Are you "old school"? (a little OT)

[AcidWash]

I had a buddy over this evening and I was wiring up some speakers and he called me "old school" because I was using black and red jacketed speaker wire.
So my question is, how many of us here are old school? What wire are you using?
Check out the poll below.

[a4eaudio]

OTHER: I use relatively inexpensive in-wall wire (Monoprice or something similar at Parts Express or Amazon) and make DIY cables with Techflex and banana plugs.

[fpitas]

I use twisted pair in a jacket, meant for in-wall use.That's because I have spools of it Although the wires inside the jacket are red and black. The 10 AWG run to the woofers is clear zipcord.

[fpitas]

I had a buddy over this evening and I was wiring up some speakers and he called me "old school" because I was using black and red jacketed speaker wire.
So my question is, how many of us here are old school? What wire are you using?
Check out the poll below.

Out of curiosity. What is the "modern" wire to use, according to your buddy?

[billfitzmaurice]

Probably Monster or Kimber or something similar that's near and dear to the Ghost of P.T. Barnum.

[fpitas]

In their (partial) defense, Monster actually used to put an RF termination on the speaker end of their wires. They probably quit doing that since it's not snake-oily enough.

[wogg]

Other... whatever I have around. Last purchase was from the hardware low voltage 14ga that was intended for landscape lighting I believe, all black with polarity marking and quite flexible.

[buggers]

OTHER: I use whatever is available at the time.

[billfitzmaurice]

Zip cord. It works as well as anything, better than high priced exotics that have high inductance and capacitance.

[AEIOU]

In the very first or second issue of Speaker Builder Magazine was a thorough scientific-technical article about Loudspeaker cables/wire. Read it if you can.

[LOUT]

I'm using clear w/polarity marking because I'm both hip and progressive...and because it's what they had at whatever store I was at when I remembered I'd ran out of scrap wire at home to harvest.

[dynamo]

Other, kind of. 14ga direct burial Southwire from Menards. Red and black jacket but covered by a yellow outer jacket.

[fpitas]

Nobody uses white/black? Sounds an easy way to be a rebel

[Steve Lee]

^

It depends upon which one you see as more positive than the other.

Then somebody is raciss

[djg]

Red is positive.

[Steve Lee]

I agree that Red is a good color for this.

[Whitneyville1]

Antique (37 year-old at least) 10 or 12 gauge Monster Cable on close-out from Home Despot when I moved into my house! It's clear with trace to the mains. K-mart's finest 16 gauge brown extension cord war(sic) to the Dolby speakers 'cause it was the cheapest war(sic) I could buy in 16 foot lengths. An' Big Lot's green 14 gauge three conductor war(sic) in 25 foot cords to the bedroom 'cuz it was the cheapest war(sic) I could buy! I didn't even peel the jacket off the three conductor. Is there a market for extension cord plugs and recepts??? They've got pigtails!

[Steve Lee]

OH! The horror!

People actually using fat/thick cable!!

[billfitzmaurice]

Antique (37 year-old at least) 10 or 12 gauge Monster Cable

That Monster may be 14 or even 16 gauge. They were outed long ago for using thick insulation that gave the appearance of a larger gauge wire than actual. http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

[fpitas]

Sure, but that extra thick insulation protected it from the horrible effects of bad dielectrics like rugs or plastic items. Luckily, these days we have cable supports ;)

[norman bates]

Inside morel solstice, 22g solid core copper hookup wire, red or black color.

otherwise, junky 18g stranded wire for amp to speakers (i should seperate and twist it together someday).
i have 18g solid core magnet wire to use as speaker wire (when i unwrap and twist it, may never happen).