Can I use home audio speaker cable in my car?

[geoffthompson]

Is home audio speaker cable the same thing as car audio cable?

Edited by geoffthompson on Tuesday 26th May 10:53

[shakotan]

geoffthompson said:

Hi All, thinking of adding new speakers to my car, can I use standard home audio speaker cable or is car audio cable different? Thanks!

[geoffthompson]

Aw come on it's a perfectly valid question isn't it? is it?! am I being a douche?

[dudleybloke]

Home cable doesn't have any wheels fitted.
You could use it but you have to fit wheels.

For 72 strand directional OFC Litze copper I use a minimum of 185/55/R14 with a directional tread. Make sure you match the cable and tread directions or you could suffer with woofer aids.

Glad to help.

[kingston12]

No reason that I could see not to use it.

[geoffthompson]

I love how much trolling is going on here. If you know a bit about home audio cable, you'll know that the cable has a massive impact on the system. Try running awesome speakers with awful cable and then compare to using heavy duty OFC cable with the right terminations and you'll hear the difference.

My question is merely with the lower voltage coming from car electronics does it run the power to the speakers at the same rate as a home audio system or is car audio designed with less resistance?

but keep the trolling answers coming because i run my home audio system on castrol GTX because i find it lubricates the voltage a lot better

[dudleybloke]

As long as the cable is thick enough for the load I can't see a problem.
And Castrol is a good choice , just stay away from the magnatech stuff. It plays havoc with the midrange.

[R8VXF]

I use car audio cable on my home stereo if that helps. Works great. I would look to get shielded cable though for the car, plenty of interference to play havoc with the sound quality.
Don't forget to use the correct weight oil

[geoffthompson]

I tend to spray WD40 up and down my speaker cable before installing it, it helps the sound travel smoothly along the wires.

Seriously though, seems I'll be fine using home audio speaker wire in the car...!

[garycat]

The noise, vibration and combination of absorbent and reflective surfaces in the interior of a car is such a hostile environment for audio that speaker cable quality is the least of your worries.

[BlueMR2]

You need pretty pliable cable for in a car, not something I would rate the various home speaker cables I've had highly on.

[Crackie]

geoffthompson said:

If you know a bit about home audio cable, you'll know that the cable has a massive impact on the system.

PMSL. Right up there with Delboy falling through the bar. High quality trolling right there.

[OldSkoolRS]

If you believe that cables make a big difference, then in a car system they would make more difference because the speaker impedance is typically lower (4ohm) than a typical home system (usually 8ohm though there are exceptions, even my own). Therefore the resistance, capacitance and inductance of the cable is more significant relative to the lower speaker impedance.

However, unless you are using very thin and long cables I'm not of the opinion that it does make an audible difference myself (and yes IMHO I do run a pretty 'awesome' home cinema system that runs 4ohm speakers and has long cable runs). The cable runs don't tend to be that long in a car either, so as a previous poster commented I'd just look for a cable that is flexible rather than a very stiff covering.

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geoffthompson said:

If you know a bit about home audio cable, you'll know that the cable has a massive impact on the system. Try running awesome speakers with awful cable and then compare to using heavy duty OFC cable with the right terminations and you'll hear the difference.

If you knew anything about Audio then you'd be running plenty of this in your car:

http://www.futureshop.co.uk/product_info.php?produ...

I personally don't think the difference is pronounced enough until you use 'Catholic Virgin Schoolgirl Silver Nanite Cyro Hair Extract' from Russ Andrews on the terminal lengths, before inserting them swiftly and with great vigour into the plug receptacle.

[probedb]

geoffthompson said:

If you know a bit about home audio cable, you'll know that the cable has a massive impact on the system.

No it doesn't. As long as you're running cable that can cope with the current/load you'll be fine. It's another one of those lovely "audiophile" myths to make people selling the cable lots of money from gullible fools.

[Fastra]

geoffthompson said:

douche?

Is this really part of our language now?