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Try to line the holes up perfectly, because
it makes pulling the wire much easier. A
good technique is to snap a chalk line
across the face of the studs or against the
bottom of the ceiling joists. Then work
backward so that you can always see the
holes you have already drilled. Paying
careful attention to this will save you a lot
of time later on!
Pulling the Cable
Pull the cable in sections (from the stereo
to the volume control, from the volume
control to the loudspeaker). Start with the
longest sections and use left over wire to
complete the short sections. If you plan to
pull many rooms at the same time through
a central route, walk off the distance to
each destination, add a generous fudge
factor for turns and other obstacles, then
cut off each section so that you have a
bundle of wires you can pull at once.
Whenever you run the wire further than
four and one half feet from a hole in a stud
or joist (open attic space, going up walls,
etc.), fasten the wire to the joists or studs
using cable clamps or appropriately sized
wire staples. The wire should not have
large sags in it, nor should it be too tight.
Try to protect the wire from being stepped
on in attics or other unfinished crawl
spaces. There are guard strips, raceways
and conduits which can be used to protect
the cable. Consult the local building code
for special requirements in your area.
Concealing Loudspeaker Wire
in Existing Walls
This is actually a fairly simple task if you
restrict your choice of loudspeaker loca-
tions and wire routes to the interior walls
or ceilings of your home. Interior walls in
almost all North American residences are
hollow, so that it is easy to flush mount
loudspeakers into them and route new
loudspeaker cable around the house.
What you see when you look at the paint-
ed wall board, plaster, or paneling is only
the skin of
the wall. Behind the skin is the skeleton;
two-by-four wood or metal “studs”
running vertically from the floor to the
ceiling in walls and two-by-six or larger
“joists” running horizontally in the ceilings
and floors. In between the studs and the
joists is the space for the wiring and
plumbing of your home.
Exterior walls are different. They must
insulate the house from the heat and cold
outside, so they are stuffed with insulation.
The national building code requires that
the hollow wall space in exterior walls be
broken by a horizontal stud placed
between the vertical studs. This “fire
blocking” makes it very difficult to retrofit
long lengths of wire. In some areas of the
country the exterior walls are constructed
of solid masonry, and have no hollow
space for loudspeakers or wires.
Start by examining all the possible routes
you might take to run the loudspeaker
wire from the loudspeaker to the volume
control and back to the stereo. Use a stud
sensor or other device to locate the inter-
nal structure of the wall. You want to
avoid all studs or joists. A typical route
would be: from the loudspeaker location
in the ceiling, across the attic, then down
through a top plate (the horizontal 2x4 or
2x6 laid across the vertical studs) to the
volume control location, back up to the
attic, across the attic, and finally down
another wall plate to a J-Box in the wall
behind the stereo system itself
(See
Figure 8).
Identify where all of your electrical,
phone, and TV wiring is likely to be and
plan to route around it all. You can acci-
dentally induce 60Hz hum on your loud
-
speakers if you run your speaker wire right
10
Installation Fundamentals