Speaker wire through the wall?

[rjb294]

I just bought a new house and am wanting to run speaker wire to my rears. What is the process of doing this? Also, what type of jack can I use to go from the wall to the speaker location. Has anyone ran wire through the wall before and can give me some advice? Thanks!

[dougdrake]

Alot of people recommend running conduit, so that you can easily pull new/more wires if you need to. Kind of time-consuming initially, but a timesaver in the long run if you see changes/tweaking/upgrades in the future.

Run 12 gauge in-wall rated speaker wire. There are a number of options for terminating it in a wall jack at either end -- binding posts, spring clips, etc... (see www.partsexpress.com or your local hardware store). Keep the wire run away from electrical wires and lighting fixtures. Cross electrical wires at right angles if you have to get near them. And, leave enough slack.

Plus, if you're really into it, you can suspend the wires as they pass through the holes in the framing studs using specially made wire slings so that household vibrations don't affect them. That's too far out in the ozone for me, though.

Doug

EDIT: I just reread your post, and I perhaps interpreted incorrectly that this was new construction. If it is existing, forget about the conduit part (unless you want to drop conduit down inside the walls from the attic, so you can easily pull new wire up it). There was a thread about this a couple of days ago, but I forget which forum it was in and the BB search function is not working very well. Grab a Coke and browse!

[artto]

When I orginally built my room I ran individual conduit thru the walls to accomodate speaker wire for each speaker. The main mistake I made was not anticipating the the insane diameter of some of the speaker wires that were to come on the market years later. They won't fit thru the conduit.

The other problem is the additional connections, or breaks, in the signal path on its way to the speaker. As well all know, the more breaks, connections, or whatever other junk the signal has to pass thru, the more potential for additional noise & distortion.

I eventually abondoned the conduit in the walls. I've never had any "sheilding" or crosstalk problems, or whatever, with the speaker cables so I don't feel I'm missing anything. And as you all know by now, its my opinion there are other things that are more important.

However, if I ever have a chance to do it over again, I'll probably use conduit anyway, but without additional wall connections. Next time maybe a 2" or 3" conduit will be adequate (& much more expensive). Give yourself enough size in the conduit. Pulling wire thru conduit is a pain-in-the-arse.

[Malcolm]

IMHO best way is to run through attic/basement/crawlspace and walls if you can. That is what I did. My monitor and speakers are in one room. All the rest of the gear are in a built in cabinet off a hall.

I am assuming you are somewhere in the U.S.A. based on your avatar. In that case you will probably need to use CL2 or CL3 rated cable to meet code if you follow my suggestion. The 12 gauge architectural cable from PartsExpress that costs about $.18/foot should be fine.

Installation depends on construction. If you have an accessible attic, crawl space, or basement, it should be doable. Installation is usually straight forward for interior walls. They usually do not have fire stops. So, just drill a hole in the top plate (assuming you are doing it from the attic) at the appropriate location and you should have free access all the way down to the bottom plate. You don't need a box at the outlet because this is low voltage, but boxes make for a neater installation. You can get wall plates with appropriate connectors, or that you can put appropriate connectors in. I used Leviton QuickPort plates and their 5 way binding posts. PartsExpress has alternatives.

Exterior walls are more work. If you have frame construction, it is pretty much like the interior walls except access to the top plate is usually constrained and there are fire stops and insulation in the walls. You need to be careful not to damage the insulation's vapor barrier or housewrap. It might be possible to drill the fire stop from above or below with a long bit, but count on openning up the wall to do it. Drywall repairs are pretty simple, and with a little care, are virtually invisible. If you have plaster it may be a whole other story.

I have no idea what is involved if you have masonry exterior walls.

If everything is in the same room, you may be able to run speaker cables behind moulding. Just remove molding, route an appropriate size slot, and reinstall with speaker cable beind it. If you have carpeting, there may be room between the carpet and wall under the moulding where you can run speaker cables.

[User Name]

Conduit is the biggest waste of your time for speaker wire and totally useless. Just run your wires through the walls by themselves.

Conduit is conpletely unecessary for speakers. You can't even tell the difference. Conduit is only in existance to give electrical unions work. Workers bending pipe take 3 times as long to wire a house therefore making more money and wasting yours. Typical lazy union member. Most codes use Romex to wire homes because that's all that's necessary.

The pipe will not reduce any speaker wire noise for you. It's a myth.

[rjb294]

Hey all,

Thanks for all the advice about installing the speaker wire. Here is a little more info, but all of my questions have pretty much been answered.

I bought a slab house with an attic which I can access from inside the house. I plan on making a path over to the interior wall where I will be installing the cable at. Do they insulate the inside walls? Are there fire stops on the inside walls? I will then route the speaker wire to where I will be installing the rear speakers. How high and at what position should I place the rear speakers? Should I put them in back or out to the side of the listening area?

I guess that is basically the only questions that I have. Thanks again for all the advice.

RJB

[Malcolm]

Inside walls usually have neither insulation or fire stops.

The rear speakers go to either side of the listener, maybe a bit behind, and facing the listener. Mine are on the floor, but I think higher is recommended. You will have to play around a bit to find what works best for you.

[j-malotky]

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On 12/10/2002 1:54:23 PM User Name wrote:

Conduit is the biggest waste of your time for speaker wire and totally useless. Just run your wires through the walls by themselves.

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Not true at all.... Run conduit if you can. The reason to conduit is to replace or pull more wire in the future, not to add to sound quality.

For example. Ive already added cable to the conduit to my subwoofer corner. Just in that extra wire pull easily paid for the 97 cents for 10 foot of PVC Conduit. I had the new wire pulled in 15 mins.

Back to the main question, if your walls are already done, and you can;t figure an easy way to pull your wire, you may want to hire a professional wire puller. Somebody who runs datalines into offices, not an electrician. They have tools that can drill arround corners, pull wire through insulated walls etc.

I worked on a project where they turned this 150 year old mansion into an office building. Tons of brick walls, plaster walls, a wire pullers nightmare. They got wire to every place needed.

JM

[Fabio Cottatellucci]

Hello

I 100% agree with DDrake, and wish to add some suggestions:

a) if you can't use a conduit, try to lay a large carpet on the floor then run your wires underneath.

same case, use these small square-section conduits that are less than 1" in section and find a suitable path for them (e.g. up a room corner, in the ceiling edge then down another room corner). Then paint them (they usually come out in white).

c) keep the two wires (rear L+R) same lenght. This should be true for all the five / six / seven channels, but is very important for coupled channels (i.e. front L+R and rear L+R). If you find yourself with too a long wire for one of the two speakers, pile the excess behind the amp or some piece of furniture. The pile must be "random" to avoid interference; esp. do not wind it in a round shape or it will work as an inductance (I hope the word is this, I'm sorry I'm not English mothertongue).

d) try avoiding any connectors. On a long run of wire, you'd better tighten it directly to speakers and amp binding posts in order to lower resistance and stain problems; if you keep an extra lenght, you can cut the wire by a half inch every two years to keep the contact "fresh".

Have a nice day

Fabio Cottatellucci