Home Audio Question For You Pros
 

Hey guys, I recently tore down a sound studio in my garage from the previous owners so that I can actually park in there, geez, what a concept. My question is this:
I found some large guage Monster cable speaker wire and installed in for my home stereo setup. The speakers sound great but one thing I notice on the LD mode with the tv is that at some volumes I get a hiss (after adjusting the tv vol, cable vol, and receiver vol. I can control the hiss). Is it possible that my speaker wire is TOO thick for my setup?

Doubtful. More than likely the hiss was already there but the larger cable is actually allowing you to hear it. How large is this cable?

Percy

I'd say both inputs together are as wide as a middle finger and I'm not sure about the guage measurements but certainly each input has the girth of a map color pencil. BTW, do you recommend soldering the end of the wires and then putting it in the back of the speakers. I'm running nothing too fancy, some Polk 800i louds and a PSW450 Polk sub. Perhaps one of the problems is that I don't have a sub input on my old Yamaha (only 60 watts per channel).
Bear with me, I don't know much of anything about audio. Thanks for your help.

Soldering
 

You can definitely solder the ends of the speaker wire to keep the wires from fraying and oxidizing. Sounds like it was monster 12 ga. Your other options (all relatively inexpensive) to soldering, depending on your speakers if equipped with 5-way binding posts, 1)banana plug jacks (my fav), 2)spade connectors, 3)pin connectors (usually used for spring clip speakers), 4)soldering, 5) bare wire (thus the 5-way binding post). I agree with Percy the hiss was probably already there.

Yea, I got the five way binding post so maybe I should go get a banana clip versus just placing the bare wire in there and screwing the post down. I think I understand what your're saying. Thanks.