This is a very basic overview of speaker wire selection. As with many Audio and Video Topics there are many discussions on what is best and what is necessary. 

1) Determine your Acceptable Power Loss or dB Loss for your Rated Speaker Impedance

2) Determine your nominal speaker wire Length

3) Look to the left to see what speaker wire gauge will work for you.

Here are also some quick notes on speaker cable use and selection

Thick Diameter Wire  - Has high capacitance (energy storage).  
Small Diameter Wire - Has low capacitance.  Low capacitance is good for long cable runs.  
Large Gauge Wire - Have more bass and can travel longer distances with less distortion.  

Small Gauge Wire  - Have high D.C. resistance resulting in poor dynamics.  
Short Cables - Short cables have less inductive and capacitive resistance than longer cables (good).

All cables are directional.  One way sounds better than the other.  If the cable has arrows, make sure that you the arrows point towards signal flow.  If they do not have arrows, you are best able to tell one channel at a time by listening to vocal music with brightness to the voice.  The direction that sounds less edgier is correct.

No matter which speaker cable you buy, you should try to buy equal lengths for each channel. This sometimes means that one speaker cable ends up longer than it needs to be. That's okay, as long as you don't coil the extra cable. A coiled wire is an electrical component called an inductor and it affects the sound of the signal passing through it.

A Well Designed Cable

• Is a high conductive silver or high quality copper (OFC/OCC) wire with low resistance.

• Has a large number of small diameter, individually insulated wires to lower capacitance.  Small diameter wires smoothen highs and the cumulative diameter of many of small diameter wires produce a large gauge wire with deep bass.

• Has low impedance  (resistance to an alternating current) to minimize wire reflection.  The lower the impedance the better the current delivery to a component.  It is determined by the thickness of the wire, number of wires, and purity of the wire.  Increase any of these and you will increase the current handling capability of the wire.  If you double the gauge of a wire, you will half its impedance.

• Has twisted wires crossing to minimize capacitance and inductance.

• Has a low loss dielectric insulation.

What we suggest for use as a good quality speaker cable would be

A cable with a high strand count

A cable made of OFC Copper - It doesn't have to be 99.999999% pure either.

A cable with twisted geometry

We never use anything less than 14Awg - We actually use 12AWG 4 Conductor in our Home Theater

We prefer to use a 4 conductor cable and pair the cable down to 2 conductors. This will reduce the impedance of the cable

View our Speaker Cables