speaker wiring question/opinion

[dabuddha]

So I'm running speaker wire in my basement before the carpet guys come out to install. I bought a 5.1 wall plate which I installed in my wall and I'm running behind my molding. What I am doing is I'm cutting a "channel" at the bottom of my drywall so that I can run all the speaker wire / subwoofer cable through it. I'm then feeding the wire up behind the wall to where it needs to go. Once I put the molding back, it'll hide it completely. I've attached an awesome MS paint picture below kinda showing how I'm doing it. The giant black triangle is where the molding goes over. The white triangle in the middle is the channel I'll be cutting out. The vertical squares that are visible are the studs. This method should be ok?

Now for the opinion question. I figure I have 1 of 3 options on the speaker wiring.

1) Install these at the same level as the plugs in the room (about a foot or so off the ground?). Then run the wire up to my wall mounted speaker (mounting them at around 4 feet or so off the ground.

2) Install those wall plates at the speaker level so they're a little bit more hidden (so 4 feet off the ground or so). Another option I was thinking is this same method but instead of putting in a low voltage gang box, just screw the plate cover onto the wall directly so there is only a tiny hole if I decide to remove it.


3) run the wire up to where I plan on mounting the speaker and use one of these:

to feed the wire through.

I can't decide between the 3 and would love some opinions

TIA!

 

[blackangst1]

Im actually doing the same thing right now. What I ended up doing is customizing a cut out of the drywall and running wiring thrugh the ceiling, down the wall, to the opening so that my speaker is flush against the wall while hanging and plugged in. Ideally, your wiring will pop out right behind the speaker so it can hang flush on the wall and not show wiring running up or down. Depending on your speaker, you may have to do similar to what Ive done to allow for 1. the bulk of the wiring while plugged in, and 2. any kind of mounting bracket that may be on yours. My Polk FXiA6's have a built on mounting bracket thus the cutting of my wall.

Banana plugs are the cleanest, but theyre aesthetic only and provide no function once plugged in. And they poke out alot.

 

[Rio Rebel]

I did this very thing a few years ago. I learned two valuable lessons:

1. The best looking setup is one which hides the wires completely behind the speaker. Fortunately for me, I used the same thing you are with the nice faceplate and speaker wire connectors. Which leads me to the next lesson:

2. No matter how much we think we've made a permanent decision, things sometimes change. If you read much on 5.1 and 7.1 speaker layouts, you'll know right away that the surround speakers in a 5.1 setup are in a quite different position than in a 7.1 setup. As you might suspect, this burned me when I decided to move from 5 to 7, and had to move the speakers. I now have speaker wires running about a foot and a half from the speaker to the faceplate, and it looks acceptable, but it looks so much cleaner when you don't see the wire at all.

Hope this helps.

 

[dabuddha]

Thanks for the info! I'm leaning towards option 3 now. My current 5.1 speakers I have now are an Onkyo home theater in a box but I can see myself installing a 7.1 setup in the future. I was thinking of using something like this instead of speaker mounting brackets.

http://www.amazon.com/Umbra-330637-5...5484778&sr=8-1

 

[sdifox]

real men have cable snaking all over the place :biggrin:

 

[velillen]

2. No matter how much we think we've made a permanent decision, things sometimes change. If you read much on 5.1 and 7.1 speaker layouts, you'll know right away that the surround speakers in a 5.1 setup are in a quite different position than in a 7.1 setup. As you might suspect, this burned me when I decided to move from 5 to 7, and had to move the speakers. I now have speaker wires running about a foot and a half from the speaker to the faceplate, and it looks acceptable, but it looks so much cleaner when you don't see the wire at all.

Hope this helps.

Curious what you mean on that part? Both THX and Dolby's layout guides have the side speakers for 5.1 and 7.1 being basically 90-110 degrees to the sides of the listeners. So going to 7.1 Shouldnt change those speakers locations at all unless you moved the seating as well right?




As for me...two things i'd consider. Are you planning to move at some point? If so a wall plate would be better IMO. Makes more sense for future home owners and its easier to just put a blank wall plate to hide the wires if not being used. Second would just be if you did need to move the speakers. I personally wouldnt care to rely solely on the wire inside the wall. Tugging on it to get more slack *could* damage it. i dont just me but i wouldnt want to be messing with the in wall wire all that much if i could avoid it (even if adding slack to both ends). Just my preference that once its in the wall and at the wall plate it shouldnt have to be moved/messed with. Even with the wall plates just get some short wire runs and paint them to match your wall color (or just buy default white or something) which will help hide them a bit as well. Thats my opinion at least..

Wall plates might be slightly more expensive but would be worth it more in my mind. Be ~5 bucks per a wall plate (wall plate & low voltage plate holder thingy)