Outdoor speaker wire in raceway.

Status
Not open for further replies.
I

iwirehouses

Senior Member
What would you guys do to run a few outdoor speaker wires along an exterior wall. It has to be pleasing to my eye, so the wire has to be hidden. Since these wires are in a cable rated for wet locations already, I was going to just use a high end, plastic wire mold that is normally used inside. Any better idea's?
 
iwirehouses said:
Any better idea's?
Click to expand...
Wall construction type? Vinyl siding (fish behind)? High, near soffits (run in attic) or low, near ground (run in crawl), etc.
 
Yes exactly I would use a NM wireway such as Panduit. It can be painted if required but the off white looks fine
 
I would want to know how much power we are talking about before i make such suggestions .Some speaker systems go into 100's of watts.If this a home system then for looks use plastic wire mold and paint to match
 
Home speakers, and the wire is 16 or 18 gauge in a sun and water proof cable assembly. Its going to some of those high quality rock speakers around a hot tub. Its buried out to the rocks, just not the homerun along the house to the sterio in the 3 season room. The siding is that textured plywood that comes in 4x8 sheets. Its actually really nice, much better then vinyl in my opinion. Normally I would bury it in conduit, no questions asked, but this particular part is going over the hatchway to the basement, so I can't bury it, just make it look nice. The rest I am going to stick up under the bottom lip of this siding, up by the sill plate. It will be out of view and very nice up there, theres plenty of room. The best option I can think of for over the hatchway is this high end flat, plastic wire mold that I found. Its 12 bucks for 5 feet but looks nice and won't rot. It only has adhesive, but has a lip that unclips so you can get to the inside for a couple screws. Obviously I would put the lip on the bottom to prevent water from getting in. The only thing that I am worried about, is the UV protection on this raceway, as it was originally intended to be inside I would think. I don't want it to dry up, crack and deteriorate every 2 years. I will be calling the company on this one. Any other ideas out there?
 
Drill each side of the stem wall for the Bilco hatchway stem wall, and go through it, along the house. No exposed wiring necessary.
 
iwirehouses said:
Home speakers, and the wire is 16 or 18 gauge in a sun and water proof cable assembly. Its going to some of those high quality rock speakers around a hot tub. Its buried out to the rocks, just not the homerun along the house to the sterio in the 3 season room. The siding is that textured plywood that comes in 4x8 sheets. Its actually really nice, much better then vinyl in my opinion. Normally I would bury it in conduit, no questions asked, but this particular part is going over the hatchway to the basement, so I can't bury it, just make it look nice. The rest I am going to stick up under the bottom lip of this siding, up by the sill plate. It will be out of view and very nice up there, theres plenty of room. The best option I can think of for over the hatchway is this high end flat, plastic wire mold that I found. Its 12 bucks for 5 feet but looks nice and won't rot. It only has adhesive, but has a lip that unclips so you can get to the inside for a couple screws. Obviously I would put the lip on the bottom to prevent water from getting in. The only thing that I am worried about, is the UV protection on this raceway, as it was originally intended to be inside I would think. I don't want it to dry up, crack and deteriorate every 2 years. I will be calling the company on this one. Any other ideas out there?
Click to expand...


I would suggest larger wire if this run is much over 50 feet.Keep in mind resistance of the wire is in series with the speakers.No reason you could not use UF 12-2 for most of the run.
 
Jim W in Tampa said:
The load is usually fixed at 8 ohms ,now you do the math on what the voltage would be at 500 watts.
Click to expand...

Jim I have never seen an amplifier that the speaker circuits where not class 2 circuits.

10 watts or a 1000 watts.

I have a PA amp here at home with a 70 volt output but it is still class 2.
 
Jim W in Tampa said:
I would suggest larger wire if this run is much over 50 feet.
Click to expand...

And the reason for that would be?

Keep in mind voltage drop is as much a question of current as it distance, the speakers draw very little current.
 
Jim W in Tampa said:
I would suggest larger wire if this run is much over 50 feet.Keep in mind resistance of the wire is in series with the speakers.No reason you could not use UF 12-2 for most of the run.
Click to expand...


I hope you don't do audio/video installs...:)
 
Low-voltage direct-bury landscape-lighting cable is excellent for outdoor speaker wiring, and inexpensive.
 
Jim W in Tampa said:
Go to the chart for wire length and size
Click to expand...



Feel free to run 4 AWG to your speakers if you want but it will not make it sound or work better than 16 AWG.
 
Last edited:
iwire said:
Jim that is a chart provided by the seller of wire.

Feel free to run 4 AWG to your speakers if you want but it will not make it sound or work better than 16 AWG.
Click to expand...
Believe what you want to Bob.Love to see your results in a live music festival that runs 200 speakers for 5 acres
 
Jim W in Tampa said:
Believe what you want to Bob.Love to see your results in a live music festival that runs 200 speakers for 5 acres
Click to expand...

Jim read the sight you linked to.

It says the biggest issue will be loss of volume (turn the amp up to over come this) the next issue is the possible loss of a section of the audio spectrum that is barley noticeable to humans.

If you hook up two identical speakers in your living room one supplied by 20' of 18 AWG and the other a 500' spool of 18 AWG I would be very surprised if you could hear the difference,

As far as your example of 200 speakers over 5 acres the actual speaker runs will be fairly short as professional sound companies locate the power amps as close to the speakers as possible running only a low level feed to each group of amplifiers. (Much less cabling this way)

I have hooked up the show power for dozens of shows and been backstage at quite a few other large shows, I can not recall seeing speaker wiring larger than 14 AWG and I bet the size had more to do with long term durability for the repeated set up and break down.

Ozzfest, Scorpions, Rascal Flats, Peter Frampton, Pantara as far as I could tell these guys had fairly decent sound systems. :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top