Good wire. Price

Need to go out and buy more for my center speaker

I upgraded to these wires from a tip from a worker at best buy. I went into best buy got my monster sub cable monster optical cable monster speaker cables and the lady that worked there was like here let me save you some money put that speaker wire back and take this and she handed me this wire. She told me if i was unhappy with the way the wire was come back and she'd buy me monster speaker cable. So took it home wired up everything and i was quite impressed great sound great bass and super clear. Needless to say im keeping them.

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nothing this good cheap junk

Upgraded to the 12AWG AR wire from the 16AWG wire a few days ago. I've been using the 16AWG stuff for about 4 years and it performed adequately at low to mid volumes but at high volumes the seperation and treble was crap. I just think it couldn't hold enough current for my setup. My mains are NHT 1.5s which are superb but require massive juice, and my receiver doesn't have a Sub-Out jack (Onkyo TX8511)so I have to wire from the receiver to the subwoofer control box on my NHT SubTwo and then from the box to the speakers. Anyway, after rewiring my system with the 12AWG higher volumes are much more listenable. Bass, treble, and imaging has improved across the board. My NHT 1.5s can finally suck the juice that is needed for them to sing like they were meant to. Now...about this wire...it is extremely thick stuff like many reviewers have said before me. It is labeled 12AWG but it's more like 10AWG or even 8AWG. I had to use the 8AWG notch on my strippers and it still took a few pieces of wire with it. It is damn near impossible to squeeze this wire into the pins that come with it. I gave up after rubbing my fingers raw trying to twist the wire thin enough to fit into the pins. You are better off tossing the stock pins and buying some wire screw pins. If you have spring clips on your receiver (like I do) you are in for one heck of a time getting this wire in there. I got the bare wire in there eventually, but it wasn't easy. This stuff might be a PITA to get hooked up to your system, but it's worth it once you hear the difference. Good luck. -Onkyo TX8511 -Panasonic RV31 DVD -NHT 1.5s -NHT SubTwo -Kimber PBJ -AR 12AWG

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AR 16AWG, Monster

Thick, oxygen free, cheap!!(compared to identical Monster wire)

? Piantable(the insulation is clear), need fat cutters to manipulate, the attached gold pins SUCK(throw them away, or you may make the mistake of being tempted of using them)

These are a great upgrade to the wimpy standard wires that come with HTIB systems or the 16-18G Rat-Shack wires many use. Got mine for $25 for 50ft roll at accessories4less.com. VERY THICK wire, need atleast 10G wire cutters to manipulate. Produces clear sound, especially with sound turned up. Also recommend AR ht153 subwoofer wire to round out the setup.

performance for price

its to soon to tell I will follow up If there are any changes!

For 90 cents a foot it is a much better bargain than monster. The first thing I noticed was at LOUD volumes on my reciever the bass was very tight, precise ,and deeeep! It was at much lower volumes that I noticedthe bass to be not as noticable as with my previous cable? Maybe it is because it was tighter and more precise? But I have only had them less than a week and I intend to put some serious playing hours with various differents types of movies and music. I dont know much about speaker cable, but from what I have been reading these cables should keep up with the best in this price range. It appears that there may be a long break in period! Based on the reviews here. The mids improved and treble stayed pretty much the same.

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monster original 14 and 16 gauge wire

strong tight bass, cheap .80 cent per ft.

thick insulation, almost like 10 gauge copper in thickness

I bought this 12 gauge cable from Lowe''s in a 250 ft. spool for 169.00 bucks. I used the whole thing for my rear surrounds and rear back surrounds plus center speaker and front/left speakers. It took me 50 hours to break them in, once broken in they sounded so good and gave me a tight bass using Paradigm Titan speakers for the front. This wire is tightly wound and has a deep copper color not like the 12 gauge from Monster that looks cheap. This cable really rocks and when I watched "Joyride" on DVD, when it came to the part where the guys at the hotel parking lot and it was raining hard and there''s thunder and lightning in the background, I felt like it was really raining inside the house. Bottom line is, this cable is perfect for those people with a budget home theater. My system: Paradigm Studio 20 (I replaced the Titan)fronts Paradigm Studio CC Center Channel Paradigm ADP 170 Rear Surrounds Paradigm ADP 70 Rear back surrounds Paradigm PDR 10 Subwoofer Marantz CD 6000ose CD player Audioquest Copperhead interconnects DVP 700 Sony DVD Player

