Routing Cables Through Walls?

Little by little I am working on my cable management and I have come to a bit of a crossroads which has me undecided on which route to go. My TV and main speakers are on the wall directly in front of my main seating area in my living room. All of my equipment is directly to the left of my speakers and seating area on a small audio stand on another wall. Due to the size and layout of my room, there isn’t much I can do as far as rearranging my seating and equipment so I think it’s pretty much permanent. This leaves me with a couple of options. They are:

• Run my cables though the wall and install keystone style wall plates at each spot a component will be. Then run a short length cable to each component from there.

• Run my cables through the wall; do not run any cables to wall plates but instead through a nose and to the components. The nose where the main speaker cables would be exiting the wall would be in between my mains and directly under my TV (but at standard outlet height). This option would keep all cables in one piece.

• Run my video cables through the wall either to a plate or nose, and run my speaker cables under the floor coming up directly behind my mains near the baseboard. The speaker cables would be in one piece.

There are a few things that have me concerned about using wall plates especially for my mains. One is that someday down the road I’m sure that I will get some new speakers which may or may not work well where the plates are. I think if the plates were off to the side of a speaker, especially outside, it wouldn’t look all that great. Two, more importantly, do the extra connections to the wall plate pose an opportunity for sound degradation especially due to poor quality components? The wall plates I would be using are the typical keystone type found online or at your local home center.

This is my first foray into low voltage wiring so any suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated.

DonH50 said:

The only reason to run cables through the walls is aesthetics. Every time I have done that, or done that for somebody, something ends up needing changing within a few years and then it is painful. I much prefer to route along baseboards instead.

Any break in a line is an opportunity for problems, but realistically you won't have any with good connectors properly installed.

Note that 100 W into 8 ohms is 80 Vpp so the speaker voltages are not all that low...

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The patching of holes is what I am worried about the most. Running the wires or changing them isn't a problem as I have good access under the floor. Unfortunately I can't run the wires along the floor as I have to cross a doorway. 80V? I had no idea!

Bruce B said:

We have pass-thru plates in our rooms and they're great. You can get fittings for any connection

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Do you make your own with better connectors or are those off the shelf? Those cables look really nice!

I guess I could always put them in and repair the drywall later if I decide to go in another direction.