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thllgo
05-15-2006, 04:20 PM
I am running speaker wire in the wall to 5.1 speakers. The wire will be running along side power cables that feed the power receptacles. Should I use sheilded speaker wire?

Thank you for your help
thllgo

FLZapped
05-18-2006, 09:45 AM
Probably not. Some amps won't like the extra shunt capacitance that type of cabling has. You'd be much better off, for several reasons to put physical seperation between them:

1) Less likely to have a short occur between cable sets. Not necessarily on thier own, but from perhaps a drywall screw/nail puncture at some time in the future.

2) Less likely that someone might confuse the speaker and power cables at some point in the future. Wouldn't your speakers sound great connected to 120VAC?

3) I already mentioned, physical seperation is still the best means of isolation.

4) It may be against you local building codes to have them less than a certain distance apart and if you ever had a fire, your insurance company would almost automatically blame those wires being together as a reason not to pay a claim.

-Bruce