Difference between speaker wire and normal wires?

unspeakable

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Oct 13, 2017
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Is there a special type of wire that you HAVE to use when wiring speakers. I am working on an extremely small project and need to connect two speakers to the amp. Can I use scavenged wires from USB cables, and does gage of my wires for my 8ohms speakers really matter.
 
I believe only differences are the gauge of the wire.

Then of course preference such as copper wire over silver etc....

In the long term, wire is wire. It's all about the gauge used for the project.
 
Speaker wiring is of much heavier wire gauge due to the current that they have to carry. USB cables are of much thinner/lighter gauge because they are meant for carrying electrical signals of very low power.
 
I upgraded my dads 40yr old thorn speakers which belonged to on old vinyl player, had two 25w mids and a tweeter. Gutted the boxes and partitioned the bottom half to house a down firing sub. Top half with a modern mid driver and tweeter.

Inside i used capacitors connected to the positive terminals of each driver to filter the audio range and a coil of wire transistor for the sub.

Jaycar helped me through which capcitors and such to use for each driver inside the box. Low range will blow the tweeter if not filtered.

Any speaker wire will do, wouldnt use usb cable.
 




No, you can not use USB wire because it is the wrong gauge. If you live in the USA or Europe, any old electrical wire will work. You can find electrical wire anywhere.
 




Sure you don't have to worry too much but if you do it right then you don't have to worry at all.