Who among us can dress cables like this?

[dogorman]

I was idly poking around in these forums looking for posts about a particular piece of equipment, and I came upon these "common sense tips" for how to arrange one's cabling in one's home entertainment system, courtesy of another forum member:

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Here are some of the tweaks I use (straight from my favorite Naim resource site). These are basically just common sense tips

- When plugging in your system, try to keep other stuff like computers and TVs off the same circuit. This will isolate your hi-fi somewhat from all those evil, noise creating switch mode power supplies.

- While wiring your system, it pays to engage in a ritual called cable dressing. Ensure power cords and signal cords don't touch or run parallel. If they must touch, have them meet at 90 degree angles. Signal cords are rather microphonic- flicking the tonearm lead is clearly audible through the speakers. As such, cords shouldn't touch any part of your rack or wall.

- While laying speaker cable, avoid looping extraneous cable, as the tight coil will create unwanted inductance. Instead, create a series of S bends (accordion style).

- Organize your boxes so that amps and power supplies are at least 12 inches away from pre-amps and CD players.

- Make sure your rack is perfectly level and doesn't rock. A skewed rack will affect the performance of your system.

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So my question for the group, then, is a simple one. HOW???

I mean no disrespect, here -- indeed rather the opposite. I'm in awe of anyone who knows this much about improving microphonics and is capable and patient enough to make all of this happen. But I just don't see how a person could stay loyal to every single one of these bullet points in even a modestly outfitted rig of assorted components.

My own rig has a CD-player, a DVD-player, a CD-recorder, a DVD-recorder, a VHS player, a TV, a Tuner, a Preamp/Processor, an Integrated Amp functioning as a power amp, and an A/C line conditioner, all but the TV are loaded neatly into a tasteful (no particle board) entertainment center with nifty little glass doors on the front, etc. From the front it looks like the whole thing was purpose-built. But from the back? Good-Lord-Miss-Miller, if I tried to separate all of my IC's so that they didn't even *touch*, then how would I get them into the preamp? What about all those power cords headed in the same direction for the back of the line conditioner? What about not touching the rack? How on *earth* do I get the cables into the back of the rack, without touching it?

Inquiring minds want to know....

[Rich-n-Texas]

It all looks great on paper, and I'm about as anal as one can get about routing and dressing wire and cable, but I've yet to be able to follow all of these hints and tips to the letter. I only have three major components (if you want to count one HDMI cable to the TV) and I'll be 90% finished with my room's revamp this weekend, so I'll try again to put these measures into practice. Thanks for bringing this up.

[Ajani]

I was idly poking around in these forums looking for posts about a particular piece of equipment, and I came upon these "common sense tips" for how to arrange one's cabling in one's home entertainment system, courtesy of another forum member:

-----------

Here are some of the tweaks I use (straight from my favorite Naim resource site). These are basically just common sense tips

- When plugging in your system, try to keep other stuff like computers and TVs off the same circuit. This will isolate your hi-fi somewhat from all those evil, noise creating switch mode power supplies.

- While wiring your system, it pays to engage in a ritual called cable dressing. Ensure power cords and signal cords don't touch or run parallel. If they must touch, have them meet at 90 degree angles. Signal cords are rather microphonic- flicking the tonearm lead is clearly audible through the speakers. As such, cords shouldn't touch any part of your rack or wall.

- While laying speaker cable, avoid looping extraneous cable, as the tight coil will create unwanted inductance. Instead, create a series of S bends (accordion style).

- Organize your boxes so that amps and power supplies are at least 12 inches away from pre-amps and CD players.

- Make sure your rack is perfectly level and doesn't rock. A skewed rack will affect the performance of your system.

-----------

So my question for the group, then, is a simple one. HOW???

I mean no disrespect, here -- indeed rather the opposite. I'm in awe of anyone who knows this much about improving microphonics and is capable and patient enough to make all of this happen. But I just don't see how a person could stay loyal to every single one of these bullet points in even a modestly outfitted rig of assorted components.

