hiding the cables

R

rhoamish

Guest
Our lounge is going to be replastered, so I'm thinking that now would be a good time to hide speaker cables.

I've got an Aego P5 system, which came with the speaker cables. I was thinking of channelling the wall, so the plasterer can hide them.

This will obviously make the cables pretty permanent. Has anyone done this? Would it be best to use some trunking, or would this look ugly at the end where the speakers will be mounted? Or should I use a different cable to the type supplied?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
 
Are these Aego 5 speakers going on wall brackets?

With 'under-plaster' conduit being a pretty permanent/expensive thing to run (and terminate properly, junction boxes etc etc) I would look at some other ideas?

Maybe a small chase in the new plaster for the small cables?
It can be easily filled and decorated over with the rest of the room once the cable is in place......
 
another nice way to run cables is with a battoned skirting. A joiner should be able to do such a thing with ease.

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Anyone tried that flat, 300 Ohm feeder cable, the sort that is used as FM aerial downfeed (not coax). You always get a bit of it packed in with your new receiver pretending to be an aerial.

I'm thinking of using that to run up the wall to my rear speakers. As its flat it wouldn't need much plaster removal and because it has that wide plastic separator between the conductors it can easily be pinned in place with small tacks prior to re-skimming with plaster.

Allan
 
A couple of things........

if you have cables just under the plaster surface, you set yourself for trouble.......the day someone knocks over your rear speaker, the cable will be tightly attached and will pull half the wall down with it! So you'd need to be careful.

The cable you are talking about. I wont be specific, but i imagine that, seeing the cable is designed to pick up external signals, you may well get quite a lot of interference.

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A couple of ideas for you.

1) I have some cable from the Flat pannel mission speaker setup. My speakers are wall mounted and I ran this cable up the wall covers with wide masking tape. I then paited over the tape to match the wall cover.

2) Similar idea is to run std speaker cables up the corners of your room and again cover with wide masking tape paited.

Hope this helps
 
Petrolhead:

what's Paiting!? You said it twice! :D

If cables are to be plastered in permanently, You should make sure you have good cable (so you dont need to replace it at some stage) and conduiting is the best way. If you install a reasonable conduit, then you might have the possibility of getting the cables out if you do upgrade.

I actually was cheap when doing mine (no money to do otherwise!). I simply have the cable up the outside of the wall, painted the correct colors. I really dont notice it anymore. So petrolhead's suggestion is probably a good one as long as your mrs isnt too picky! :D

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If you are having the room plastered then it is a good time to hide the cables, in the past I have tried all of the above, trunking and painting over tape and was not happy with either solution.

If the cable is anything like the bell wire you sometimes get thrown in for nowt I would be inclined to replace that with a good quality cable, then if you are happy with the positioning of the speakers fit the trunking and cable ready to be plastered over.

IMO this is the way to go, perfect walls for painting or wallpapering, you want the decor to look spot on when you've finished, don't you. ;)

This is fine if your wife/partner is not in the habit of changing the room round every 3months. :eek:
 
Thanks very much for the advice. I think I shall look further into the trunking, and run the end of the trunking dow far enough to be hidden by the skirting board, which I'll rout a channel in. That seems a good idea! I'm using wall brackets, but I'm unlikely to move the speakers around: the sofa can only fit in one location in our lounge.

On the skirting board front, my dad told me that they used to have a house where someone had run a 'ring main' of speaker cable behind te skirting boards, and there were sockets in quite a few locations to plug in speakers! That sounds a pretty cool idea, especially if you have a lot of parties and need to move the speakers for them.

I hadn't thought about the problem of knocking a speaker off the wall, and pulling all the plaster off. That would be a bit of a nightmare. I'll make sure the cable is terminated properly, and I'll use a big enough conduit so I can fit better cable if I need to in the future.

Thanks again for all the advice.
 
Originally posted by rhoamish
I hadn't thought about the problem of knocking a speaker off the wall, and pulling all the plaster off. That would be a bit of a nightmare. I'll make sure the cable is terminated properly, and I'll use a big enough conduit so I can fit better cable if I need to in the future.

Im sure it isnt all that common, but with animals or, even worse, children, anything is possible!

The use of speaker cable ring main as you call it is ok for temporary solutions like you say, but noy ideal for a permanent set up.

enjoy!

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rhoamish,

I've just had what you're thinking about done to my front room. Here's what I did, I channelled out (Chisel and hammer!) in the exisiting plaster (We've got stone walls) enough room for some trunking, screwed the trunking to the channel, ran the cables I needed through the trunking, placed the cover on the trunking then had the whole lot replastered. One thing I did was to make sure there was a quite a largeish gap where the cables came out, the reason for this is that when you do move house it's easy to pull all the cables back through (dont forget to remove any plugs first :) ). Neat tidy job and also means you wont lose any cables.
Hope this helps.
 
Why not just replace your skirting with duct skirting and use duct architrave around the doors if needed it can be painted etc. and still allows you to change cables when needed.
 
Originally posted by simon69
Why not just replace your skirting with duct skirting and use duct architrave around the doors if needed it can be painted etc. and still allows you to change cables when needed.

it is quite costly is it not?

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They are cheaper than wooden skirting, unless you are buying the tiny sort. Any way its cheaper than replastering the walls every time you change the cables or have an accident.
 
Originally posted by simon69
They are cheaper than wooden skirting, unless you are buying the tiny sort. Any way its cheaper than replastering the walls every time you change the cables or have an accident.

i must be thinking of something different then! sorry

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I suppose it all comes down to personal preference and budget, but before skipping down to B&Q it is always worth checking electrical & builders merchants as they can be cheaper sometimes.
 
personally i actually run cables under the carper, if you use nice felt underlay, all but the biggest cables can be accomodateded

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