I want to mount the QS-4's on their brackets about 5 ft up. Anyone have any cosmetic ideas to hide the wire that might save buying a stand or routing plaster and filling it back in? My contractor has been in the ceiling area and says due to the way the house was built it is not practical to drill and drop line into the wall area so I'm definitely leaving that as a last resort. I was thinking about simulating something on the wall that would look like a support but be somewhat aesthetic and hide the wire. Black Oak finish

Maybe a piece of EMT (Electrical Metal Tubing) painted black and marbleized. I had actually thought about desiging a support system with this and allthread but the brackets work fine. Conduit is pretty cheap.

This will work most times. run your wires under the carpet and pad. Around the exterior of the room works good and easy. Drill a hole in your base board (about a half inch). Make sure this hole gives you access to the walls hollow area directly below where you want your speakers. Drop a string with a weight on the end down from speaker to hole in base board, fish it out, then pull speaker wire up wall. Then all you need is to patch the hole in the baseboard, which is easy. You can also use a "fishtape", but string worked better for me.

I spent hours in my confined attic space trying to get the wires through the ceiling and down the wall. It sucks and I kept running into obsticles. I hate the attic.

Something just struck me while looking at my options for wire routing. One of the better suggestions for speaker wire has been the low voltage lighting cable at Home Depot which is rated for outdoor use (I'll wade into that debate at a later time). If the speaker and your stereo setup are on exterior walls you might be able to get by with two penetrations with the wire routed outside. This would be a last resort for me as I'm not fond of a lot of exterior wall holes. To the crawl space.
Plaster walls on furring strips are a lot easier to work on than plaster on metal lathe.

Asuming you're unable to fish wires down through the wall, and unwilling to poke holes in your outer walls, you could construct some sort of wainscotting type deal with your wires hidden behind.

Even simple 2" x 1/2" vertical struts, painted to match your baseboards and topped with a fatter chair rail would give you a nice effect. Sneak the wire in behind one of the verticals.

And what happens when one of those walls for the surrounds is full of insulation, so a fishtape or weighted string won't drop through?

I had your exact situation. I have about 1 foot of wire to hide on each of my surrounds (3). Got some stuff called "Cordmate" at Home Depot. Wire goes inside, attaches to the wall. Can be painted. No hassle what so ever.

If the fish tape doesn't work, a "double" coat hanger should. It's a bit harder to workd with since it doesn't drop straight down, but with a little patience, it works. I know it sounds weird, but my wife & I got it to work by using a piece of wire as a "lasso" of sorts in the lower hole and hooking the loop with the coat hanger from the upper hole. Like I said, it takes patience, but it works.

I quit trying to fish the wires pretty quickly. Went with the Cordmate option.

I think I will check out the cordmate idea. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Just hang it in front of the wall nice and straight and tight. Use black wire so it looks coolers

That's all I'm doing, as I can't go through the wall because it's right against the exterior wall, and I don't plan to be here that long (3 years tops) :P

- D