My own rig has a CD-player, a DVD-player, a CD-recorder, a DVD-recorder, a VHS player, a TV, a Tuner, a Preamp/Processor, an Integrated Amp functioning as a power amp, and an A/C line conditioner, all but the TV are loaded neatly into a tasteful (no particle board) entertainment center with nifty little glass doors on the front, etc. From the front it looks like the whole thing was purpose-built. But from the back? Good-Lord-Miss-Miller, if I tried to separate all of my IC's so that they didn't even *touch*, then how would I get them into the preamp? What about all those power cords headed in the same direction for the back of the line conditioner? What about not touching the rack? How on *earth* do I get the cables into the back of the rack, without touching it?

Inquiring minds want to know....

LOL.... That's all good advice but rather impractical... unless you are a two channel lover and have only an integrated amp, CD player and a pair of speakers... in which case you can do most (though not all) of those suggestions....

[Rich-n-Texas]

LOL.... That's all good advice but rather impractical... unless you are a two channel lover and have only an integrated amp, CD player and a pair of speakers... in which case you can do most (though not all) of those suggestions....

Yes, wiring for six speakers tends to make a mess of things. The wiring for my surrounds is up one wall, through the attic, down the other wall so that takes care of two, but...

[SlumpBuster]

Yeah, its all fine advice for someone running an Integrated Amp, CD player, and a couple of speakers, but in the real world its a little impossible.

Behind my audio cabinet looks like a snake pit.
CD recorder/player: 3 optical and 3 RCA
Minidisk: 1 optical and 2 RCA
SACD/DVD Player: 1 optical and 3 RCA and 1 component video
DVD player: 1 optical and 1 component video and 1 RCA
Tape Deck: 2 RCA
Non HD Cable Box: 1 Digital coax, S-Video, 1 RCA
Turntable: 1 RCA
Sub out: 1 RCA and Y splitter
Mains out: 1 RCA
Plus speaker wire to the 6 surround speakers and Center... oh and the "B" speakers, and the power cable for the fan and the FM anteanna, and the ground wires, ect, ect.

[Luvin Da Blues]

It's OK to have your ICs running parallel with each other and same with the power cords and speaker cables but don't run the power cords parallel with the ICs or speaker cables.

[bfalls]

My family room/dedicated Home Theater consists of two systems. One used to be in the living room. We purchased a new flat panel for Christmas. As a result my wife decided to reverse which end of the room had the hardware. You think one system is a pain to set up, try neatly cabling two systems (5.1 and 7.1). I worked on it for two full days. I initially tried to dress cabling, but the more I got into it, the more difficult it became. I currently use a black fabric backdrop to hide any noticable cabling. I haven't heard any degradation in sound quality and not having the cables specifically routed or bound makes changes easier to accomplish.

[E-Stat]

LOL.... That's all good advice but rather impractical... unless you are a two channel lover and have only an integrated amp, CD player and a pair of speakers... in which case you can do most (though not all) of those suggestions....

Ditto. The HT and vintage/garage systems are both a cable snarl, but I am able to keep things quite tidy in the upstairs music room. Cables are all on ceramic risers and there's not a single one that touches another. There are only two sources and they share a power cable and the IC run to amps. It helps that the JPS Labs and Harmonic Technology cabling has solid core shielding that holds its shape.





rw

[diggity]

goddamn!! i wish my setup looked as neat as "E-STAT"'s.(admittedly i got more than two speakers). i went to plug a new device into my receiver.... went behind the cabinet.... came out two weeks later! don't know where i went but it was SCARY!!! i saw dead people

cheers: dazza

[dogorman]

You know, despite ourselves this is a pretty informative little discussion, at least to me. I've found out that most other people don't follow the entire list of helpful tips for cable dressing, and I've heard at least one opinion about what counts most: don't run power cables parallel with IC's and speaker cables. Any other thoughts?

[hydroman]

Perhaps use this as a guidance and not a mandate...

1st off - if you have no 'noise' issues. You have no problem. If you do - now you know how to start sorting it out.

2nd off - custom cut and tin (or connectors) the ends of the speaker wires to clean 'em up.
Not hard at all and should be done regardless.

