I
imma honky
Guest
What guage is the stock speaker wire? It is wise to go bigger?
- Location
- Westminster, SoCal
in speaker wire... bigger is better (Within reason)...... 16 gauge is ussually more then enough from most applications 
IIRC the stock speakers was 20.... which is what I left in as I'm lazy 
Kejtar
IIRC the stock speakers was 20.... which is what I left in as I'm lazy Kejtar
I
imma honky
Guest
The reason im asking it that im about to remove all interior trim and was just gonna go ahead and upgrade speaker wire. While im at it, I was gonna do that upgrade to the alternator/battery wires (from 10/8 G to 4 or 2 G wire). Im sick of the lack of power especially at night. This is only going to be a minor upgrade till I get the $300 for a new HO alternator (which should be soon).
Matthew Currie
NAXJA Member #760
- Location
- Vermont, land of big clay
A bit better speaker wire gauge cannot hurt. Another thing that can help is to beef up the pos. and neg. supply wires to the stereo itself. They're pathetic, especially the ground!
5-90
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Hammerspace
When you put in the HO alternator, you will want the larger leads anyhow. I bought a batch of 2/0 welder cable and used that for battery, starter, alternator, and main power distribution (I have some extras installed) as I am a firm believer in overkill.
OEM speaker wire is usually about 20/2, with performance wiring running to 16/2 or (sometimes) 14/2. Anything bigger is pretty rare, and is not really required except for really L-O-N-G runs or exotic high-powered amplifiers - and you would put a high-powered amp as close to the speaker as possible to take advantage of the inbuilt filter circuits in the amp anyhow.
Unless you're running more than 500W per speaker, I don't see much reason to go past 16/2 wire for the install. It helps that "speaker level" outputs seems to run about 3-5V, as I recall...
5-90
OEM speaker wire is usually about 20/2, with performance wiring running to 16/2 or (sometimes) 14/2. Anything bigger is pretty rare, and is not really required except for really L-O-N-G runs or exotic high-powered amplifiers - and you would put a high-powered amp as close to the speaker as possible to take advantage of the inbuilt filter circuits in the amp anyhow.
Unless you're running more than 500W per speaker, I don't see much reason to go past 16/2 wire for the install. It helps that "speaker level" outputs seems to run about 3-5V, as I recall...
5-90
I
imma honky
Guest
I was thinking 18....maybe 16. Im not one of those people who want to bass out the people next to me. I just can't drive without music, so I want it to sound the best I can. Right now, its not sounding very good and I know power is the problem.
Matt: I wasn't aware of how back the stereo pos/neg were, thanks for the info.
Matt: I wasn't aware of how back the stereo pos/neg were, thanks for the info.
