# Tweeter wire?



## txbonds (Mar 10, 2008)

If I'm running 12 gauge knukonceptz wire from the amp on the back wall of my truck, up and through the door to where the door skin and the sail panel meet, what gauge wire can I get away with from the tweeter to this spot? 

I'm only talking about maybe 6 inches of wire from the terminals on the 12 gauge to the tweeter itself. I had planned to just continue the 12 guage, but it is proving to be way to stiff.

Would 18 or 16 guage offer a significant improvement in flexibility and size, yet still allow maximum transfer of signal?

Will be feeding these from an amp putting out 70 watts per channel.

Thanks for any input.


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## kyheng (Jan 31, 2007)

I'm using 20AWG speaker wire from tweeter to sub with no signal lost issues. The lenght of the speaker wire is 20ft...


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

You will be fine with 18Ga for that length.


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## Abaddon (Aug 28, 2007)

Personally, I'd go with 1/000


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## txbonds (Mar 10, 2008)

Abaddon said:


> Personally, I'd go with 1/000



Ha, ha, smartass. 


Thanks Chad. I have some 18 & 16 turn on wire handy, so I think I'll just grab a few pieces of that to make up my pigtail. My alpine tweets already have the wiring soldered on, and it looks to be somewhere betwee 18 to 22 gauge.

But, while I know the signal will flow through an 18 gauge to the tweet, I was more interested in wondering if there would be any benefit to the larger wire. That's all. My honest preference would have been to keep 12 gauge from amp to speaker, but on the tweets they are just too small to work with such large wire on them easily.

I'll drop back to the 16 gauge turn on wire that came with my kicker pkd4 wiring kit. Thanks again.


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## Nelson de Leon (May 24, 2005)

I tried OTA wires from my passive to my tweeter. Great wire.


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## Lothar34 (Oct 6, 2006)

If you're that worried about it, use 2 18ga wires per terminal.


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## Boostedrex (Apr 4, 2007)

TX, PM'd you about this issue.

Zach


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## txbonds (Mar 10, 2008)

Thanks for all the replies. I know it is over kill using 12 guage through out the car when I'm running such low power over all. I have a thing about over kill on speaker wiring though.


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## Nelson de Leon (May 24, 2005)

txbonds said:


> Thanks for all the replies. I know it is over kill using 12 guage through out the car when I'm running such low power over all. I have a thing about over kill on speaker wiring though.



I agree with you. It would be an overkill.

All types of wires have resistance. It might affect the quality of sound the tweeter would reproduce if you use oversized wires.


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## txbonds (Mar 10, 2008)

Maybe I misunderstand resistance then. Wouldn't resistance be more of an issue with the wire being too small instead of too large?


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## Nelson de Leon (May 24, 2005)

What i meant was if you use bigger wires with small current passing through, the big wires would also produce resistance. The large wire would act as a load considering the minimal current.

Hey txtbonds, apologies if i could not explain it clearly. I just hope somebody knowledgable in electricity could confirm my statement.


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## txbonds (Mar 10, 2008)

I hear what you are saying, just don't know that I believe it. LOL 

I've always understood that a larger wire meant less resistance. Smaller wire would increase resistance. I realize at some point you reach the required size and beyond that it is diminishing returns, but I guess I've never heard that going too large would be a problem when talking about wires sized like 18 to 12 gauge.


At any rate, the amp turn on wires I had were 18 gauge, so I used a blue knukonceptz one for positive and a silver kicker one for negative.  Sort of followed along with my other kicker wiring color scheme, even though once installed no one will see it. LOL It is only 18 gauge for 6 inches though and then it plugs into a 12 gauge run to the amp.


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## Xander (Mar 20, 2007)

Nelson de Leon said:


> What i meant was if you use bigger wires with small current passing through, the big wires would also produce resistance. The large wire would act as a load considering the minimal current.
> 
> Hey txtbonds, apologies if i could not explain it clearly. I just hope somebody knowledgable in electricity could confirm my statement.


should be the bigger the wire the less resistance...

however, larger wires do have more capacitance. which doesn't matter at all in DC power wire, that's why you go the largest you can. but increased capacitance can cause phase shifts at varying frequencies in AC applications, like audio signals


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## Nelson de Leon (May 24, 2005)

Xander said:


> should be the bigger the wire the less resistance...
> 
> however, larger wires do have more capacitance. which doesn't matter at all in DC power wire, that's why you go the largest you can. but increased capacitance can cause phase shifts at varying frequencies in AC applications, like audio signals


Thanks. Capacitance.   

Capacitance = load = resistance. Whatever.  


gauge 18 would work for a 6 inch length wire for tweeter applications.


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