Surround Sound wiring of living room

[AMO]

I recently bought some of this to wire my house for surround sound home cinema:

didn't realise that good grade speaker wiring would be so thick and therefore putting it under my laminate flooring is now out of the question.

I had a friend come round and give me some advice on how I would get the wiring from one end of the room to another without the wiring trailing the floor etc.

Both wires have to go down the same walls as the room is L shaped and taking one set of wires down the L shape would make the route very long and have to pass over the main door. However, taking both thick wires down the other side makes it very difficult to hide or put under the beading.

My friend suggested drilling a hole out the building and passing the wiring around the building and drilling another hole to get it passed back in. This seems like a good idea.

Just want to ask a few questions though....

1) I assume I need to have some additional outer cable holder to protect the stereo wiring as it is passed outside the house? What is this called? Will I be able to find one to hold the 8 shaped wire above? Will I be able to find one that holds 2 stereo wires at the same time or should I be looking to protect the seperately?

2) Will there be any problems with passing stereo wires outside of the house?

3) Is there anything else I should be aware of or buy to ensure this goes smoothly?

Thanx

AMO

[John Rumm]

Trunking or conduit. Conduiit tends to be round in section and completely sealed, so you need to feed the wire through it. Trunking usually has a detachable top that makes for easier wire feeding, but less protection from moisture ingress. Having said that as long as the cables are protected from sunlight, they won't care about getting wet.

Mini trunking is available in a wide range of sizes:

Diddy:

bigger: ?SKU=CBBR7908If you wanted to run the wires internally, there are also more decorative trunking solutions:

is more weatherproof but available in a smaller range of sizes. However the largest is 1" diameter so ought to do what you need:

2) Will there be any problems with passing stereo wires outside of the > house? Not especially.

Have you looked at other options though? If you have susspended (i.e. wood) floors, you may find it simpler to drop the wire into the voide under floor and resurface at the other end of the room.

The other more disruptive way would be to chase the wires into the plasterwork.

Make sure you don't create any route for water to get in. Drill holes at a downward angle etc. Use a "drip" shape where cables go through the wall to make sure the cable will not channel water in. Avoid close proximity to mains wiring if you want to avoid picking up hum on the audio.

[Christian McArdle]

315 strand OFC copper cable is well overspecced for surround sound purposes unless you are actually aiming for an ASBO. Buy the 105 strand. You won't notice the difference in terms of performance in this application. It will be much easier to conceal. Save your 315 strand for the front speakers.

Christian.

[.]

even then there are some far thinner and better cables out there. chord rumour speaker cables are only 5mm thick, for example.

the stuff from richer sounds is kak, imo.

[marc_ely]

I think I agree with Christian - speaker cable this fat isn't really that suited to surrounds.

Two things I have done in the past are:

1) If its ground floor and you have concrete floors - use an angle grinder to cut a channel in the concrete and put the wire in there. 2) Get some really flat speaker cable. I bought some years ago from CPC. It is wide, but flat - about 1mm high, no more. It has a self adhesive backing which you can choose to leave on or not. You can't feel it under carpet, and probably not under laminate providing you have underlay.

Marc

[AMO]

Hi John,

Thanx for all the info and links. Really appreciated! ;)

AMO

[AMO]

Never considered this possibility. Thanx.

AMO

[AMO]

Thanx for that. Could you point me to some recommended cables please (and links) ? The Gale XL 315 cables are 15mm wide by 7mm thick.

Thanx.

AMO

[AMO]

Thanx for that advice Marc. That's really useful.

Could you please provide an exact link to the recommended products on the CPC website?

AMO

[AMO]

Also, what's people's recommendation on the positioning of the sub-woofer. My sub-woofer has to be at least 2 foot away from any other electronics to be on the safe side. Most people recommend putting it in the front half of the room somewhere. Where's the best place? I assume that if I am going to put cheaper wiring for the surround sound speakers, that all other speakers should have the good stuff?

Thanx

AMO

[Christian McArdle]

Put it wherever you feel like. At subwoofer frequencies, your ear fundamentally can't tell where it is coming from but will guess instead, based on where the high frequencies are located. Therefore, choose a location where (a) it won't cause things to vibrate and (b) looks good.

Christian.

[.]

[John Rumm]

Placement of a sub is not critical - there is no stereo info down at those frequencies as such, but it is nice to get good dispersion around the room, so central placemeny may be better (either that or use two!) If it is a side facing unit then it may benefit from being placed close to a wall - firing at it. This will aid dispersion and add a little bass reinforcement. Regarding walls - preferably not a party one! For a downward facing unit even that does not matter much.

I have mine to the side of the couch under a coffee table facing a wall - not an ideal location, but dictated by the room layout. Seems to work well enough though.

The only way to really work out what sounds best with your system and room is to try various arrangements until you find one that works.

Regarding cables, the main left and right demand the best cable, with the centre not far behind.

Rear effects have far less stringent requirements. Something like

would be more than adequate.

The sub (assuming it is an active unit) only needs a reasonable quality screened phono to phono lead.

[AMO]

Thanx Christian. ;)

AMO

[AMO]

That's good to know - thanx!

Thanx for that. There are so many different types of cable and I am not such a big sound fan that it helps greatly when people provide exact links to recommendations. Thanks! ;)

AMO

[AMO]

Thanx. What exactly is Chord Rumour cable? Is it a standard of cable, a brand or a specific cable for a specific type of connection?

Thanx.

AMO

[.]

it's a /banana/ obviously !

click some links, ffs LOL

[Guy King]

The message from "AMO" contains these words:

Something that only allows you to hear a rumour of the chords the musicians were playing instead of the real thing?

[Pete C]

Hi,

Carpet will improve the top end far more than £££ speaker cable and laminate floor I'd have thought.

Looks like the Gale cable is 1.5mm2, wonder if it sounds different to

13A mains cable...

IME with subs it's trial and error and personal preference.

cheers, Pete.

[Andy Wade]

Of course not. The only thing that matters with speaker leads is the resistance and a good rule of thumb is that this shouldn't exceed 5% of the nominal speaker impedance. With 8 ohm speakers and 1.5 mm^2 wire that allows you about a 15 metre run.