Speaker wire and power wire difference

After countless searching on the internet, I cannot find the answer. What is the difference between these two wire types? If you have 12 gauge speaker wire for subs or whatnot, can you put two 12 gauge power wires together and get the same results? Also, what is with the twisted wire, does this make the signal better? Reason I'm asking is that just a roll of regular stranded power wire is almost half the cost of speaker wire the same gauge and speaker wire doesn't come in cool colors, unless you pay big $$$ for it, from where I have looked (which is everywhere I know of.) Thanks for your help, Chris.

Honestly because of the color choices. Power wire comes in transparent colors and all that, and the way I'm wiring the subs, you can see the wire and I want the transparent blue and silver for effect. I just wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be side effects of this. So you can use regular power wire from the automotive store for speaker wire also, not really needing to, just wondering if that would affect sound at all.

While I'm thinking about it, where can I find color coded wire for a good price, like to match the factory colors in my car? Thanks, Chris.

walmart sells cool speaker wire!

Wires are like the opposite of children...they should be heard and not seen.  But about twisted wire: with + and - twisted around each other at 1 to 1.5 twists/inch, creates a cancelling effect on erroneous signals that are picked up by the wire run.  This is a must for signal wires like RCA's or feeds to LOC's, but is not particularly necessary for output speaker wires.

I thought this article might stir up some conversation, so here you go guys:  http://www.installer.com/tech/cat5.html .  I don't know much about this topic, but just happened upon it once.  The author tries to convey that twisted wire does nothing to eliminate noise in a car audio environment.  Tell me what you guys think.My ex once told me I have a perfect face for radio.

Don't use standard solid copper power wire as speaker wire. The speaker wire, which is made up of many smaller strands of wire, which create much more surface area then the solid wire. When the electrical signal is transmitted, it actually travels mostly on the outer edge of the wire. I can't think of the technical explaintation for it right now, but I will post it later if I remember it. So, the more suface area you have, the better the signal transfer. Have you ever noticed that the "higher Quality" speaker wire is actually made up of many smaller wires then the "cheap" speaker wire? There is a reason for that. It creates more surface area for electricity to travel.