Speaker Connection Faceplates - Axiom Message Boards

Axiom Home Page

Rather than hijack Moorthy's recent post about grommets, I thought I would start my own related thread.

Most everyone agrees that the more resistance you put into a speaker wire, the more it compromises the sound quality (whether the decrease in SQ is audible is another discussion). At risk of this degenerating into a science vs. golden ear rathole, I have some pointed questions about this, specifically related to these wall mount speaker connection faceplates that are available.

It seems to me that any splice in an otherwise uninterrupted copper cable will add a certain amount of resistance, therefore reduce the SQ carried across the cable. I am nervous about buying just any faceplate because I've seen the quality difference between banana plugs and I'm sure the same applies to these. I am planning at least a good quality 12AWG to each speaker. Why then, would I compromise the quality with speaker interconnects from Home Depot? I'm unsure of the quality of the interconnects I see online from the usual suspects Monoprice, DVIGear, etc.

I am tempted to simply run my speaker cables, properly rated, through the walls and ceiling, uninterrupted from speaker to receiver. Am I crazy? (rhetorical, don't answer that)

I'm not so sure what to install as the grommet in the wall behind the receiver. I'll have 4 or 5 cables, 12AWG each, exiting the wall. I'll certainly not want to thread each one through its own grommet.

At the surround speaker positions (and possible the sub), I'm not so sure I'll be able to hit a hole small enough for those grommets to fit.

I'd like to hear from someone who's gone through this before. I will be wiring up the room the weekend after next and am getting pretty nervous about it. Not to mention hanging out in the attic is challenging for my 6'3" frame.

edit: changed the title of the post because it makes it sound like I'm asking about on-wall or in-wall speakers.

Quote:

Science vs. golden ears

Now, THAT'S funny.

I think that face plates will introduce minimal resistance; certainly not enough to hear. If things like that did, adding spades or banana plugs to speaker cable would do the same thing.

There are plenty of gold plated plates out there I have a bunch from radio shack, 4 pairs/plate, and they work great for me. Something like this

Quote:

I am tempted to simply run my speaker cables, properly rated, through the walls and ceiling, uninterrupted from speaker to receiver. Am I crazy? (rhetorical, don't answer that)

I agree that decent wallplates that give a quality connection shouldn't cause any problems. I doubt you would tell the difference in blind A/B testing as long as all the connections are done well.

That being said, I did just what you described in my theater; no breaks, just one piece of wire end to end from speaker to reciever. It was cheaper than buying all the interconnects, and I don't plan on ever changing it. But if I do decide to add wall plates later, I always could since there is plenty of cable to work with.

If you do go this route, just buy the nylon "unbreakable" wall plates and you can drill a hole just the size for your wire to go through for a clean in-room look. For behind the receiver you could do the same, just custom drill the holes you need. It gets trickier trying to line them up so use a spade bit to help start the holes where you want.

Good luck,

I used this face plate from ebay:

Very good quality, I love it, have noticed no degration of sound. I am only using it to goto the 4 surrounds and the centre channel mounted above my screen. Sounds great to me!

Oh cool. That's the first 5 speaker wall plate I've seen. Most have 4 pair of connectors. That would give me a connection to remote my subwoofer, which brings up another question.

Looking at my sub, I have a few RCA jacks on the back that are used for "pre out" from the receiver, using the built in amp on the sub. I also have bananas that are labeled for use with an external amplifier. Currently I am using the pre out RCA connectors.

In order to extend the subwoofer cable through the previously mentioned wall jack, I guess I would need to figure a way to craft a pair of RCA to banana cables. I feel like I'm missing something here. I've also never done RCA connector terminations...so that could explain the confusion.

Back to the original question, I appreciate the feedback. I was pretty sure I wouldn't affect the SQ no matter which method I used, but I'd hate to put shoddy parts on the ends of quality cable. I guess since I work a lot with fiber optics that, in my mind, each connection point has an associated loss (in this case, loss of conductivity). True for fiber, maybe not so critical for copper. If you count the connection points, adding faceplates to the solution triples the connection points from 4 to 12! Throw in a few low quality interconnects and it's enough to put this poor old boy into a tailspin of fear, uncertainty and doubt.

instead of crafting that wall plate, I would get a 4 speaker wall plate and then a separate RCA wall plate for your sub.

Hutzel, can you unscrew the terminators on that faceplate? I was thinking of buying that face plate and a keystone RCA insert and swapping out one, or both of the 5th bananas with the RCAs.

I'd prefer to only have one wall plate for the speakers/sub. I already have a second, fully populated 8 position keystone jack with cable, phone, network positions. Getting into a third would be spousal suicide.

They aren't keystone insterts, the wallplate is molded for the 5 speaker terminals.

I don't know how else to help you out...I'll take another look at it this weekend, you may be able to get rid of 2 of the terminals, then just get a regular coupler for the rca cables, and if you can fit the tip of the rca cable thru one of the holes that the posts were in, you could couple the rca cable with the in-wall rca cable through the hole for a clean look.

I was kind of looking at Impact Acoustics. They have keystone jacks and whatnot.

Quote:

They aren't keystone insterts, the wallplate is molded for the 5 speaker terminals.

I think I wasn't clear. Most connectors on wall plates are held in place from behind with a large inner diameter nut and washer. If this is the case with your 5 pair banana wall plate, I could remove two of the bananas and (hopefully) replace them with two RCA connectors similarly harvested from a couple RCA keystone inserts or an RCA wall plate, whichever is cheaper.

For $20 shipped, I'll know for sure. I think I'll take the chance...

I could take an up-close pic of it when I get time this weekend with the face plate off of it so you can see the connectors. let me know.

Edit: I just thought about it, they are a hexagon shape (probably a nut) behind the binding posts on the front and back, this could be what you are talking about.

-Hutz

Actually, that's a question. Those RCA keystones--are there RCA plugs on front and back? So, say, for example, if I wanted to put one faceplate on one side of a wall, and the corresponding faceplate on the other side of the wall, I could just use a short length of RCA ended cable to connect them?

Yep, exactly. They'd be hex or octagon shaped nuts that thread around the entire connector. They are very thin and tighten up very close against the back of the faceplate. On the front, there's what looks like a similar nut, but its molded into the metal of the connector and fits into a hex/oct countersink to prevent the connector from spinning while tightening the nut on the back.

Boy, I need to leave the technical writing to the technical writers.

Awesome. I just found one of the parts of the puzzle. RCA to F connector with the little retainer nut.

RCA to F Connector

Doing the happy dance!