LOL, you would think something like speaker wire would be simple choice to make. I'm finding this to be the hardest.......

So what to get? I've read any of my threads in the 7100 amp section you would now that i've been remodling a room, so time to get the wiring out of sight. So what wiring do you recommand. I'm looking for the best bang for the buck.

Crutchfiled has monster cable Monster CRS142RCL-300, 300 ft. 14 ga. 2 conductor UL Speaker Cable
THX-certified • CL3/FT4 rated for in-wall installations • high-purity copper conductor with twisted-pair construction • EZ-Strip rip cord for quick jacket removal • sequential footage markers printed on jacket • special low-friction jacket; easy to pull through walls

for .55 per foot

Is this wire any good?

I've read some of the other post in this forum.

How do blue jean cables Belden 5000UE (Gray jacket, 12 AWG) 0.39/ft or Cobalt at 1.09 a foot.

What other brands?

the room is 12 feet wide, so the max distance would be 20 feet for the rears if the amp is stored next to the tv location and from ear height all the way up the wall to the ceiling , over 12 feet to the ceiling and the down the back wall 4 feet to listing height

What about wall plates. any brand do a better job? Crutchfield has niles! any good? actual suitable?

What way is better actual pros and cons of bare wire to the connectors or banana plugs?

12 guage or 14 guage?

I've got a headache from this, man what a pain in the Beep!!!!

id go with thicker guage wire. if you are going to use wall plates, id solder the speaker wire to the plate. solder is not perhaps the ideal connection, but it will be the least problematic. then from the wall plates to the spakers, bananas would be nice. bare wire is fine, but it tends to become loose over time and will oxidize as well...

if you are going to put high dollar speaker wire into a cheap wall plate then that is silly.

i guess it all depends on what you want to have coursing through your walls, be it monster or "lamp cord", all of it will transmit the signal... however i would stick with in wall rated cable that is a low guage and is a good price... for your use, i would probably go with the cheapest lowest guage i could get from the likes of belden or canare... particularly if you are running the wire through a conduit, the amount of insulation/jacketing will not be very important, but if you are running the wire without conduit, the wire should be well insulated/protected from interference...

its really not the biggest deal, dont worry about it so much. the idea of home theather is to enjoy it, im sure most any wire that you would pick will allow you to do that.

Speaker gauge has to do with the length of run. Heavy gauge cable for short distance is unnecessarily and expensive. For your small 20 feet room, 16-gauge wire is sufficient. There is no pro and con between bare wire and binding post plug. The only difference is ease of connection. Don’t waste your money on brand name cables. Most of them are liars.

For your set-up make sure you use speaker cable rated for in-wall use. This will be necessary to pass the building code in most locations. Your other option is to run the speaker wire in conduit.

I also disagree that 16 gauge wire is all that is necessary for your application. I would suggest at least 14 gauge wire since some of your runs will be in excess of 20 feet when you include all the bends plus you want to leave some slack.

Lastly, I do agree that designer brands are not necessary. You should check out some other vendors such as Parts Express or Audio Advisor . Audio advisor does tend to be a little pricey but you can get some good deals in their clearance section. I picked up some in-wall rated 14/4 speaker cable from them for a really good price.

I use Leviton Quick-Port Wall Plates. They are very flexible in their design. You can buy the plates and various connectors at Home Depot or online at numerous vendors.

I would prefer to at least use 14ga for any home theater wiring, and for a run of 20 feet (which will probably require closer to 25 feet when you factor in turns, offsets, and a little slack at the ends to facilitate making connections) I'd start to consider 12ga. When I did my surround speaker wiring back in January, I used an assortment of Radio Shack plates ( four speaker , two speaker , and one speaker variations) that were particularly useful for installing in existing paneling and sheetrock. Since you'll be working from scratch, I'd put a single gang junction box in at each speaker location and a single gang (or double gang if you'll have wiring for four surrounds) j-box behind the equipment rack. With a true j-box to work with, something like the Leviton Quick-Ports could also work well.

I've used Blue Jeans Cables' interconnects a bit lately and been pretty satisfied with their products - of the two listed, I'd go with the Belden 5000UE at $0.39/foot, but I'd also ask them if the stuff is in-wall rated as I didn't see any mention about that on their info page. Definitely check Parts Express before you order, though, as they may also have some good prices on similar wire.

Good article about speaker wire:

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

Lee

Thank you all for all the help,

My thoughts are the colbalt wires, I've sent a email about the blue jean cables .39 a foot, to see if they are in wall rated.

