HT Wiring question... (1 Viewer)

[Brian_Hume]

I am in the process of re-wiring my HT. In the past I had been told that I should keep speaker wire, coax, etc., "as far away from electrical wiring as possible", to reduce the possibility of interference. "As far away as possible" is a very vague answer, but it's all I could get at the time of my initial wiring. Since I'm re-wiring can anyone give me better guidelines as to minimum suggested distance from electrical wiring?

 

[Jim B G.]

Look to this document:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/LANs/cablin...ection-17.html
Good luck

 

[Leon Liew]

The only way to go is get sheilded cables for your wiring
and it will be ok.

My surrounds wiring ran along with my home electrical wires
inside the plastic conduits which held them all together
and do not experienced interference. The surrounds are as
clean as a whistle.

 

[Mazinger_Z]

Crutchfield.com has a nice write up on HT wiring under their references section (or something like that).
If speaker wires will cross AC wires, it should cross @ 90 degrees. If the speaker wires will be adjacent the AC wires for a long run, then it should be 2 feet or more away from the AC.

 

[Johnny Serrano]

I know from my electronics background that two parallel wires (or cables) can magnetically couple and induce interference onto one another. The longer the parallel wire runs, the worst the interference gets. However, if they cross one another in a perpendicular (t-shape) fashion, the "interference" is minimal.

However, I still question which signal interferences people refer to when they talk about speakers and speaker wires. Except for the AC 60Hz cycle, which can give you a very noticeable low freq hum in the speakers, most signals outside the 20Hz to 20KHz bandwidth range are out of the question for speakers. And we are talking about OUTPUT loads - not INPUT. INPUT signals are subject to signal amplification, which if left unfiltered, will should up on your OUTPUT.

One final point I'd like to make is that interference typically finds its way into a system from the antenna and power supply side. Remember the older cars that had distributor points which generated an annoying "click" in your car's speaker. Guess how they came into your car radio.