merely more flexible just baffles me.

It's not like you are playing every day with the wire. You run it once and it's done.

[JimJ 11]

Was that the Tara Labs stuff?

[95Honda 486]

The outer shell of EVERY RCA connector is signal ground. It is either tied to the chassis/earth ground OR to circuit ground (floating) at the equipment.

[seanbw 1]

The outer shell of EVERY RCA connector is signal ground. It is either tied to the chassis/earth ground OR to circuit ground (floating) at the equipment.

does that make the additional groundwire in some rca's redundant?

[jonbearsmt 919]

i find that knu is cheaper then welding wire when i looked.

[jbob 0]

i find that knu is cheaper then welding wire when i looked.

X2

Last time I ordered wire Knu was actually a few cents more a foot over weldingsupply.com, but I needed distro blocks and stuff too and getting from two places vs one would have saved me less than $5.

[jonbearsmt 919]

i bought 50 foot of knu 0 for 80 bucks.....

[jbob 0]

I was talking about pricing on the kolossus. The cheap stuff from Knu is copper clad aluminum, it doesn't have quite the capacity of pure copper. Also I used the old KLM stuff and it was WAY too stiff to work with, apparently the new KLMX is better though.

[jonbearsmt 919]

i noticed it was clad... but its gonna be one of many runs so im sure it will get the job done,

[95Honda 486]

I never noticed that any of thier wire was copper clad aluminum, if that is the case, you can't even compare it. Aluminum (the cladding doesn't really amount for anything as far as DC current carrying capability) wire is much less efficient at current transfer than copper, especially at the amperages we use in car audio. Copper has roughly 1.6 times the current carring capability vs the identical cross sectional area of aluminum. So your 0 gauge Aluminum is equal to roughly 1 gauge copper..... Think about that... Aluminum is cheap, light, strong and deals with heat well, but as far as wire performance, it's way down on the list...

If you are getting all copper stuff for around the same price as welding cable, then that is a decent deal. It will never have the same performance (insulation), but amp for amp will carry current just fine.

I guess what really makes me go WTF is when I see things like pre-packaged Stinger 1/0 for $140 for 25'..... I just don't get that at all...

The purity of copper is thrown around alot (like 99.9999 or "6-9s") but for power wire everything made we can buy is pure enough to do the job well... As far as signal goes, there can be audible, even measurable, differences. But for most of us, these differences aren't worth the extra money they cost....

The extra "grounds" you are talking about are shields on some cables. They can cut down on noise. But watch it, alot of them are used for looks/marketing ploys, so buyer beware!

[seanbw 1]

goddamn this is useful information.... sublime. thank you

[iamamp3pimp 34]

ok, so everyone has negative opinions about the 140 dollar kicker kit. does ANYONE want to provide a POSITIVE solution, rather than just scoffing at how expensive mine was? let me clarify, what im asking for is a reliable easy to access source for wire that anyone sitting behind their computer screen with a credit card can purchase. I'm not talking local distributors, hook ups, or mystery sources. Suggestions would not only help the thread starter but those who are paying too much for wire like me. not all of us need 4/0, and not all of us want to wrestle with welding cable. i'm not saying the kicker wire is anything fabulous, i'm just asking for some constructive answers to a valid question.

heres an answer

www.weldingsupply.com

heres proof of flexability, which i could care less about

just wanted all these guys with their super flexable cable to know that they are paying way too much

[iamamp3pimp 34]

forgot the proof

[iamamp3pimp 34]

The outer shell of EVERY RCA connector is signal ground. It is either tied to the chassis/earth ground OR to circuit ground (floating) at the equipment.

does that make the additional groundwire in some rca's redundant?

i used it as y remote wire...

[95Honda 486]

What... What.... That can't be cheap old welding cable!!

Never mind it'll handle 400+ degrees (good luck with "car audio" cable here) and will resist gas, oil, crud, you name it better than anything else....

[lithium 358]

I never noticed that any of thier wire was copper clad aluminum, if that is the case, you can't even compare it. Aluminum (the cladding doesn't really amount for anything as far as DC current carrying capability) wire is much less efficient at current transfer than copper, especially at the amperages we use in car audio. Copper has roughly 1.6 times the current carring capability vs the identical cross sectional area of aluminum. So your 0 gauge Aluminum is equal to roughly 1 gauge copper..... Think about that... Aluminum is cheap, light, strong and deals with heat well, but as far as wire performance, it's way down on the list...

If you are getting all copper stuff for around the same price as welding cable, then that is a decent deal. It will never have the same performance (insulation), but amp for amp will carry current just fine.

I guess what really makes me go WTF is when I see things like pre-packaged Stinger 1/0 for $140 for 25'..... I just don't get that at all...

The purity of copper is thrown around alot (like 99.9999 or "6-9s") but for power wire everything made we can buy is pure enough to do the job well... As far as signal goes, there can be audible, even measurable, differences. But for most of us, these differences aren't worth the extra money they cost....

The extra "grounds" you are talking about are shields on some cables. They can cut down on noise. But watch it, alot of them are used for looks/marketing ploys, so buyer beware!

isn't their (knu) copper clad aluminum wire thicker then the same gauge copper wire? pretty sure thats what the site said...