Can you run signal wires alongside speaker wire? (1 Viewer)

i know for sure it is a no-no to run power wires with signal and speaker wires in car audio. does the same theory apply for home audio?

i have to wire a set of 30' component cables to the same area of my rear speakers, and was thinking it'd be a lot easier if i ran it together. do the signals contaminate each other?

You should not run power lines near signal or speaker wires in either situation. However, you should have no problem running signal wires and speaker wires together.

CJ

You want to avoid it for long runs. If you are doing it for 20 feet it will be ok, but if it was a longer run I would try to separate them.

yeah, im running about 30'.

You still should be ok. I wouldn't zip tie them together however.

Uhhhh... I'm not so sure I would recommend this.

Yes, your interconnects are 'shielded'. But the shield is tied to the 0.00 volt reference between your TV and your video source. You would really not want to put the cables where they would pick up electrical noise because it would contaminate the ground plane of your electronics.

How much interference you get by running speaker wires with interconnects depends on 2 things:

- How much current is running down the speaker wires at any instant (volume is a factor)

- How close the wires are to each other and for how many feet

A few feet does not matter (look at the back of your reciever). But running the wires in a 4" conduit for 10-20 feet - it's a different story. So try and avoid this if possible.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's far less a crime than running almost any length with a 60Hz AC power line.

Leo

An interesting experiment that you could do at home would be to take a length of speaker wire and coil it around a power cable. Any hum?

I have run speaker wire and signal wires many times for long distances and never had a problem. I haven't tested it in a while, but if I remember correctly the amperage along speaker wires is in the miliamp range.

CJ

there has been a long standing idea that you should keep the wires apart, there have been recent tests done where there was no measurable difference in noise, but it's just like anything else if it's easy to do seperate why risk it