We are moving to new construction, and want to get the speaker wire installed before the drywall goes up. I'm not sure if the builder will do this for us or not. If not, I could use some advice. I want to do two runs for the QS8's, one for each side. I also want a subwoofer cable run back to the corner. I plan on using the QS8 wall mount T brackets to put the speakers on the wall.

Should I get a wall plate and have the speakers runs terminate there, and ask them to add it in the wall? What should it termiate with so I can plug it in? I know the QS8's sit pretty flush against the wall, so that could limit the options.

Same for the sub, how should that terminate? Would it terminate in the wall and then I would hook up a short sub cable from the wall to the sub?

As far as the main area where the TV is, should I also get wall outlets that wires go into, and label them Rear Left, Rear, Right, Sub, and then just hook up the fronts directly?

Anyone done this before?

I need to get it done by 10/17, as drywall is going up on 10/18.

Thanks for the advice in advance.

I'll do my best to help you out with all your questions.

First things first, you should run wiring for 7.1 just in case you want to do that in the future (you mid as well, or you may regret it later).

I would use this wall plate to terminate behind your TV to goto your surrounds (assuming you run for 4 surrounds):


Cheap at monoprice.

For your wire I would recommend bluejeanscable.com belden greyjacket in-wall 12g wire. Make sure you order about 20% more than you think you'll need after measuring all your runs...its always better to have some left over, than too short.

Bluejeanscable.com

for your sub cable, I would use this for your in-wall installation:


Cheap at monoprice

and you can terminate the with wall plates behind your TV and where you want your sub to go with normal RCA wall plates.

as for the QS8s, I just had the bare wire sticking out of the wall, and I mounted the QS8's over the hole in the wall, you don't see anything but the speaker, I used bare wire to connect to the QS8s binding posts.

You're going to need to know where you will be putting your couch and such so you can place your surrounds effectively.

here is how I layed out my room:



I actually have not ordered my 7.1 speakers, I only have 5.1 right now, but I am thankful I ran enough for 7.1.

Thanks for the quick reply. So for your two rear jacks for the 7.1, you just have an empty all plate in the wall?

This is the main family room in the house, so I don't know that WAF will accept 7.1....5.1 was enough. I think I am more likely to get a dedicated theater room in the basement (she likes that idea actually) than 7.1 in the family room. Good suggestion though, I'll think about it.

Did you just leave the bare wire tied up somewhere in the walls, so when they drywall I know where it will be, and I put a hole in the wall to get it out again? Are there any wall plates that would be flush enough to fit the QS8?

The wallplates just fit into a standard electrical outlet box. You just mount the boxes on the studs where you want them and run the speaker wires to the boxes. The drywallers will just drywall around them the same as if they were a standard electrical outlet box. If you want to save some time Home depot usually has some decent in wall 12 gauge speaker wire for pretty cheap. As long as the wire is run you can get the speaker terminals from monoprice and install them later.

Whatever cable you put in the walls, make sure it is CUL-approved. You may not be able to get your installation approved by the inspector if you don't do so.

Also, make sure you run the cables as far away from house wiring as possible. And if you need to cross any house-wiring, make sure they cross orthogonally.

I second what Robb said about running 7.1 for the future. Forget WAF when running cables. Also, you may want to run sub cables to a few different areas of your room as it's probably not clear to you right now where exactly the sub should be placed.

And Home Depot does indeed have good 12 gauge wire for less than a buck a foot.

I did not think about the time contraints...I am not sure if you can order anything online...you may need to get a coaxial sub line at retail (a 50 footer may cost quite a bit).

I have 12ga home depot speaker wire now, so that is fine, I can just get more of it. I have a 25ft sub cable, but I'll probably just get a new one. The 25ft barely reaches, the new house is bigger, and most importantly, I'd have no sub for the next two months if I use my current cable!

I'm also trying to make a list of what I need to do this, so I don't have home depot runs during it.

