I hooked up my Klipsch floor speakers with the old-cheapy wire and then bought, I think it was monster cable, and bi wired it. Big sound improvement. But I've heard pros and cons on monster cable. I have three zones to wire in my house. If I bi wire the other two zones what's the best wire to get? You can spend a small fortune on wire. If I bi wire, zone 2 would be 30 feet x 4 and zone 3 50 feet x 4. I read that if one of the wires is silver it's better as silver's the best conductor. This I knew already. But, when I bought the wire that I did, it didn't state anywhere on the label that it contained silver and I think that would be a drawing point. In fact, I didn't see any wire at that store that said it was part silver and it wasn't Walmart but a major electronics store. I did see some that had silver colored strains but so is steel and aluminum. I also read on another forum that CAT 5 wire works well for bi wiring? Thoughts? Opinion?
Silver is used in a number of video cables including those made by Monster Cable, but the cost increases greatly with these higher quality cables. To cite and example, a 4ft piece of Monster Cable with silver coated copper conductors runs $150.
Do your speakers have clip in bare-wire type connections, rca connections (I doubt that, with Klipsch) or cat 5 connections? anyway, the whitish/silver wire is not actually silver... it's aluminum.. aluminum is a great conductor.... so is copper, and that would be the red side... Monster Wire is great stuff, used it in my car.... However, to save yourself some bucks, go to a hardware store, instead of an audio place... get some 10 or 8-gauge wire and hook 'em up... make sure it's aluminum.... you could get silver or gold, but c'mon... for the difference you'd be unhappy with how much you put out... $$$$ go with monster or go to the hardware store and get some heavy plastic-coated 8-gauge wire..
The only place you will find genuine silver speaker cables is at very high end stores and the Internet. It is a good choice for the high end audiophile but if you are bi wiring three zones you could upgrade your speakers and use copper wire for the money spent and this would be a much more noticeable improvement. Some good Monstercable will do fine. If you are fishing through walls you want to get some wire that is UL rated for in-wall installation. Many communities have building codes requiring this since ordinary wire can get stripped when fished and cause a short circuit in the amplifier. I have seen Cat 5 used in multi-room applications but I recommend against it. It does not make very good speaker wire and it is particularly important to have decent speaker wire in the long runs involved with multiple zones. To sum up --The cheap wire that has one side colored silver is beneath you. Wire made of real silver is overkill for you. Cat 5 is a bad idea for speakers. If fishing through walls get in-wall wire.
They colour the wire by plating it. The silver is one conductor colour and the other wire is copper colour. Separate strands. This is so that you can keep the polarity straight when you are hooking up your system. You will also notice a raised ridge on the insulation of on conductor in two conductor wiring. Again it is a mark to let you tell the + from the - wires. Silver wire would be a good conductor, but much more expensive than copper and about equal in current flow. It would also corrode more and make for connection problems.
I personally would not use CAT 5 cables...these are designed for data transmission....not audio transmission. High Frequency audio signals travel around the outer edge of your cables and low frequencies tend to travel through the center. So you truly need multiple conductor cables...and the thicker the better.
