# Speaker wire guage calculator



## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Ok guys, when I wired my room, I had access to 16/4 speaker wire for $0.10/foot so I jumped on it. Wired my room for 7 channels (fixin to pull wire for the 4 atmos channels). I always planned to twist 2 of the wires together and attach banana plugs. Does anyone know what gauge this will result in? I haven't been able to find the answer on the net & I need to buy the banana plugs. I'm thinking it will be close to 10 or 12 gauge, that is only a guess. I would hate to buy them & they be too small. Anybody know of a calculator or a way to measure it?


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Kinda tricky to answer but I will take a swag at it.

AWG 16 wire has ~4 ohms resistance / 1k ft.
Parallel two AWG 16 wires and that makes 2 ohms / 1k ft.
AWG 11 wire has ~ 1.99 ohms resistance / 1k ft.

AWG 16 = 0.0508" diameter X 2 = 0.1016" diameter ( of course this is just two wire diameters side by side)
AWG 10 = 0.1019" diameter ( this is measured in all directions on the cross section and is considerable bigger than two AWG 16 wires side by side)

With a little bit of deformation I think two AWG 16 wires will fit into a connector designated as AWG 14 which is 0.0641" diameter and will certainly fit into connectors designated AWG 12 which is 0.0808" diameter.

All numbers pulled directly off a wire chart, disclaimer here not all wire charts match exactly.


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

I’ve always heard that doubling-up on any gauge wire increases it by three gauges – so doubled 16 ga. = 13 ga.

Regards,
Wayne


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Thanks guys! 

Now for my nest task. This stuff is "in wall" wire with a purple jacket...ugly. Where is the best place to get some nice looking cable jackets & pants? I have done a search & see many products...just none of look very classy. Got any secret links?


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