Stepladder
Speaker cable
sub cable
electric boxes to run cables to
wall plates (althought it was mentioned that I may be able to do that later)
scissors (to cut cables lengths from the big spool I get)
camera (need pics throughout the process)

Anything else? I thought about a drill, but I should not need that. I don't want to put holes in, and if they have ways to run other cables I should be fine. Runs will go through the ceiling and then down the walls.

I will probably buy everything I need tomorrow and head out to do the install this weekend.

Anyone know a good place to get a 50 foot sub cable from a store that would carry it, so I don't have to wait for it to ship?

Might I suggest side cutter pliers also known as Diagnal cutters or wire cutters instead of scissors to cut your wiring.

Radio Shack has some reasonable sub cables.

I looked at the web sites for Best Buy, Circuit City, and Radio shack but don't see anything that is carried in store that is larger than 25'.

You can buy two and plug them together.

Two questions:

I'd rather not have two sub cables connected together in the wall, but if I have to what is the connector I need for that?

Does home depot have CL rated wire for in wall use? (I'll find this one out tomorrow, but would like a backup plan if the answer is no...Radio shack perhaps?)

Make that 3 questions...Do I need the wall plates now, or just put the cables in the electical boxes and add wall plates later with them hooked up to the plates?

I forgot you're running it in the wall. My concern there is two-fold: 1. finding sub cable that is CUL-approved for inside the wall and 2. what if you pull on it and end up disconnecting it? I ran my sub cable on the outside because I didn't want to fool around with terminating coax. It was easy enough because I hid it under the trim. You may want to do the same. I think it's more practical because you don't really know where the best place for the sub is until you try multiple locations.

I don't know about the US but Canada's HD does have CUL 12 gauge speaker cable.

You don't need wall plates now but make sure that the speaker cables are covered well so you don't get foreign matter in there.

I don't think I have ever seen a specific sub cable for in wall use and no you can't joint hem unless in an accessible junction box. I think you could just use RG - 6 coax cable for your sub cable and then termminate it at the box with an F type to RCA adapter in a wall plate.

Plates to come after drywall finished and painted.

I used wall plates that changed from cat5 into RCA plugs. Of course, my run is less than 6 feet, but that could work for you. They're kind of hard to find, but I got them at Home Depot. I think Leviton was the brand.

The sub is going in one of two corners of the room, so I could just run cables to both (and then I can do dual subs later if I want).

Maybe I'll tape up the end of the speaker wires or something to try to keep dust/dirt out.

I'm interested in the idea of using cat5 for long subwoofer runs. This has been a question in my head as I plan the future HT room I might actually someday get time and money to begin.

Since unlike regular speaker runs, it is low current, (although I never looked into exactly how low), the thin gauge of cat 5 should be fine while providing sufficient shielding interference.

Correct? or no?

Zarak,

I neglected to mention that you are setting your room up very nicely.

Murph,

You can buy shielded and unshielded cat 5. If your 500 is anything like my 600, I don't recommend the use of cat 5 cable. My 600 is extremely sensitive to noise and the plastic connectors on cat 5 don't provide shielding at that critical termination end. You may be fine of course depending on what your electro-magnetic environment is like but I see it as an unecessary risk.

The cable that I linked to originally is a 50 footer and is CL2 rated for in wall use.

Regarding the j-boxes. Make sure you get low voltage boxes, with open backs, they are much easier to work with (trust me, I know).

Edit: Zarack, you can get next day air from monoprice.com for $35...even at that price, the 50 footer is worth it. I would suggest getting a 6 footer of the same cable for when you get a wall plate up...you should look around the site and see if oyu need any other types of A/V cables and bundle it all into the same order.

Monoprice also has this statement on their main page "California Overnight Sunrise, delivered on the next business day before 2:00 PM Pacific Time for Only $7.50 Flat upto 10LBs, is available for CA, and Reno, Las Vegas, Pheonix, and Tucson in NV and AZ. Please consult the Service Area and ZIP Code Guide for additional information."

