Pulling Speaker Wire--A Question

[bruce3404]

I've just pulled the 4 cables from my soundstage. As I stapled them to the studs, I wondered if I should keep them parallel to one another. The sub wire, however, does cross over two of the front speaker wires. Is there a prescribed method for routing these cables, or am I being overly picky here?

[ToddL]

Go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong. I am pretty sure that your main issues are keeping the wire as short as possible for loss per foot issues, and also not "cutting off the circulation" of the wire(make sure those staples aren't digging in too far). I don't think that the wires being too close will make much of a difference because they won't be giving off any RF's. Just keep them short and neat and out of the way of deteriorating sources(eg. heat sources) .

[pelly3s]

as long as you try to not cross any of the electrical lines in the house or run parrallel to them. if you have to cross them do it at a 90 degree angle. i wouldnt worry about the staples "cutting off circulation" as ToddL said. I would only worry about making sure no wires were nicked by a staple

[bruce3404]

as long as you try to not cross any of the electrical lines in the house or run parrallel to them. if you have to cross them do it at a 90 degree angle. i wouldnt worry about the staples "cutting off circulation" as ToddL said. I would only worry about making sure no wires were nicked by a staple


Well, there are a lot of electrical and speaker lines in the ceiling crawl space. In some cases they do run parallel. When they do run parallel, how much spacing should I allow between the speaker cable and the electrical cable?

[pelly3s]

i try to leave 18" if possible. with speaker wire it isnt as much of a concern as line level signal cable. I dont remember what the actual code is but 18" will be fine

[JDaniel]

My suggestions are to run conduit if at all possible. Then pulling these or future wires is a breeze. That's what I did in my HT remodel this year. I ran conduit and pre-wired two different walls and wire in the ceiling.

If you are going to staple, I'd consider stapling them loose in case you want to pull them or replace them in the future. Not that there's much risk, but I'd use in-wall rated wire if possible. The added expense isn't much more.

JDaniel