Whats worse running speaker wire a long distance? Or running alot of power wire?

Im debating where to mount my amp. Under the drivers seat seems like a good spot but idk if it bad to run a long length of speaker wire.

 

I have my amp under the drivers seat and my sub is in the cargo area and it works fine.

 

Run high end speaker wire, not the cheap ____.

 

Whats considered high end speaker wire?

Im mainly asking this cuz im gona hook my amp up tomorrow and i have power wire but not long enough to run all the way to the back. I figure under the set would be fine just wasnt sure about running like 6+ feet of speaker wire lol.

 

I wouldn't recommend speaker wire as your amps power wire. The fuse in your power wire is designed for that size wire. Relocate the amp and run the speaker wire to the box? I used to use 12ga wire just cause I had some in a spool but most of the kits come with 16ga. Kicker and Rockford kits/wiring both worked great for me.

So I'd see if you can put the amp elsewhere and then run the speaker wire

 

Lol. Not guna run speaker wire as power wire. Ima run 4AWG. I was just asking cuz i wasnt sure if there would be any harm by running speaker wire from under the drivers seat all the way to the back.

Not my 1st setup i know what wire goes where lol

 

You'll be fine running a little longer speaker wire. Just make sure to use a decent oxygen free copper wire and a decent gauge size. 14awg should suffice.

 

Having worked in home audio, car audio and home theater, I can definitely say: yes! The distanced involved in wiring the amp or the speaker are minimal. For the amp, get the gauge the manufacturer recommends. For speakers, for door speakers, 16-14ga oxygen free is good. Get one that is very flexible and has a high copper filament count (Monster XP is good). For ease of door installs, stick with 16ga. 14ga is a tiny (read: very tiny) bit nicer, but not worth the fight in getting it through the door cable boot, in my opinion. For subs, I like 12ga.

 

Its better to run longer speaker wire than power wire. Power wire has much higher amperage being drawn through it, speaker wire has much higher voltages, and thus less amperage. 16ga should be fine for door speakers. I run 8ga from my amp to subs ;)

 

Generally, it's better to run longer power wire (using a heavy gauge) than longer speaker wire. Ground should be direct to the chassis. Long speaker wires can mess with amplifier stability as well as power delivery, whereas a long power wire is just power delivery. This isn't so much an issue for bass drivers since the amplified frequencies are normally pretty low.

 

Is it a noticeable difference?

 

I think in car audio we get a little over worked on "length" of wire, especially for speakers. The primary problem with long runs of wire is increased resistance over distance. BUT, the distances involved are long: 50-100 ft runs. A car's wire run is short: front speaker to a rear placement amp is about 15-20 feet. 16ga is considered the standard for runs under 50ft. The perfectionist would make sure that both left and right channels use the same amount of wire. A realist could use different lengths and it would still sound the same (resistance losses between the two would barely show up on a lab quality ohm meter).

Much has been said of amp stability and wire runs. This is more conjecture than fact. An impedance load presented by a speaker is dynamic: it varies with frequency. It's influenced by the inductance of the voice coil/magnet assembly. It also makes designing a good passive crossover so $#8&9!! hard.