Thanks Mojo,

I guess it would depend on how far the sub is from the point of termination on the wall where it would convert to a coax patch to the sub. No way to know for sure at this point so it's probably a very good point to play it safe.

I find my 500 causes more noise issues than it receives. For a short time it was sitting inches from two runs of coax feeding my satellite dish receiver. During big LFE events I was seeing distortion in my picture. Easily fixed by just adding a few more inches of distance.

Even more humorous was when I was having frustrating issues with my universal remote and IR Blaster. I'd would hit buttons on my remote and nothing would happen or unexpected results would occur. First I thought it was weak batteries. After a frustrating hour of troubleshooting, I discovered that the little red led on my IR blaster was not only flickering out of control but was also keeping time with the bass hits in the concert I was playing.

The IR blaster was sitting on a shelf about 2 feet away from the sub and maybe a foot or two higher vertically. Moving it up one shelf level solved my problem.

I agree, use RG-6 for the sub cable(s). Much easier, cheaper and just as good as buying an expensive 50 foot cable.

It actually doesn't depend on distance at all. The fact that the cable is terminated with a plastic connector introduces the risk of interference. Stray noise in the room (even from your lights or dimmer switches) can find its way through the plastic connector.

Maybe I'll do the RG6 for the sub just from a time standpoint. Easier to find that local in a long enough run to have for installation tomorrow.

If any of you guys were local I'd see if you wanted to come join the fun!

I'd be there in a second. I like to pull wires.

So no luck at home depot for 12 gauge in wall. I have one other home depot to try, otherwise I may have to go with 14 gauge. No luck so far on longer than a 25' sub cable, so I may end up with the coax option there.

The other home depot had cables. I have 120' of 12 gauge and 100' of RG6. The RG6 has no ends on it, which I can leave that way for now, but I'll need some more input on how to turn these into something I can plug into the sub. Do they go directly into the wall plate without anything on the end and then the other side of the wall plate has a normal sub connector that runs a short sub cable from the wall to the sub?

I may take my current 25' sub cable and try to run that, but I don't think it will reach.

I couldn't get the 12 gauge Home Depot in wall either so I ran their 14 gauge. I have no problems what so ever. My longest run is 24'. You will be fine with it, unless you have an extremely long run.

The other home depot had 12, so I was ok. I went this morning and ran the cables. I only had time to do the two surrounds and one RG6 for a sub.

I brought my drill, but both batteries were dead, which meant I could only use existing holes. As a result, the speaker wire is running next to the electric wire. I'm hoping this doesn't cause an issue.

Thanks to everyone for your help. Now if we could just sell the existing house we'd be in great shape! Anyone want to move to King of Prussia, PA?

I was forced to run a side surround next to an electrical line for a foot or so and haven't had issues with that speaker in the almost two years we've had our room.

Yours is looking good!

I ended up running my wires through the same holes in a few spots as well, no differences in SQ from any speakers, that I can tell anyway.

Over what length and is there a dimmer on that wire, is it powering low voltage loads or a fan?

Length that they run together is 15 feet or so. There is not a dimmer on it now, but there will be. We are going to add a dimmer to that switch, since it is for overhead lighting, and we'll want it on dim while watching TV. There's no fan in the room, but there is an outlet setup that we could add a fan later.

I thought it was the sub cable you were referring to but now that I have re-read one of your previous posts, I realize it's the speaker wire. Speaker wire is a non-issue.

That really is not good.

If I were you, I would go back with a drill (that has a full battery) and re-do the wire runs, speaker cables should not be run parallel to electronics lines, this applies even more to your case as you're parallel for 15 feet!

Its up to you, but it would drive me insane (but I have OCD).

So I've got one vote for not an issue and one for this should be changed. Has anyone experienced issues with it being next to an electrical run, or is this more of an "in theory, this could cause problems"?

If I'm changing anything, I must do it by Wednesday. I'm inclined to leave it as is at this point unless this is sure to be an issue.

