Running Speaker Wire

[Bundi1098]

I now have my new Receiver, Yamaha RX-V2500 , and have bought some good quality 12 gauge speaker wires from Parts Express, great people. Now I just need to run it. I am hooking up 7.1 so I need to run 4 lines to the rear. I know I need to be careful about running near electrical wires but do I need to separate the speaker wires?

I was thinking about running a pipe from the front of the room to the back and run the four wires in the pipe. I do not know if this is Audio sin.

Help.

[David Meek]

Nope, not a sin. I've never come across anything saying speaker wires cannot be run side-by-side.

Now, when running the speaker wires, if you are in the attic or basement try to stay 2 feet away from electrical runs parallel to the speaker wires, and if you are crossing any electrical, be sure to do it at as close to 90 degrees (a right angle) as you possibly can.

P.S. If you are just running cables along the baseboard the last comments obviously don't apply.

[Kevin P]

Speaker wires carry high-level signals, unlike interconnects. They are virtually unsusceptible to interference as a result. Therefore, running them close together shouldn't affect the sound. Even having them near an electrical run shouldn't have much of an effect, though it's a good rule of thumb to keep them away from parallel electrical runs just to be safe.

This is why interconnects are shielded, and speaker wires are not.