Just a quick couple of thoughts.
You want some level of separation between electrical wires and network/audio/video cabling. You run the risk of interference if you put them too close.
That would have to be one pretty big power cable.
Best practice in network engineering states that you need to keep them separated and not run directly next to each other. As a certified network engineer, this is what we are taught, and not just for commercial installations. Network cables have built in noise resistance, but it is more for radio interference (not radio stations, but radio signals that can come from a variety of sources, including household power). Noise resistance does not mean noise proof. Heck my phone is water resistant. It can be submerged in water for 30 minutes before running the risk of issues (I am sure that there are some caveats) but it can't stay underwater indefinitely without problems. If building from scratch, why wouldn't you follow best practices as much as possible? If doing a retrofit, then yeah, you have to make compromises some times.
I don't know what would happen if you put your network terminations right next to all of the electrical going in/out of the breaker box.
Nothing.
I know several people who have their home routers wired with all incoming and outgoing connections at the electrical junction box.
Good to know. Like I said, I didn't know because I don't have any personal experience with this. You don't either, but know people that do. My experience here is more on the commercial side where building power and network closets are kept apart. Granted that the incoming main runs are significantly more power that to a residential home. However, even when that building power drops down to regular current levels run to cubicles, the power lines have their own troughs that they run through in the floors or drops from the ceiling even than what the network lines run through. Server rooms also separate the power from the network runs with power under the raised floor and the network cable run on what are called ladders up above the servers. This serves a few purposes, but one of them is to keep the data lines away from power.
The last time I personally saw power and networking in a close proximity at one of my employers was back in 1994 and that company didn't follow any standards and they suffered for it for other reasons. Their network equipment and servers were so sub-par that I can't say that the power proximity was an issue because they were just prone to failure either way.
Reduce what you put into the conduit by taking things like the 12ga speaker wire and not putting it in the conduit. Speaker wire should be fairly safe if protected by a decent height off of the floor and placed far enough back to prevent a nail/screw from hitting it (or use stud cable protector plates). That should open up some space inside the conduit.
There was consideration to put speaker wire in a conduit???
It is just speaker wire. By the time that wire type may change, we'll all be long dead.
The only thing speaker wire needs to be for construction is rated for in-wall use (CL2 if i recall).
The second to last paragraph in the original post talked about putting speaker wire in the conduit. Like you, I was just saying that it wasn't worth it. Keep it off the floor to protect against any potential critters (heaven forbid) and protect them inside the stud and there is no need for conduit.
Keep in mind that the conduit also needs very gentle curves in order to get any future cabling through it and a lot more space than you think you may need.
45 degree elbows are fine. The 90 degree elbows are problematic.
Exactly my point. I had 2 large curves in my 3" PVC conduit (the gray PVC made for this stuff) made up of four 45 degree curves to make them more gradual (they were BIG curves). I couldn't even push one of my HDMI cables through it to my projector because the HDMI cable was so thick and stiff. That was when the conduit was empty. I ran all of the cables to my projector outside of the conduit and kept it there for future expansion only. I figure that if I need to add something later, I can just attach the new cable to my pull cord, and use some electrical grease on it to help it around the bends if need be.
So Matt, do what you wish, but since you are down to studs, you have a lot more flexibility. No sweat off my back if you do something different. You seemed to be asking for opinions, so I gave you mine based off of real hands on training and experience. Does it mean that doing something else won't work fine too? Heck no. You could zip-tie the cat5 to a power line and have everything work just fine. I guess I am more of a "use the tried and true" method and not just enough to get me by or risk of future issues. This has proven to be more expensive for me down the road, but I know that it will be done with the least potential for any issues or degraded performance down the road.
This is all fairly contested information. Google searches will yield the best practices that I mention, but also have people that say that they don't have issues doing something less than best practice.
