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@EMF Audio I Literally was unpacking some 8 gauge I bought recently while watching this, and My wife gave me that pursed lip face when you said, “8 gauge is usually overkill under 3k , and you’ll only see a couple tenths diff by using it -which is inaudible”. So I told her, “ Ya well I need all the tenths I can get on the meter!” 😁 Was probably overkill using 8gauge with my 2.4k wired at a half for burps, but I justified buying it for when I go on my 6hour plus long road trips playing full tilt!! ✌🏽EMF
I went to trade school for electronics and I have had a lot arguments with people that they didn't need speaker wire so big .thank you for the definitive proof 😏
This is great. Was looking to see if i could use my 18 gauge - 9 wire - speed wire to carry 150 watts to my door speakers. Figured it would suffice, but nice to see the proof. Thanks!
It's all about current, and thermal properties when it comes to pushing subs. I focus on other properties when it comes to the highs, components and mids . This was a really cool video, thank you 🤗😘
@@rigormortis2814 I look for signal response, flexibility , shielding ....those kinds of things. It's very easy to pick up random RF from all sorts of places now a days. With subs you just need big honking wire for everything. When it comes to the more detailed sounds I want clarity and zero induced noise.
I ran 2400 watts daily with 12awg. The blue kind that you get from Walmart. After about 6 moths the wire was burned looking and a little crispy feeling when flexed. I now use 16awg of a much higher quality and the wire is still like new after 2 years. Quality is a huge factor when buying wire. Smaller quality wire is better than crap bigger wire.
It sounds like you had 12 gauge insulation with a smaller wire, and probably aluminum vs copper too. That is a valid point though, not just going off the number it says but the actual wire size.
forget the video or channel, but they were thorough. basically for the most part smaller ofc is more cost effective than copper clad aluminum (cca) with similar performance.
Great vid ! I like to see someone using a scientific and practical approach to show in measurable outcomes that myths are busted. I see people using 8 gauge wire for a 500 watt sub or even 12 gauge door speaker wires for 100 w RMS.
Maybe just maybe they are predicting future upgrades? It's not a bad thing to go-big from the start. I wish I would have! My power wires over the last 12 months have gone from 4g CCA to 4g OFC to 0g to 2/0g to 4 runs of oversized SHCA 2/0g = Additional Time+$$ Sadly I still have every single wire from previous builds. Gosh, I prolly should just give the stuff away.
@@lowhertzhighspl ya. I do typically run larger wire than needed in case I upgrade. But, I meant people using 2, 3, 4Xs what is needed. So, for me, I have a RF P600X4, and I ran UL 14 AWG CL3 OFC speaker wire to all the doors. 16 gauge was enough, but I wanted to have extra for upgrading later, but 12 gauge is just over board, unless I go nuts. --In your case, damn!. I been there and done that. Unfortunately, car audio seems more like a hobby for folks like us. Been doing audio since I was about 7 (1987), made all sorts of systems during the '90s boom and loudness wars, and one thing I have learned is: Design the system very well before buying/modifying anything and plan for future upgrade/problems and design for such. But, this doesn't always work. --And, as a hobby, we continually change/modify/add/remove, etc.
I think in 2021 it will be a good time for EMF to do this same experiment but kicking it up a notch. 5K RMS - 20K RMS speaker wire sizes. Anything is possible. (but not everything is feasible). Regardless if EMF does or not, thanks for these previous videos.
5k for a period of time could be, higher than that would require multiple subs through the same wire and with maintaining voltage to produce power I'd be limited to about 10-12k after subs heat up unless it's like 8 of them.
Great video! Just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, as you were utilizing a subwoofer for your testing, and I'm certainly not an electronics expert. I'm guessing my factory wiring harness in my Tahoe would be 18ga, from what I think I understand you're saying is that I would be oaky utilizing the factory speaker wire in the wiring harness and in the doors etc. for my mids and highs? I did get 12ga copper speaker wire for the door speakers, but if I don't need it, I certainly don't want to run it! My amp is 125 RMS for 6 channels @4 ohms. Thanks!
Great video! There's a crowd that needs to see this. I've always erred on the side of overkill. I just want to know if you can hurt your results with too big of a wire gauge.
I had to burr out the wire holes on my terminals just to be able to fit 8 gauge wire lol. And now I see it was pointless lol. And probably screwed my warranty up lol. Dammit. Hey, I was tryna give em the best shot possible.
I am running new amps that are full bridge 30 k , just wondering if 4 runs of 8 gauge is enough for say 16 feet round trip , or should I upgrade to 4 gauge
Quite a bit, there is a lot of resistance in that wire. You can calculate the amperage capacity of that wire and figure out how much wattage it could handle at a given impedance.
I think the quality if the wire matters too...at least from my experience iv'e used some I think it was 14 gauge wire don't know if it was basic wire or cca wire but I would smell something burnin thought it was the sub but turns out it was the wire and since it burned it increased the resistance caused me to lose power ...it messed up my bass amp tho after it happend a few times now im using 12 gauge ofc wire. rip fosgate amp. Gonna install my skar amp next when I get the time till then im using a taramps bass 1200.
Awesome video and explanation. I have one question. It's very common to use speed wire (9 conductor= 8-18-gauge speaker wires with a remote turn on wire). I have this running from my amp to my dash, where it taps into the factory speaker wire to power the door speakers. The door speakers are 6x9 JBL Capable of handling 100 watts continuously. My amp supplies about 120 watts per channel continuous RMS power and very clean. So, for continuous music at a high level will 18-gauge wire be enough for a continuous load in this application. The length is about 20 feet including the factory speaker wire. Your thoughts?
