I have a mixture of 16, 14, and 18 gauge on my Home Theater and some of the cable were connected by splicing/twisting together to meet the length. My questions are:
- Do I loose sound quality by having different gauges?
- Is it a bad idea to connect the wires to achieve the length?
- Does the quality of wire matters? If so, what's the recommended brand/specs?
- Does the banana plugs give any benefit sound-wise?

FYI,
Room size is 11'X17'

Thanks. Any help is much appreciated.
Chikka

I always try to use the same guage for all speakers and definately would not splice them together. Speaker wire is cheap so you should not need to do that. Banana plugs are mainly for ease of connection, they do not help sound. Some receivers and speakers make it difficult to connect without using plugs and it also depend on the guage wire you using as to how workable they are.

Bill3508

- Do I loose sound quality by having different gauges?
No, but you should not use a very small guage of any length. The resistance of copper wire is a function of cross sectional area and length. An inch of #18 added to 20' of # 12 has an insignificant impact; the reverse is not true.
- Is it a bad idea to connect the wires to achieve the length?
If the splices are good it does no harm, but as already observed why do it?
- Does the quality of wire matters? If so, what's the recommended brand/specs?
Wire is pretty much wire. OFC for example offers a trivial reduction in resistance- you can hardly measure it and you won't hear it.
- Does the banana plugs give any benefit sound-wise?

Banana plugs are just another connection, a splice if you will. If you think about it each one is three connections. Wire to plug, plug to jack, and wire to jack. A well made splice have a greater and more secure contact area. Plugs and jacks are used when easy disconnection and reconnection are important.

Thanks to all the input. I only connected both wires and mixed em up because I didn't have any available at the time I setup the whole system. I was just contemplating if I should leave it as is or change it. From the looks of it I will probably be removing the connected wires to replace with one and make it all uniform gauge. I probably don't need a banana plug since I have no need to disconnect and reconnect.

Thanks again!