Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Installing RCA cables in a wall

I am going to be connecting the line level outputs on my surround receiver to the inputs on a pre-amp for a separate two channel stereo system located in a different room. In order to do this I will need to run a substantial distance through some walls and ceilings. The walls and ceilings are open right now, but will be sheetrocked soon, as I finish the remodel of my basement. I am wondering if I should use some type of shielded coaxial cable with RCA jacks for this purpose, or whether standard RCA cables would suffice. I will try to route everything away from house wiring, but there will no doubt be some spots where they run close, or cross over each other. The total distance of the run will be about 35-40 feet. I would appreciate specific recommendations for cables, as I am running out of time and need to get these installed quickly. Thanks.

Bob, first a little comment on cable terminology: since the term "RCA" actually applies only to the plugs at the ends, not the cables themselves, it would make sense if even the most heavily-shielded coaxial cable terminated with RCAs was called an "RCA cable". Be that as it may, an "RCA cable" frequently is a thinner, lightly-shielded cable, and they're adequately shielded for short runs(e.g. player to receiver)in most home environments. Speaker wiring, running relatively high current into a low impedance is essentially immune from interference and has no need for shielding, but interconnecting cables carrying signals over a thousand times weaker generally require shielding.

No need to buy the high-priced stuff; the usual RG59-type cables from an inexpensive source such as MonoPrice are fine. Incidentally, I bought the standard connector cable and it's fine; the "fancy connector"(unusually frank acknowledgment of the difference)shouldn't be necessary.

If you're worried about quality then run the best wire you can afford. I have run 30+ feet of cheap Radio Shack RCA wire for my satellite radio through walls in a couple of different buildings and never had a problem. Actually I think it was a 50 foot roll. However this wasn't for any critical listening. Sounds fine in my shop though.

Bob, I agree with John on this one. You really don't want to run the cheaper cables with RCA ends in your walls. You would be better off using RG59 or something like that, and place some nice connector plates in the walls to hook up to in each room.

What I found were some jacks that had RCA connectors on the front and used Cat5 (or twisted pair of something) to connect between the jacks. Probably not fantastic for long distances, but it got the job done for me. Judging by the fact you said preamp, I imagine you're looking for slightly higher quality...

Coax and RCA (Canare or the Partsexpress.com type) connectors will work fine. Try to find a cable that's CL2 or CL3 rated if you want to be code compliant.