It does scale, remember, you're looking at current. Lower impedance will happen sooner too. Also remember this is with a tone, and the temperature increases on the smaller wire aren't catch fire level heat after that 30 seconds but that will only get worse with longer play time.
So what AWG size of OFC speaker wire should I use to power 2 subs with 20K RMS (10K each)? 4g or 2 runs of 8g will be sufficient for SPL comps? Surprisingly I did not learn this answer from watching this video because EMF tends to cover all bases, so maybe I missed it. (If someone wants to know what subs: 2 - 15" Fi Neo 4.11 w/ Omega option and stage 3 cooling rated 5K-7K RMS which is why I will be supplying them with 10K each, which doesn't necessarily mean they will receive 10K each, thanks to factors such "Impedance Rise"). And to think, less than a year ago I watched this video to learn what size of speaker wire my single Kicker L7S 12" needed for it's speaker wires, haha, or maybe it was when I had already upgraded to 2 L7Ss but regardless, I've learned A LOT and have come a long way within the last year mainly by learning as much as I could from car audio pros via RU-vid such as this EMF channel. So a big thanks to these guys. [plug] For anyone interested in seeing my previous builds or my newest builds, feel free to check out my new/small/basic YT channel where I will be uploading much more content in 2021 in hopes of passing on accurate knowledge to my fellow bass-heads. Presently am building my 5th build in one year, starting from 1K RMS, 2K, 5K, 8K, to now 20K RMS :-D
Impedance is a factor, it's all relative to current and the length of wire to determine the size needed. For SPL purposes going from 8 gauge to 4 gauge per coil you won't seen even a tenth till you're wired way low and have 20k+ per sub. For musical purposes the figures over time will be different as wire heats up. Even then, you're talking maybe a tenth or two. I will say that you definitely don't have 10k per sub, I wouldn't be surprised of each sub is seeing 5k or less in reality. Grand scheme of things, calculate/measure how much current is on the speaker wire, refer to reference charts for wire size on a giving length with that current, that's what size you need. CCA and OFC will yield different results.
I would like to request the numbers on 18 awg running 100 watts rms for 3 hrs. The reason is I want to do aftermarket Amp on 18 awg factory door wires and I was worried about heating the door wiring harness on a 6x9 at 3.2 ohms. I'll be running 16 awg from the trunk to the dash at the factory harness.
Amazing! One question: I'm running 10 awg OFC for Rockford fosgate T1 800 rms and amp pumps 1200rms @1 ohm. The subwoofer terminals support 8 awg ... should I replace the 10 with 8? 🙄
Well, there is a claim to it making 1,200, but that would be subject to the wire length. Odds are if you're less than 10 ft you won't see a difference even in measurement. You definitely won't hear it.
16 gauge is sufficient for that power, especially on mids being as it's going to be 4 or 8 ohms. Remember though, the factory wiring is a factor. Consider the age of the wire and what is there to start with.
Are all these wires ofc wire? I'm running about 2 feet of 8 gauge ofc in parallel, 3800 to 4000 watts at .5 ohms. I was using 10 g ofc in my other car without problems.
In this case, yes they are all OFC. That length of wire you can run an enormous amount of current through. Another point is looking at how much the wire heated up. 5 degrees isn't in the danger zone and you'd never notice it but there are scenarios where you definitely could.
Do you think running 1/0 on 10k is over kill , I switched from 4 gauge to 1/0 and noticed a difference, but I also increased my power wires from 1/0 to 4/0
If I had an amp that pushed 10k rms I'd use 1/0 too but then that's what I use "ofc" with my 2400 watt amp and parallel it down to push 3800 watts to .5 ohms cause it pushes more than it's rated rms Watts. Most amps won't push .5 ohms without burning up but I have a 2 year unconditional guarantee and have had it over a year now with no problems.
The gain was .15 tenths of s db I was running @1 ohm Wired to 1/2 ohm It could be the batteries where fully charged Length of speaker wires were approximately 10-12 feet one way
16 gauge would be fine in a reasonable wire length, I'm assuming it's not a 1 ohm amp. 14 gauge should be fine with 1 ohm and even more than a little bit of length.
14 gauge wasn't there either. Remember, it's not just wattage, it's impedance. The amperage number is the key thing there. Wire length is also a factor, and why I mentioned it. Presuming 1 ohm that would be 25 amps, so it will be less than that. A quite long 10 gauge wire will handle 25 amps fine.
8 gauge might not be necessary, but damn is it sexy! not to mention car audio has always been over the top anyway. at least we're not superstitious about letting your wires touch the ground or insisting that they be cryogenically treated to line up the magical copper crystals!
@@EMFAudio you shouldn't say things like that unless you're prepared to tell stories :D the only thing that really springs to mind is not mounting amps upside down. then too, people used to swear by capacitors, i think it was "1 farad per 1k". now i'm really curious which rules of thumb i've heard over the years are bullshit.
@@EMFAudio thank's for responding. I saw some 6 gauge copper welding wire that looked like a good alternative over 4 gauge that people try to overcharge for because of its popularity. Not trying to run anything in the multiples of thousands of watts.
I'm concerned with it as much as I am peak power ratings, signal to noise ratio, or frequency response of an amplifier. If there is no standard for rating, does the number matter? If you can't hear a difference, does a better spec make it better?
