If you could only afford one upgrade at this point, would it be to bump up your RCAs to your amp with Monster or Phoenix Gold RCAs, or run large gauge moneter speaker wire?

 

What gauge speaker wire are you currently running?

 

Monster cable is alot of hype. Yes, they are better than some, but neither of the two is going to get you big gains, if any. Why such a minor upgrade? Maybe save your $$$ for a more significant upgrade.

 

I'm running the factory speaker wires that came with the stock non-Boze system.

 

What is your current setup? When executing this wire upgrade, what else are you doing?

 

Alpine CDA-9807
Alpine CHA-634 MP3 changer
MB Quart PCE 216
Phoenix Gold XS 4300 amp
JL 10" W0 in custom enclosure

I've always bought thick gauge speaker wire for my home systems, but I literally ran out of money on this system and now feel like I shouldn't be running such high quality components on the cheap factory speaker wires.

 

I would go with decent speaker wire, but you probably won't hear much of a difference. But the stock oem wires are probably very thin.

you may want to consider getting a capicitor or upgrading to a deep cycle battery. This may result in an audible difference in your system.

 

If you can only do one, or the other, I'd go with the wire. Gold plated connectors are nice, but the gold is plated over nickel, and the electrons still have to pass through the nickel. So, all in all, you could stick with the cheaper plugs for awhile.

For wire, have you checked out Kimber Kable? They have cost effective speaker wire within the same price range as Monster, but their's is a braided (twisted) design that will help cancel RF interference.

 

I'd go with the thicker gauge speaker wire too.

 

With all this, it is suprising to cut costs here. But since they are going to install all this, I would say the RCAs because it will be much easier to upgrade the speaker wires later than the RCAs. This assumes the amp is going somewhere easily accesible.

 

ack. I was just thinking about the sub wires, not the components. disregard what I just said.

 

i would invest in some dynamat. If you are looking for an audible difference they will give you the most vs speaker wires or RCAs.

 

yeah dynamat and capacitor will yield more of an audible difference than wires and rca's. Speaker wires and rca's can make a big difference in a high end home system but in a car the noise floor is so high that you probably can't hear the difference. Dynamat will help that alot though.

 

I doubt greatly that upgrading the speaker wire going to the speakers in the doors will do much to improve your sound. It seemed to be a huge pain my *** to do it, and I have no desire to drill through factory wiring plugs or worse yet, into the car itself. I have 75 watts going through the factory harness (From behind the headunit to the doors) and it's fine. I did, however, run fairly large speaker wire to the subwoofer--500 watts and a much longer length of wire required it.

Save your money for a more tangible upgrade instead of one that's been hyped to death by the wire companies and repeated by car audio salesmen, who both stand to profit from it.

 

even a capacitor is questionable especially with his setup. He's not running enough power to need a capacitor. I ran a Alumapro 15 Farad Cap in last car, did it make a difference ehhh, I had to do it for show. I was running some serious power too. A battery on the other hand did wonders for me.

 

i would get the SVR batteries over the optima

 

I was running 2 Odyssey PC1200 wired in parallel. Seen too many people have too many problems with optima's

 

it was a huge pain in the **** installing new speaker wire. 12 gauge at that. would i do it again? definitely. would it sound much different if i used the stock wire? probably not.
now it's time for sound proofing. considering that i can hear all the mids and highs outside the car even when the volume levels aren't that high, i'm sure soundproofing will make a big difference in sound quality and loudness as well.


Rajiv