We seem to be going through the junk "Musicians gear" 1/4" speaker cables pretty fast. The ends are junk and wind up getting bent up. So I thought I'd buy some bulk speaker cable and a bunch of Switchcraft ends. Where do you DIY guys go for this stuff?
If it's OK for running a motor on 120VAC, it will be fine for an amp & speaker. The voltage and current between an amp and speaker are a fraction of what a motor sees and can draw.
I use Canare Quad 4S8, a 4-conductor cable that's 13AWG when wired for coax speaker cable. You can buy it in bulk any number of places, from $0.65 to $0.80/foot. Especially for longer runs that you might use in a PA application you'll probably hear better control of speaker excursion with tighter and firmer bass with the 13 ga cable v. the 16 or 18 ga lamp cord, better yet for that application may be the Canare 4S11.
For very short runs of cable you probably won't hear much if any difference between these cables as 16 AWG lamp cord, but with longer runs the lower the resistance of the speaker cable the higher the damping factor, the better the amp can control speaker excursion. And for a PA application that probably will become more of an issue than with, say, a 3-6 foot head to cab cable.
Home depot. Buy bulk wire, 50' or 100' lengths, then pick up sine speakon connectors, cut to length and put it together. If you need 1/4" get Neutrik ends