How best to arrange cables in this room...


Hi all,

I may be moving my system to a new room in the near future, but the only drawback is the best placement for the speakers is on either side of the fireplace, which would mean my rack would need to go off to the side (image below - hopefully it loads).

In this arrangement, I'm not sure how best to run the speaker cables. Getting equal length cables would leave a ton of extra cable by the speaker closest to the rack. Also, I can't run the cable through the wall with the fireplace (which would be more ideal) so a solution to keep it somewhat hidden going to the far right speaker would be great since I don't love having cables all over the place.

I figure this is a fairly common 'problem' so wanted to get some ideas on how to go about it.

Worst comes to worst, I can put my rack in front of the fireplace, but id prefer to avoid that if possible.

128x128mmcgill829

@fuzztone it may be possible, though it creates some issue if I want to replace the cable with something else. It's wood flooring, so can't easily just tuck it underneath. Would basically end up being a semi-permanent solution. I'm in Texas, so basements don't exist here outside of extremely expensive concrete tomb style encased ones, so I'm assuming the floor would need to get pulled up.

@mmcgill829 

So is the fireplace a brick/block build or a hollow box with an insert? If the latter it may be possible to pull the firebox and run a large conduit across the base/slab towards the rear of the enclosure. You could sweep up on both sides to a j-box and pull your wire through. 

@carlsbad2 

 

Yes, always trade offs. Best would be to use monoblocks located next to speakers and use long interconnects. I am really luck my system is no longer in a common area. 

While I don't disagree with what you say, I worry about loops of cable are the basic inductor shown in any electrical physics book.   It is a small inductor, but it is an inductor.

Coiling wire increases inductance, but coiling cable doesn't, since both wires in the cable produce magnetic flux in opposite directions.  That is how non-inductive resistors are woven (bifilar resistors).  It is also principle of common mode choke with inductance for common mode signals and zero inductance for normal mode (differential) signals.  In addition most of speaker cables' wires are twisted (would be stupid not to) and twisting greatly reduces cable's magnetic field for wavelengths much longer than twist pitch (wavelength at 20kHz is 10km).

As for uneven cables - if you believe that speaker cable affects the sound it will be proportional to length.  If it is inaudible to you, then the only think to consider is how hard would it be to sell them in the future.