I just finished roughing in my HT room speaker wiring. Having an electrical background, I have learned the value of running conductors in conduit and do it wherever practical. With speaker wires and the constant urge that we all seam to have to upgrade, I figured I’d better run them in conduit.
There is a really cool, NEC approved and simple way to do this. I call it ‘smurf tube’ because it's blue, but its real name is ENT (electrical non-metallic tubing). It’s cheap and VERY easy to install. You can probably get away with running ½”, but I prefer ¾” so that I can get away with more 90 deg bends and also pull in big wire, including sub cables. An advantouge of ½” is you can bend tighter 90's.
I just routed it to all the speaker locations into ENT J-boxes and home ran the runs back to a central location where the AV equipment will reside.
I will most likely use termination points and banana plugs, but one could also buy blank outlet covers, drill a 1/2'” hole in the middle of them and install rubber grommets in the hole, and then run the speaker wire direct from the amps to the speakers. Some folks think you need equal length wires to each pair of speaker and the second option would accommodate that.
If you do decide to use ENT, make sure to strap the hell out of it so the LFE’s don’t cause it to rattle and tap. You’ll know how much is enough by simply tapping on it. If it moves, put a strap on it. I also put fiberglass insulation between it and some studs, other runs of tubing and areas that I just couldn’t use a strap where I thought it could get to moving and irritate me by tapping/vibrating against something.
Home Depot sells this stuff by the foot, or in 100’ roles. It cuts with a utility knife and the J-box termination adaptors come in either snap-in or threaded configurations. I’d just use the snap type because they hold extremely well and you do not need to use a bushing with them like you do with the threaded adaptors.
When you route any type of communication/audio/video cable or wire, the rule of thumb is to keep parallel runs 24” apart. It’s OK to run them perpendicular, just keep them a couple inches apart wher they cross one another.
I can send you some pics if you wish. Just PM me your email. I’d post, but I just can’t be bothered with that right now……..
