Cable Runs for Ceiling Speakers

edonnelly

Hi all,

Apologies for a likely very basic question but strangely i'm finding it difficult to get a clear guideline for what i need

We are finishing a full house rewire where i have ran lots of drops of CAT6A cable throughout the house and am looking to now run my speaker cables for my multi-room audio. I'm going for 5 zones all using ceiling speakers. 2-4 speakers per room depending on the size.

I have bought a couple of reels of 79 strand speaker cable, so my question is - Do I run a single cable drop for each speaker or do they need 2 if i want to use stereo speakers? Or is it just one per speaker and the speakers work in stereo pairs. All cable runs going back to my data closet, not amplified in each zone but i will be leaving some drops of the CAT6a for touchscreen controls, i expect largely to be controlling the audio from a tablet/phone.

Any advice would be appreciated, will be shopping shortly for the speakers themselves but we close up the floors the day after tomorrow so i need to get the cable runs in asap.

Thanks a mill
E

The Ritz

Hi,

You'll need one run of cable as pictured below for each speaker, with each run terminating back wherever you intend to locate your amplifier etc, dont forget to label them :-) If you have two speakers in a room then you can connect each speaker's cable to the left and right ouput respectively of a stereo amp and they will run in stereo - does this answer your question ?

79 strand peaker cable pictured below.



Ritz

edonnelly

The Ritz wrote: »

Hi,

You'll need one run of cable as pictured below for each speaker, with each run terminating back wherever you intend to locate your amplifier etc, dont forget to label them :-) If you have two speakers in a room then you can connect each speaker's cable to the left and right ouput respectively of a stereo amp and they will run in stereo - does this answer your question ?

79 strand peaker cable pictured below.



Ritz

Thanks Ritz, I guess this means my speakers are operating as left and right as a pair then. If I wanted each speaker to be capable of stereo on its own I would need to run two cables, one for each channel?

Excuse my lack of knowledge here, I would have probably been better with a twin core wire now in hindsight

Richersounds.ie: John

Ritzy

'Peaker' cable

OP if you want to run stereo speakers you will need to 'double up' and run 2 separate cables as The Ritz has shown above to each speaker ( ie 4 core) - you will also need dedicated stereo speakers like these:
http://www.monitoraudio.co.uk/products/custom-install-refresh/c165-t2

BTW you can get great quality with decent in-ceiling speakers and the stereo effect is pretty good from a single point stereo in ceiling speaker if its well located - however of course you will always get a better stereo image from 2 separate speakers.

Declared interest - I'm in the Biz - I work for Richer Sounds Ireland - you can pop over to our dedicated Boardie Forum if we can assist in any way :
http://www.boards.ie/ttforum/1105

Thanks Guys,

ATVB,

John Mc & Crew

edonnelly

Thanks lads. What is most commonly done in multiroom audio? My data closet is in my attic so I'm only worrying about downstairs for today. Every room downstairs either has 2 or 4 speakers. Would it be more common to run them with single cable each and work as pairs or would you see pairs of stereo speakers in a room?

Thanks again guys

The Ritz

edonnelly,

All becomes clear on your question about "stereo speaker" - I assumed you meant two separate speakers, as opposed to a single installed item that functions as a stereo speaker as explained by John McD, mea culpa.

Can't help on the question about multiroom audio norms - in the absence of anyone else here being able to help, you could hop over to the RS forum and ask there.

Cheers,

Ritz.

mossym

i don't think you understand speaker wiring and mono/stereo.

a mono(single speaker) has two connections, a + and a -. every speaker then needs a cable like the one pictured above, so that one of the cores goes from the + on your amp/source to the + on your speaker, and one from - to -. if t your source only has single outputs per channel, (think the red/white cables you normally see, these are unamplified outputs and cannot be hooked directly to unamplified/passive speakers

the two core cable pictured above does not carry a stereo signal. it carries a mono signal. one speaker only

if you want multuiroom audio, you need seperate amplifier channels, + seperate cable to each speaker, no matter what room they are in.

one speaker will give you mono. if you want stereo, you need two speakers, with some distance between them, to give the stereo soundstage. you cna put 4 speakers in, but you will have two of each channel then 2 * left and 2* right, and unless your room is huge, is probably unneccessary. if you do this however, you still need a seperate amplifier channel, cable, and speaker for each point

this all presumes you are talking stereo/(like music). if you are doing surround (5.1/7.1 or more) sound, you need multiple speakers, at relatively fixed points, and you won't have two pairs, you'll have individual channels.