Any one have any suggestion on wire for the cable tv

For cable TV, I'd first check to see if your local cable provider will do the wiring for you for free or fairly cheaply (I think I paid $75 or so for an interior-run cable outlet when we renovated the kitchen), since that will get it connected properly at the service box. If you do elect to do it yourself, pretty much any RG-6 cable should do - I certainly wouldn't invest anything extra in the wire for that.

i just had to get some extra speaker cable for my surrounds, my b&w dealer sold me tributaries 14/2 in wall for .35 a foot,i'm not dealing with high power or a long run.i suppose you could shop around and pick up bulk a bit cheaper.it does seem like good wire,pretty flexible,with fairly fine copper strands.

btw
i'm not any kind of wire expert,but if it works...

Yes; 5000UE's NEC rating is CL3R, and it's also UL listed.

Thanks,

Kurt
BJC
-----Original Message-----
From: chuck
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 5:34 AM
To: sales@bluejeanscable.com
Subject: Belden 5000UE


Are the Belden 5000UE wire rated for in-wall installation?





Thanks

I am purchasing a used 950 so I need to get wiring done as well. My runs four will be 40 ft each. Maybe more. After reading posts about the belden cable I discovered that they have a 10 guage version 5T00UP. There is also a stranded one as well. I found a place in Chicago area where 500 ft spool can be had for $122.35. They also have Genesis Audacious OFC 14/2 for 112.23 for 500ft spool. Which is better? I also see that the same cable maker has a 12/2 OFC but cannot yet find a price. As you can see I am confused and would like some advice. Thanks, John.

One drawback to 10ga is that it can be hard to fet into connectors (either speaker binding posts, wall plates, or spade/banana speaker terminations).

Gonk, couldn't the terminations be soldered? Is 10 guage overkill?

The terminations could be soldered, in which case you will have an easier time working with 10ga, but it is probably overkill for a run of under 50 feet.

ive had no problem with 10ga wire... yes it is more difficult to put into a connector, but they make connectors for lower gauges... or you could use no connector at all.

i would think the drawback would be in the added difficulty pulling it through the walls...

Griz:

Unless you've got some ungodly exotic requirements, use this, or the equivilent:

In wall wire, click me!

It seems to sell for about $0.20 a foot, and is UL approved for most in-wall use. Exotic cables are eye-candy, not ear-candy, so why put them inside walls?

I ended up not wiring it thru the walls.


it was a pain when my friend helped with the electrical. he is a contractor so had the tools to do but, around the coners he had to drill thru 4 -5 2x4's both ways then trying to get the wire pulled thru was a pain. He was free help it would have been more pain in the but. :p

The father -in law when he built used so much wood in the room it's not moving anyware lol


So i think it will be wired along the floor on the edges before the carpet goes down, or behind the molding.

I have been using Belden 5T00UP 10 AWG speaker wire for some time and am very happy with it. Remember that the lower the ga the less resistance, this is especially important for long runs. If you can successfully run the 10 ga, then I wouldn't hesitate to use it. I use it for all my surrounds. It wasn't any harder to run through the walls then other wire in fact the stiffness seemed to help me. This wire is the same that Blue Jeans sells and calls there favorite. There are many electrical supplie companys that will order this for you in bulk 1000' or 500' rolls. I get it for .15 cents a foot, 500' for $75.00 from a local company, Graybar. I use WBT crimp sleeves www.ramelectronics.net/html/speaker-con.html#slv , and thats it. The crimp sleeves work great with no connectors for most any application, and save you of having to re - cut and strip the wire so often. Remember that connectors can be an area of signal loss as well. Bare wire works the best, it's Just not always practical, bare wire needs to be maintained and redone at regular intervals but it does provide the least resistance @ the connection point.

If you have no choice but to run your speaker wire along the wall ceiling etc... Then you may want to consider www.decorp.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=DA&Category_Code=FLTW I have a few friends that have opted to use this wire, hence avoiding running the speaker wire through the walls. They seem to love this wire. I just can't seem to get over the price. Therefore I choose to do the labor intensive runs through the walls.

Another useful trick to run speaker cabling through walls is to use CAT5 ethernet cable. It's very resistant to noise and is low resistance.

Strip both ends.
You'll have 4 pairs of conductors.
Each pair has a solid and a "striped" conductor.
At each end, untwist the pairs a couple of inches.
Connect the "solids" for one channel.
Connect the "stripes" for the other channel.
I usually put cardas banana plugs on the ends.

For all but the highest current requirements, I'd put this up against almost any affordable speaker cable out there. I used to bi-wire my Dahlquist DQ-20i's to my Adcom GFA-5802 this way and my buddies who were spending thousands on MIT Oracle cables thought they sounded VERY transparent.

Cheers,