r/vintageaudio•
shanebow

Any reason not to use solid copper wire as speaker wire?

This is actually a serious question even if the answer may be easy. I have some 14 gauge speaker wire I have been using up to now for the connections between my receivers and my speakers. I probably should use 16 but oh well. It's many small strands making up one wire for each connection and it's exactly how I remember speaker wire being back when I was a kid. Worked then and works fine now. But of course back then I just had one receiver and one pair of speakers. Now I have multiple receivers and speakers that I want to swap around for whatever reasons whenever I feel like it. I had some solid copper wire laying around yesterday and thought I would try it just out of curiosity. To my surprise I found that I could disconnect and connect my components MUCH faster because the "solidity" of the wire made it quicker to hook around terminals or insert into connectors and spring locks and such. The multi stranded wire seemed to be much more difficult to manipulate like that and required more finesse. I had to keep twisting the strands. Plus it didn't really maintain its shape. The solid wire was really much easier, quicker, just more efficient and sounded just as good. None of my receivers are more than 55 wpc. Most are less. The longest run is certainly less than 20 feet. Everything is mid 60s to late 70s silver faced stuff. Is it a big deal to use solid copper wire as opposed to the multiple tiny strands twisted together? I definitely liked it better for the reasons mentioned. Or maybe my question after everything is said and done is what is the easiest way to quickly change connections between various speakers and receivers? Thanks

Posted Dec 8, 2025, 3:30 AM UTC

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