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monster 12 gauge, rat shack 12 gauge

Thick, high quality looking copper strands, oxygen free.

to thick to fit properly in my reciever.

the 16 gauge version was highly recomended to me, so i decided to go all the way and get the 12 gauge. so far i have noticed clean sound and mid, but the bass seem flat and quieter at lower volumes than before. however, i have not gotten i chance to crank it up and put it to the test yet to see if it sounds better at higher volumes. Unfortunately i have to wait until everyone has left my house. ie parents!

Price, quality.

None!

These are really good cables. Although I *THINK* I can hear the difference between cables, as most of you know, this could really all just be psychological. Anyhow, I found this 12G cable to be durable, relatively flexible, easy to terminate (I generally use gold compression bananas rather than the supplied pins). They definately sounded more bright than the old 16G zip chords I was using before and about the same as the Kimbers.

Summary:
- Good cable
- I honestly don't think it's worth upgrading to anything better... At least the audiophile shops I frequent haven't been able to impress me with much higher priced cables!

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Kimber 4TC, generic zip chord :-)

Thick, fat cables, very nice looking copper

hard to strip, they were too thick for my 10 AWG strippers, and I kept cutting off strands of copper.

I had gotten my system's original cabling from my hifi shop, a bunch of Audiostream AC-10 that was left over when they remodeled and it was all the wrong lengths for them. I got it at about $.25/foot which I was told was a great deal for 16 AWG OFC cabling.

I figured I'd had it for about 9 months, and that I could upgrade to the Acoustic Research cabling they were selling at clearance at Lowes (still a lot more expensive than Recoton, but whatever). I mean, 12 AWG is better than 16 AWG, right?

Right off the bat, the stuff sounded awful, dull bass, muffled midrange, and tinny highs. The speakers were playing a bit "smoother" in that there seemed to be less hiss when listening from about 6 inches away, but the overall sound quality was noticeably flatter. I decided to let them break in before trashing it and going for more canadian cabling, but after 20 hours or so, thing are only a little bit better. If after 50 hours or so they don't sound nice, I'm switching back.

Value rating is low because I paid $15.50 for 30 ft, and my Audiostream was much less and sounded better. It's definitely better than the Radio$hack kite string I was using before.

Any suggestions on getting better results? Anyone else have a long breakin period for these?

System:
Cheap Denon AVR receiver (consumer one, about $250)
Pioneer DVD 333
fronts Paradigm Titans
rears Paradigm Atoms
sub PDR-8

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Straightwire, Audioquest, Audiostream, Monster

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just wanted to mention that the 12 gauge speaker wire at www.recotondirect.com ($3 for 20/30 foot roll) is different than the acoustic research 12 gauge wire/ht222 ($32-33 for 50 foot roll) sold by www.ac4l.com. it too is made by recoton.
the latter is about 25-30% thicker even though it is labelled as 12 gauge (or maybe the recotondirect one should have been labelled as 14 gauge). they're wound the same way though. i spliced them both open. and it's not just the insulation on the acoustic research one that is thicker. and it's just not thicker insulation either. there are more strands. there is an inner "core" of 50-or-so strands very tightly wound (to the point of looking like a single thick solid core) with about 75-100+ more strands less tightly wound around that "core". on preliminary listening, the latter sounds more fuller. buy both. do a comparison, then consider rewiring your car stereo with the thinner gauge recotondirect.com wire.

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Good value, high quality copper.

AR 12 gauge wire is thick and well insulated. Bought a 50ft spool for $35. It beats the 16 gauge wiring I had from Rat Shack and much cheaper than monster. Can't beat the quality and price.

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Rat Shack wire, monster cable