New speaker and cable advice

lukeredpath

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I am in the process of refurbishing my living room (we recently moved in, build thread here: Surface mount chimney breast build thread | Page 2 | AVForums

We have plasterers booked in for end of April so need to get some things finished like cable runs etc.

I'm trying to decide on some new speakers. Current setup is Denon 1912 amp and a budget Jamo A102 speaker system. I think it's time to treat myself to some new speakers and take it up a notch in terms of quality!

I was originally planning to get the QAcoustics 7000i set after reading the reviews. I was also just going to upgrade the fronts only for now. However, I'm going to a lot of effort to make everything as discrete as possible as you can see in my build thread including having the TV as close to the wall as possible. Having a 150mm deep centre speaker will look silly.

So I've decided to spend a bit more and I'm now seriously considering the KEF T series (the 105 set in white) and upgrading the whole lot. Would I see much benefit from updating my fears and sub from the Jamo? I know the rears aren't quite as important but I wonder if the huge gulf in quality would be noticeable. I'm hoping to audition them at Sevenoaks next week.

And then there's speaker cable. I'm going to route it all under floorboards from an in wall 5.1 speaker plate. The rears and fronts will be chased into the walls in oval conduit and terminate in architrave back boxes. The centre will run through the false wall around the chimney breast. I'm also going to run subwoofer cable (75ohm coax, that's the right stuff I think) and terminate in room corner to wall plate at floor level.

With this in mind, I was planning to use QED 16/2 - the pink LSOH stuff for the in wall runs and the normal white PVC stuff for the final terminations between speakers, amp and wall plates with banana plugs. Is this decent stuff? I believe it's 2mm2 and my longest run will be about 6-8m depending on how direct a route I take under the floor.

Sub cable and all wall plates will be from Nexxia. Nothing too fancy, just plain white. Is there any reason to opt for solder tags over screw terminals on the rears?

Lastly, is it really necessary to run the cable under the floor in conduit? It's a suspended timber floor with a small void below the joists, well ventilated. The existing electrical cable is just loose. My thinking was if I needed to pull new cables I could use the existing ones to pull through the new but I will test that theory out before the walls are plastered and the new laminate flooring goes down! I could run some waste pipe but it's extra hassle and I'm not sure there's much benefit.

Thanks.
 

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