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In-Wall speaker wire

68EFIvert

68EFIvert

Well-Known Member
My wife and I are in the process of building a new house and the builder is going to let me come in and do some work. I don't plan on doing a lot of stuff but I do want to run speaker wire where I want it. I will run some in 3 areas of the house. I want some in the family room, home theatre and of course the garage. I will likely run some from the family room to the patio for some outdoor speakers.

The question I have is about speaker wire. I know I need some wire for in-wall use but don't know what to get. I have used monster cable in the past but feel that it may just be the name you are buying. I found a couple wires on ebay that I would like to year your opinions. One is monster and the other is some other brand but with higher spiral count.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Monster-Cable-XP-CI ... 5d2e7a6b6f
http://cgi.ebay.com/HIGH-STRAND-12-2-50 ... 2a0e0a9766
 
When we built our house I did the same thing. The builder let me come in and run speaker wire before they closed up the walls.

The monster cable is overkill if you are just using it for small ceiling speakers and surround sound type speakers.
I just went to home depot and bought some wire, but I can't remember what type it was.
Just my 2cents.
 
In addition to the speaker wiring, you might want to consider installing conduit in the walls for future expansion, especially if you have multiple stories so that you can pull cable, wire, fiber optic or whatever might become the standard in the future.
 
If your running all your speakers off one unit, consider different colors for each area, you could label them, but expect that between the sheetrock crew and the painters it wont last......
 
Re: Re: In-Wall speaker wire

"JeffTepper" said:
In addition to the speaker wiring, you might want to consider installing conduit in the walls for future expansion, especially if you have multiple stories so that you can pull cable, wire, fiber optic or whatever might become the standard in the future.
Click to expand...

+1.

we also had tubing and outlets put in for central vac system during construction. it cost us about $100. so if we ever want to add the system the internal stuff is there.

Sent from my HTC Liberty using Tapatalk
 
Back when I used to do low voltage wiring, we used 2 conductor 16ga for most installs. Make sure you label the wires where the come out of the sheet rock stating to pull it through the wall. I had to cut out chunks of wall because the sheet rock guys failed to pull the wire through.
Bring all of your cabling to a central location and nail in a dual gang box(double size electrical box). There's plates that have the push connections and makes for a cleaner install. Wall plates are far more attractive than a wad of wires hanging out of the wall.
If you don't use some sort of conduit, staple the wires to the studs. Not sure what your building codes are, but around here, low voltage wiring must be a certain distance from electrical. Avoid it if possible. If you can't, run the wire perpendicular to the electrical wiring. Avoid running it parallel to it, or you'll get interference.


Sent via mobile device from an undisclosed location.
 
I ran telephone, cable, and ethernet to each room of our second floor addition. The smartest thing I did was run the cables to opposing walls of each room to allow for easy connections for when "someone" wants to rearrange furniture.
 
I have to agree with the consensus here, Monster is overkill especially when you run regular speakers and you factor in the size of the room, not ideal for an audiophile setup.

When we built our house I put tons of thought and planning, and here is my .02, hope you can utilize some of the ideas. Do volume controls in every room that has speakers. Make sure you use a speaker selector box so you don't blow your amps.

Add a phone line to the back of the TV set since so many video setups use the phone for pay per view services.

I insulated all of our interior walls for sound, NOT for temperature insulating properties...one of the best upgrades I did. Make sure you use the fiberglass with the kraft paper backing and staple it to the inside of the studs so that the drywallers don't have any problems finding the studs, your builder will appreciate that your upgrades don't affect his workers (time is money, and you don't want to make them hunt for the studs to fasten the drywall on). The insulation works so well that the kids can sleep while I blast action movies on our home theater system.

Know your speaker placement and take lots of Digital pictures, they are free, but priceless when you need to know what's in the wall and where. I photoed with a ruler or tape measure in the background. I mounted my rear speakers over head of the couch and have 2 front speakers and one sub in the wall low in a corner by the couch...with an outlet for the sub's amplifier.

I also ran camera wires all through the house. If you are planning a TV in the kitchen, reinforce the wall where the mount will be placed and make sure you have an outlet and cable to that location...my kids watch that TV more than our Big screen, while eating at the bar!

Buy an amp that has multiple source outputs so you can watch a movie in the theater room while still listening to the radio or other sources in the other room. Don't forget the back patio speakers and volume controls (cable and outlets for the patio TV too). Also, if you are planning a pool, run a hard phone line in case of emergencies as you can never find a wireless phone when you need one!

Finally, to help locate your mods, paint a dot on the floor where ever you install a box to help you and the drywallers know that there is something there. Many times a drywaller will place a whole drywall board over the wall and cut the holes for switches and outlet boxes afterwards. Hope this stuff helps you, I love the way my build came out!
 
Great information and ideas guys! It looks like I will go with 16 gauge wire.

