Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners To flat wire or to not flat wire?

Hello, Im about to receive my Qs8's and I am unsure about the way to go for wiring? I live in an apartment so I dont think punching holes is an option for me, but I dont want cables all over the place showing. My question is how good is the flat cable in relation to the regular cables? Will I loose any sound quality? I am going to mount the surrounds with the available "T-bracket" that they come with with the EZ anchors. Any suggestions for me? Any preference in brand, and or gauge. Thanks

I was in a similar dilemna. I was not able to run wiring through my walls, so I needed to run along my baseboard. I bought Monster, flat, paintable wire and ran it under my baseboard. It was much easier to push under than regular wire. I have had no problems at all.

Good to hear. It seems that you both are not alone in your predicament. I'm moving into a new home with dry-wall on brick walls (don't know if there is any space in between the two), and no option to run wires through the floor or ceiling. I went with flat wires (16 gauge). I will tell you how the installation goes in a month or so.

I had the same situation, since I live in an apartment as well. I used the T-bracket and wired them with 14 guage flat wire that I picked up at Radio Shack for about $20 ( for 50') I ran the wire under the carpet and along the baseboards. I can barely feel the wire under the carpet. As far as I can tell everything seems fine and sounds great. I also used a couple 5' raceways to hide the wires. Hope you enjoy your new QS8's.

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I'm moving into a new home with dry-wall on brick walls

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Usually they'll Hilti (trade name for a gunpowder fired nailer) furring bar or strips (not WhatFurrer strips - *shudder*) onto the brick, then screw into that. But you have no idea what direction they ran them, how often or anything else.

Of course, building codes, especially for finishing are wildly different between Canada and the US (and even in different areas of the US) so who knows. I was absolutely appalled watching a home improvement show from the states (one of Bob Vila's) and they showed them air nailing 1/2" board to a ceiling with 1 1/2" coil roofing nails, you could see the gypsum shatter around each nail, holding it to the joists by pretty much just the face paper. Code here is for 5/8" fireguard on 16 in. centres, no less than 4 (5?) screws over the 48" width.

Bren R.

Interesting....

I'm in D.C., and I believe that the rules are pretty loosey-goosey about those kinds of things. I'm not sure that I want to fool around with getting behind the dry-wall that's attached to the brick (likely with insulation in between, right?) only to find that I've punched holes that now need to be patched, and what do I have to show for it?

My flate wire approach will simply just have to work. I'll be relying on paint to provide concealment, likely.

Capn,
If you ever do a remodel there are trims out there to hide wire. Cableorganizer.com had an okay baseboard trim and a cheesy crown moulding. Wiremold always looked tacky to me. I'm sure there's others out there.

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(not WhatFurrer strips - *shudder*)

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The only thing I strip is wire to hook up speakers...

Thank you very much...

WhatFurrer

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Wiremold always looked tacky to me.

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I agree, and that's not just because it has adhesive on it.

K, there's a technical disadvantage to flat wire which is largely of just theoretical significance. The inductance of speaker wires varies directly with the distance between the conductors and flat wire has the conductors separated more widely than standard lamp cord, resulting in higher inductance. This causes slightly greater loss of the very highest audio frequencies, but except on a very long run the difference wouldn't be audible to even the most golden of ears.

So, use the flat wire of your choice if that's the most convenient for your setup; it won't audibly affect the sound.