Belva True 8 Gauge AWG Premium CCA Amplifier Wiring Kit Without RCA Cable - BPK8 RED

Good quality for thhe price

Good thumb up

Worked well for an amp I mounted under a seat.

First off, let me explain who I am and what I do. I currently install car audio professionally, and as a whole have been working around car audio and automotive in general for a little over a decade now. I worked in various shops prior to my current position; I by no means consider myself an expert but rather a high-level amateur. Money has always been a struggle for me growing up, and so I've always been on the lookout for underdogs and bangs-for-your-buck value. So, given my favorable personal experience with Belva subwoofers (Belva being a SonicElectronix house brand), I was excited to get the opportunity to work with this Belva kit that a client brought to me to install along with some MTX subs and a Kicker amp. I was, however, quickly let down. This is not the value product that the rest of the brand seems to represent. Right out the box, my first critique was the speaker wire. It instantly got casted aside - not because of anything to do with the gauge, quality, or jacketing, but rather because polarity is not labeled. The jacket is a solid red on both sides, and that wouldn't inherently be a problem if one side was tinned, but that is not the case. It's CCA with no tinning and no polarity markings. So I ended up using shop speaker wire instead, real bummer there. Upon first impression, the power and ground wires are perfectly acceptable. The jacket is made of quality material and is decently flexible, and although the wire is CCA instead of OFC, that's expected for this price range and it's true to spec on the gauge. HOWEVER... I noticed that every couple of feet or so there were weird cuts in the insulation that looks like something happened during the manufacturing process. It wasn't fully through to the strands; concerning nonetheless. It wasn't a huge deal, I Tesa tape my wires anyhow, but it's a weakness in the jacket that can't be overlooked. Length was fine for my application, these were going into a 2023 Elantra. The power cable and the ground cable were both this way. Your kit may very likely be the same way, just check. No complaints about the fuse holder; it's exactly what you'd expect and does the job. You can't really mess those up too bad. The preinstalled fuse was tightly in there (I always check before I install any fuse holder). The remote wire is crap, I'm not going to attempt to sugarcoat it. It was unusable, I tried. It's cheap, thin, with super thin strands that will break under any amount of pressure. I ran it all the way to the amp, and was experiencing issues with the amp not receiving power. Tested power and ground, all was good. Tested for remote turn on at my radio connection, all good there. Fuses checked out. Went back to the trunk, probed the wire in a spot, and got signal...hmmm. Connected the amp to shop power just to verify, and was getting signal. ...ok...?? Tied into another accessory power source, still the same issue. Come to find out, the wire lost continuity FOUR INCHES from where it went into the amp. No signs of damage to the jacket, so since I leave slack on my wires, I just cut off a section and tried to strip the wire. The whole wire just broke off. I went fast with my self-adjusting strippers, I went slow. Didn't matter, the wire just kept breaking all the way down to where I was running out of slack. I ended up having to use shop wire for that as well, a whole new wire. On top of that, when I went to disconnect the wire from the amp, the spade terminal I'd crimped on with some ratcheting crimpers just fell off with broken wire out of it because of the ridiculously thin strands. Belva really ought to take a look at where they went wrong as far as this kit. The only things usable were the power and ground wires, and even then..I question how long that's going to hold up over time with the jacket defects. For $25, it's just not worth it. I cannot recommend it and am going to decline service on Belva kits brought to me because of it. I would have loved to have used the speaker wire, but polarity matters. It can't cost very much to just add a darn stripe or do SOMETHING to indicate polarity (different color, tinning one side, doing a stripe, or just flat out + or - marks somewhere). The kits made by LeigesAudio are similarly priced, include more wire, and all of the wire is usable. All the wire is as described, I'd recommend them for CCA kits in this price bracket. I cannot recommend the Belva kit, but definitely still like their subwoofers!! I hope they come out with a shallow 8" to compete in that market segment, it's dry. But I digress.