Installing speaker cable in walls

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sushiguru

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Hi chaps,

I'm about to install cable/faceplates for speakers in our new kitchen/dining extension. I've read a million things about suggested cable for speakers and understand that any cable buried in walls should be rated for fire spread etc etc, but I'd like to ask one specific question:

Can we use 1.5mm^2 standard 2 core lighting flat grey cable to connect the distribution socket to the speaker socket? Are there any implications in this? We're not going to be connecting a top-end hi-fi system, just want to be able to use a mid range amp with 4 speakers to feed the kitchen and dining room.

Cheers,
Gary.

ps using these sockets: http://www.audiospares.com/product.php?productid=724 (4 off)
and this panel: http://www.audiospares.com/product.php?productid=725 (2 off)
 
essentially yes you can....presuming you'll only be using it for background music and not connecting any 500w PA to it....yes it happens! people do! lol
 
Cool - thanks for that. Only BGM, as you say. Think the neighbours may have something to say if we stuck a 500w amp in the kitchen...

G.
 
I install AV gear for a living. There's four good reasons why I don't use lighting twin & earth for in wall/in ceiling speaker cable...

  • if the walls/ceilings are ever opened up again in the future it's damned difficult to tell visually which is lighting and which is speaker cable
  • I leave full height tales so that speakers rest on the floor when the system is being tested. Short tails mean speakers dangling in mid air. The main risk is the speaker terminals don't grip solid core as tightly as stranded so your speaker falls off. The money you saved using 1.5mm^2 gets blown on buying a new speaker. Doh!
  • Stranded cable is flexible enough that the tail length can be tucked in to the ceiling void solid without any problems - remember it has to get past the fire hoods your gonna install right?- Solid core is too stiff for that.
  • I use 4 core cable in wall and in ceiling. You put a nail through the lighting ring and you'll know about it when the circuits trip. Do the same with 2 core speaker cable and you might end up trouble shooting for hours to work out where the problem is; or worse, paying to send back gear you think is faulty when it's a wiring problem. 4 core gives you a fighting chance of still having two or three good connectors if the cable has been compromised.

None of us want to spend more than we have to. Sometimes though saving a few quid now can cost you a lot more in the future.
 
Hi Chris,

Thanks for a detailed answer on this. We have decided to go with lighting flex but on the following basis:

We've used flex, not cable, so easy to distinguish between lighting ring and speaker cable. It's also flexible enough that the tails can be pushed back into the void once we've mounted the faceplates, and these are wall speakers with the cable running across an archway above, so no fire hoods for these speakers (surface brackets to mount). The cable is 1mm^2, not 1.5, so the earlier post about cable resistance is also mostly dealt with. There's also no danger we're going to put a nail through the flex: where the speaker cable is run we really can't put anything on the walls, and 90% of it is run on the inside edge of a big RSJ.

All in all I'm pretty confident with where we're at. Of course, it it all goes tits-up then I'll post back here to warn anyone else :)

Cheers,
Gary.
 
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