Running wire

[germ79]

Hi there guys. Just wondering how you all ran your speaker wire to your floor standing speakers, especially the surrounds.

I currently have the V-12's and am thinking about getting the HC/HB setup. I think I'll use stands because of their size. The room is being redone and will have new carpet installed. How do I get wires to all the speakers without it looking tacky? Behind the baseboards? Under the carpet somehow?

Thanks for your advice!

Jeremy

[Pete_Hsu]

Hi Jeremy,

It's just fine to run speaker wire along or inside the wall or under the carpet...

Sincerely,

Pete

[germ79]

Ok, good. Is this common? Do I have to worry about "feeling it" through the carpet as I walk? Do people put a tiny whole in the carpet for the speaker wire to come through? I guess I'm just curious what everyone else does.

J

[kmitchell]

Hi germ79,

There's a number of variables that make it hard to give you a good recommendation.

Do you own your house? Can you drill into the walls? Are you on a concrete slab or do you have a crawl space? Do you have access to the attic?

I've done a number of runs and whenever possible I go up a wall, over the top, and back down to a convenient spot on the other end. I finish both ends of the runs with solder-type banana jacks/binding posts and run from the wall to the speakers using speaker wire terminated with banana plugs.

I wouldn't recommend running speaker wires under the carpeting in a high traffic area because of the possibility of damage to the wiring. The last runs I made were with #12 wire and you definitely would be able to feel those under a carpet, particularly if you were barefoot.

I have seen speaker wiring run behind the baseboard you just have to be very careful when you are nailing the baseboard to the wall.

I had a friend who recently ran speaker wiring during a remodel and he used a router to cut groves in the sub-floor in which he ran the wiring. After placing the wiring in the grove he secured it using some type of industrial tape. He then placed the carpet padding and carpeting over that.

Lots of ways to hide speaker wiring.

Hope this helps,
Ken

[germ79]

Thanks for the tips. If it helps:

I do own my home. The room has a concrete slab floor and the floor above is finished. We are remodeling and the baseboards and carpet will be out. I would love to run the wire in the walls, but am unsure how that works when you are traveling vertically, as there are studs in the way. Could I go vertically behind baseboards and then horizontally through the wall to the top where the wire would be?

Ideally, I think I'd like speaker stands. Having those HB/HC speakers mounted on the wall seems like it could look strange since they are so large.

Jeremy

[Pete_Hsu]

Well what do you know, take a look at this:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1032271

[kmitchell]

Hi germ79,

My reason for asking if you owned your home was to determine just how much exploration you wanted to do in the walls. It sounds like you're blocked from underneath by the slab floor and from above because of a finished 2nd floor so your only choices are under the carpet or around the walls. I'm not sure what the decorating style is for this room but you may want to consider a "chair rail" around the middle of the walls and hiding the wires behind the rail. I've also seen it where all of the horizontal wiring was done about 24" off the floor and then covered up with wainscoting. I wouldn't worry too much about getting too high up the wall until you find apeakers stands you like. Many of the speaker stands I've seen have channels to hide the wires as they run up the verticals of the stand.

Hope this helps,
Ken

PS. Here's the stands I used for my HBs: http://www.racksandstands.com/VTI-BLE101-VI1051.html