I suggest you visit this site:

How to run speaker wire

And judge for yourself. I would never run the wire like you did, that is just me. I like to elimiate all possible problems that may occur in the future, if I can prevent it, I do.

here is an excerpt:

I just calculated that if 10 amps of current runs through your house wire and if you place the speaker wire 1" away from the house wire, a current of 28 micro-amps will flow through your speaker wire. That's 3 nano-watts max flowing to your speaker. The Axioms are sensitive but not that sensitive :).

Now of course I could be wrong in my calculation because it's been sometime since I've had to apply Maxwell's equations.

Robb and the article is right in that it's good practice to keep audio/video cables separated from house wiring and I too was very anal about this when I built my basement. The real concern however is with small signals such as those found in subwoofer and component cables.

My sub run, RG6 that I'll need to put ends on to connect up, is following the same route. Are you saying this one is more likely to be an issue?

Do NOT, under any circumstance, run your sub cable anywhere near house current. I don't know the suitable distance, and no I won't be putting myself through the pain of Maxwell again for computing fields in coax cable. It's practically impossible to shield 60Hz magnetic fields.

Jason, here's another vote for not-an-issue. Speaker wire, as briefly noted by Blue Jeans is essentially immune from outside interference because of the relatively high current it carries into a relatively low impedance(interconnects are the opposite and shielding is a significant factor). This is in accord with general audio principles, while the other material quoted isn't.

So it's sounding like I should be ok with speaker cables, but the sub cable could be an issue. They are all along the same run. I have to go back tomorrow morning for the pre drywall inspection. Maybe I'll bring the drill and redo just the sub run. Or maybe I'll do a new sub run, leave the other one, and compare the two. Although I don't really a bad run to stay there.

If you don't leave the other one for comparison, you'll never know if creating a new run was the right thing to do. How will you then be able to sleep at night ?

if you are rerouting the coaxial cable, you midas well run the speaker wires through the same holes to the back of the room. Just a suggestion

If you are going to go back and redrill holes you might want to think about running them in some conduit just in case you want to change things later.

Just be careful to wear gloves or your wires might turn to gold.

Don't worry, I'm convinced its a bad idea. However I do wonder. Since CAT5 doesn't really rely on the sheathing for any significant insulation from interference but actually relies on an electrical shielding effect produced by the the method and tightness of the twists in the wire, is it actually the removal of the twists at the termination point more so than the plastic that would create more risk for interference? That has been my schooling on CAT5 to this point in investigating interference on CAT5 structured wiring.

Note: This is a conversational question, not a defensive rebuttal as either theory makes cat5 a bad choice for audio where there is increased risk of electrical interference.

Had the pre drywall inspection today. No chance to rerun wires. If the sub one is a problem, it shouldn't be too bad to rerun after the walls are up by going through the basement instead of the ceiling. I can use all inside walls, so on insulation.

Thanks again for everyone's help. I'm missing having my QS8's setup and am ready to get them going in the new house with the new runs. I've been saving up all the good surround sound movies in my blockbuster queue until after we move. Now we just need the current house to sell.

Let us know what it sounds like when it's all done, please.

Twisted pairs are effective at reducing interference from magnetic fields. Cable shielding is effective at reducing interference from electric fields. So the lack of twists at the end will increase susceptibility to magnetic fields and the lack of a grounded, metallic connector will increase susceptibility to electric fields.

Thanks Mojo,
By mentioning magnetic fields in the same paragraph as electrical fields, it sparked me into finally understanding what you are trying to say. Even though you said the word "electrical" several times, my brain was apparently stuck in magnetic mode.

A good demonstration of the danger in being a technical jack of all trades but master of none.

We're all praying that your wiring is not an issue - many people here would be driven to ripping up the sheetrock if there is any real or *imagined* interference!

Just found out settlement is on 12/10, so we'll find out shortly after that.

Sheetrock? I would bulldoze the whole house!

Robb, I think I should let you know that electrons in your equipment are constantly being bullied by many different sources. If you want to stop this, you really ought to think about enclosing each and every one of your conductors and components in mu-metal.

Does anyone know where I can rent a dozer?