Laying Speaker Cable Correctly

[caned_monkey]

Hello there!

I am currently setting up a home cinema/hi-fi system in my living room and i am up to the stage where i'm about to lay the speaker cable(about 25m), all of which will be hidden inside pvc trunking. I have a couple of questions, if any of you audiophiles out there can help me it would me very much appreciated.

There is one section of cable which will have to run past a plug socket. I've heard that runnning speaker cable past power points can cause issues regarding sound quality. Is this true and is there a way i can sheild the cable from this?

Also, another section of the cable will run along the bottom of a wall where my phone line and broadband cable already run. I was going to pull these up and run them inside the trunking along with my speaker cable. Will either of these cables cause me any problems running next to my speaker cable and if there is, is there anyway around it?

Thanks in advance :T

[aud19]

Any time you have to run audio wires across power lines, try your damnedest to have them intersect like a cross at one point only. Worst case would be running them parallel.

[Speedskater]

It's not as big a problem as some try to make it! Look at the back of any receiver, AC power, audio & video connectors all within a few inches of each other.
As Jason wrote, try to cross the power wires at a right angle. Don't be too neat! Put twists in the AC Romax (NM) cables also in the speaker cables.

[Renron]

Speedskater; Put twists in the AC Romax (NM) cables also in the speaker cables.

Whoa there SS, If the OP is running ~25meters of speaker cable he is going to run into capacitance issues if he twists the wire much. The phone and Broadband cable shoudl not cause you any difficulties. Unless you are // the speaker cables and the romex for more than a few inches it won't matter. If the romex is inside the wall and the speaker cable is outside the wall don't think twice about it. If it is just a wall jack, you worry too much.
Enjoy your new home theater instead.
Ron

[Speedskater]

Twisting multi-conductor cable by hand every 10 cm (4inch) will not add any capacitance. It would take a very tight twist and probably assistance from an electric motor to add much capacitance.

[chrispy35]

What's the reason for adding twists? Noise rejection?

[Johnloudb]

Yeah. :T