best rcas and speaker wire?

There are a ton of good quality RCA's on the Market.  Monster Cable RCA's are good but I think a little overpriced.  We sell Stinger, so their HPM series of RCA's are what we get our customers into if they want the high end cables.  For speaker wire, you'll probably want to step up to at least 12gauge wire.  Again, stinger makes a great product, but any name brand such as Stinger, Rockford, Tsunami, etc. will suffice.  Stay away from Wal-Mart for so many reasons. 

Anyone else notice their Scosche Kits sold at Wal-Fart are the worst in the world?  The 4gauge amp kits have power wire that are 8gauge wire with 0gauge insulation. lol.

walmart is a no no. spend the extra buck. i agree that monster is overpriced. i use stinger as well, but i push the streetwirez most of the time since both available in canada and its something i can rely on. tsunami from circuit city isnt available here. SOL

fosgate kits are good but hard to come by.

Because the walmart wire you bought is probably cheap crap made in China from lead-based dog food.  Wire is wire as long as it is well-made.  The point of the posts above is you don't have to pay $400 for some esoteric silver-plated Mega cable when a $25 cable will work just as well.  But no one would argue that stuff from the 99-cent store is always good quality.

As far as higher power needing larger wire, this is true but only under specific situations.  Speaker wire is pretty much always good enough at 14 guage.  REAL 14-guage made from copper.  I've used 16-AWG wire in genuine 2000-watt systems and it is just fine, thanks.

If you are burning 16-awg wire then either it is defective, not really 16 AWG, or you have a short circuit that is for some reason not blowing your amp.