whats with amp wire gauge requirements?

[jjsacidy]

anyways im curious and confused (and cheap, i dont wanna replace my power wire). im upgrading my '1000watt' metric audio amp which is fused at 30amps for a sony 800watt p5 or w/e. anyways the newer sony amp says it draws 20amps at full rms @4ohms. its also fused at 60amps. ive read 8gauge can hold up to 100amps and if this thing is only drawing an average of 20amps then why would i need 4awg? i think i might have 20' including ground wire. my amp kit even came with a 60 amp fuse. my understanding is because of voltage drop- but when i looked that up it said .3volt loss at 40amps big deal?

one of the mods said id be fine but why do they say to use such thick freakin wire? i have very fine multistrand aluminum core wire. i will also be running a 1.25f cap. could i also run 2 12" cold cathodes off that wire for my hatch area? they draw like .25 amps i think.
i also know bigger wont really hurt anything but i bought 8awg kit thinking id never get another amp, well here i am and i dont see why id need to upgrade to 4awg.

 

[defrag010]

right.. you don't need to upgrade wire unless the full current draw of all of your amps will exceed the amount for that gauge of wire. You'll be fine.

 

[timm98gst]

8 is just fine - i've run more than that off of 12 guage and it worked great - however, i wouldn't run your neon tubes off of the same power wire

 

[Thomas91169]

you can buy 4GA amp wiring kits off ebay for 30 bucks. that will come with gold plated fuse holders, dist. blocks(for going to 2 amp setups) RCA wires, 30 feet of 4GA wire for 12v+, 5 feet of 4GA black ground wire, enough speaker wire to last years.

and here the local shops sell the 8ga kits for 50 bucks.

 

[PEFXEclipse]

eveyr system i do i dont use 4g unless its an amp that will do above 1200 watts 8g is fine for 1000w, if your neons are around the system hook the power wire up to the remote on the amp and the ground the neon on the amp, ive been working w/ this stuff for 2 years and never had any problems