I will also run a CAT 6 to every room of the house, maybe not the bathroom......... I assume that with CAT 6 I will need to route all the wires to a central location where I need to have a switch, router and perhaps this is where the cable will come into the house. There must be some sort of in wall box I can use to hide all this crap in a closet? I know this goes a different direction than my original speaker question but I go thinking about the upgrades to software in the blue ray player once in a while. I totally forgot about the need of a phone jack for the cable box. That gives me another couple phone jacks to run.
 
Yup, pull them to a central point, then use a patch panel to terminate the cabling(you'll need a punch down tool). You can get one that mounts on legs about 2 inches tall, or find one for a server rack, 1-2u in size, and flush mount it into the wall. Then just use cat-6 or cat-5e patch cables to attach the switch to the patch panel.
Just to give you an idea, here's a pic of the last network I installed. The patch panel is at the top. Obviously, a home network won't be this elaborate....well...unless you're a total geek like me.
 

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"68EFIvert" said:
Is this the tool you are talking about for the cat6 keystone connectors on the wall?
http://www.monoprice.com/products/produ ... largeimage
Click to expand...

That's for a BNC(coax cable)connector. You can use that one for tv cable jacks or RCA cabling. Here's the one you'll need for a patch panel and wall jacks. When you use it, pay attention what side of the wire the blade is on.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/produ ... 1&format=2

Also, make sure you use the same color code for the panel as you do for the network wall jacks in the other rooms. The only difference in the 2 standard code is the green and orange pairs are swapped. If you don't, you'll get some goofy stuff going on in the network.
 
You are doing the right thing. The wire is cheap and the benefit is huge for down the road expansion. Agree also on the communications closet and set up all your home runs going to it. Also think of zoned audio possibilities. I have a 6 zone Niles unit with LED touch pads on the wall. the touch pads have built in IR eye so I can control the audio source and volume with an IR remote. The previous owner had run one cat 5 to each keypad, then had a speaker runs from the ceiling in that room go to the keypad and a separate speaker run from the kepad to the communication closet. This way you can run rotary volume control or CAT5 type keypads.

They did spend a little on wiring in our home. Each room has 2-3 baseplates with data, voice, and coax. Also, had six zones ran for audio as well as five runs for security cameras (one cat5, one coax each place) In additon it has a monitored security DSC panel with sensors on all windows and doors. They cheaped out on the tooless data jacks. They dont work worth a flip. Dont be taken in by their cheap price, get regular punch-down style.

With all the expense PO did, we did add an additonal run to the living room. The room already had base plate for entertainment center and runs to each external wall mounted speaker. We wanted to go in-wall with these but also wanted to hide the equipment stack so we only would have 65" TV on the wall - the minimalist look. I bought 100ft cables, two HDMI (built in repeaters) 6 speaker lines, and two component vid with R&L audio from www.monoprice.com. By the time we bundled these all togther into one run they were 4" in diameter and were very heavy. We pulled them from the comm closet to the living room wall (external wall, not fun) Fortunately for us, the second floor was built with truss style floor beams so we had some definite advantage there.

Be sure to ck out the inwall speakers and reviews at Monoprice. Great quality for the price.

h190SOLOiR-f_MTp.jpg
 
I have a question now about coax cable. I know it is used for the cable modem, cable tv and it sounds like a camera/security system. Do coax cables have to be routed to a central closet like CAT6 or do they just tie into each other via t's within the walls?
 
"68EFIvert" said:
I have a question now about coax cable. I know it is used for the cable modem, cable tv and it sounds like a camera/security system. Do coax cables have to be routed to a central closet like CAT6 or do they just tie into each other via t's within the walls?
Click to expand...

For cctv/security, they must have independent runs to a central point, along with a 2 conductor power wire. For cable, you can run all of the lines to a central point, then use a multi port splitter to hook up with the main cable that goes to the demark box outside on the wall. I've also seen all the lines ran directly to the demark box, then attached to the main line via splitter. I hate that because the cable company is the only ones allowed in that box, and they have a tendency to unhook lines that "aren't in use"....code for "You didn't pay us extra for another cable box so we're gonna unhook the rooms you didn't pay for." Yea, Comcast did that to me. On Comcast, you can get basic cable without the box. AT&T Uverse is a bit different. The lines have to be independent.
Dish and Direct tv need independent lines, as well as lines ran to the dish itself....I think. Been a LONG time since I wired up a dish.
 
They all need to be separate unique runs to each room. However as was said, you can run 2-3 runs from your closet to the dish or dmarc. Cable or satellite service requires coax but Uverse can run over coax or Ethernet (IPTV).

The coax/CAT5 combo is a good idea for security zones. For standard cameras, coax feeds the video while a pair from the CAT5 can feed the power. Better equipment might be IP cameras that utilize the CAT5 only. Nice to have flexibility to use either.
 
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