3rd If you are in to it - get spark plug wire looms (cheap at the autoparts store) for RCA cables. And computer stores have the cable covers to gang up and hide power cords.

4th Use 'bread wire ties' if you want to sort and clean up. Ghetto? Perhaps. I think of myself as frugal. Sounds like a virtue.

[Ajani]

........
4th Use 'bread wire ties' if you want to sort and clean up. Ghetto? Perhaps. I think of myself as frugal. Sounds like a virtue.

Ghetto or not, it's a cheap and effective solution....

[SlumpBuster]

Photo's of E-Stat's system make me jealous too.

[E-Stat]

Photo's of E-Stat's system make me jealous too.

In all fairness, here's the back of my HT. Look familiar?



I've got a bunch of those nylon tie wraps, but I think I've used the sum total of one there. Maybe this weekend, I'll rip it apart and try to dress them better. I may need to swap out some of the RCA cables to use the shortest ones that will work.

rw

[dogorman]

I had a member of Audio Asylum tell me that it was an uber bad idea to bundle IC's together with zip-ties. Sounds like the gang in here disagrees?

[diggity]

In all fairness, here's the back of my HT. Look familiar?



I've got a bunch of those nylon tie wraps, but I think I've used the sum total of one there. Maybe this weekend, I'll rip it apart and try to dress them better. I may need to swap out some of the RCA cables to use the shortest ones that will work.

rw

ahh, thats more like it! he is human after all! makes me wonder if the first set of photographs were staged... hmmm

[hermanv]

Contrary to the NAD post a coil of two speaker wires carrying current in opposite directions will not make an inductor. The two fields cancel leading to a net inductance of near zero. Obviously winding your speaker wire into a tight donut and then applying tie wraps is not a good idea but a single loop is quite harmless. Where is JNeutron now that I need him?

[KUNK]

Wire loons cool! I hadn't thought of that one. We've got the ht syst set into a gimungus wall unit with limited access. I used several large "P" clamps, screwed to the wall (upside down)through the bottom arms only. I mounted several of them, at about 1' intervals in a couple of rows (up studs) behind the center (equipment) section. I just pull them open and drop in the cables (power and signal seperate). The other thing I did was to run a seperate, 20A, 10ga, earth ground, breaker and line for the amp (~1KW peak) and sub (~2.7KW peak). All the digital sources run off a seperate breaker and line. The other thing I've had good results with are simple, cheap, clamp on, ferrites on all power lines at the component...seems to work well with no ill effects. Could really help if you have dimmers or switching power supplys near by or on the lines downstream. Hope this helps.

[pixelthis]

Good insulation on cables negates the need for a lot of this.
Simple cable neatness is all thats required, really.
And on digital transmission cables , I dont see how you could interfere with those.
And e-stat, your HT setup actually doesnt look that bad, I bet you dont have a six
channel hookup

[E-Stat]

And e-stat, your HT setup actually doesnt look that bad, I bet you dont have a six
channel hookup

Actually, I did rewire several things this past weekend as I mentioned. Used three shorter ICs and replaced one for the audio signal from the DVD with an optical one. Was able to get more isolation by careful placement. I'm presently out of town on business, so I haven't uploaded the "after" picture.

My HT setup involves the traditional five speaker array and a pair of powered subs sourced from the LFE outputs of the NAD receiver. Nothing special. Polks in front and center and Radio Shack Minimus 7s in the back.

rw

[E-Stat]

Actually, I did rewire several things this past weekend as I mentioned.

While the changes weren't magical, I was able to make some of the runs shorter and cleaner. Few cables touch one another. I've been out of town twice since the post, so sorry for the late update.

Boy that flash catches all the dust!



rw

[Rich-n-Texas]

Hey! He uses Acoustic Research cables just like me! Looks like a DO do some things right!

But where's the artificial Ficus tree Stat?

[E-Stat]

But where's the artificial Ficus tree Stat?

Wrong system. They are upstairs in the music room. I'm too lazy to post the pics in both places, so here's my gallery over at AA.

More system pics

rw