Just about to mount my sub wall plates...how far away should any RG6 Coax be from electrical wires or boxes? If they are on another stud is it ok?
thanks!

Just about to mount my sub wall plates...how far away should any RG6 Coax be from electrical wires or boxes? If they are on another stud is it ok?
thanks!
Unless there are defects in the cable shield or the ground connection you should be able to run them very close together. But the belt and suspenders rule is to avoid parallel runs. 16" will certainly do it!

If you sub and receiver are at hand you can test this by running the sub or the receiver on an extension cord and dressing the sub coax next to the extension cord. My bet is for no hum. If there is hum my first bet is a bad connector on one end or the other of the sub cable. But pull the extension cord and sub cable apart until the hum stops. Measure the distance. Tell us what happened.

If I run conduit will 6" below or beside be enough?

If I run conduit will 6" below or beside be enough?
It should be fine. :) There are some code restrictions on running signal cable and power together, for example they may not be in the same outlet box unless the box is divided to create a low voltage section. Some antenna installations require that the antenna feed be kept two inches or more from any power cable, but that is a safety not an interference issue.

For what it may be worth the type of shielding your coax has can be important. Braided copper is more effective at lower frequencies and foil at higher, but at audio signal frequencies I would avoid quad shielded and foil, as well as copper plated steel center conductors, especially if you are terminating them your self. Use single layer copper braid w/copper center conductor. The gage is not critical, the nature of the signal will allow it to travel many tens or even some hundreds of feet without significant loss.

Everytime I come on here I get different advice..:)

In another thread they said use QUAD SHIELDED. Im not sure if what I have is OK.

Its from home depot 500 ft spool.

Carol Brand Part #- C5775.38.01

100% Flexfoil Bonded
60% Aluminum Braid
Swept to 3GHZ
Black

Yup! You might want to spend some time on google searching on cable shielding.

First things first. C5775.38.01 appears to be copper clad steel. This is fine cable for CATV but not the first choice for line level audio. Carol C5761 would be a better choice. Unless you have an RF problem quad shielding is really not needed. But if you only want to pull once you can use it.

If it would be a chore to return what you already have, buck up it might be fine. If in doubt put a connector on each end and try the whole spool.

Belden is a top manufacturing company. They make many kinds of coax, and this reference has info about the various kinds of shielding. http://www.belden.com/pdfs/Cable101/Shielding.pdf

This is what they say about braided-

BRAID SHIELDS
•Good flexibility and flex life
•Most effective at low frequencies

Will it make a difference at 60 Hz? I don't know. I suspect that they are speaking of radio frequencies not audio frequencies. The wave length of 60 Hz is 16392850 feet so would need 4098212.5 for a 1/4 wave antenna. Power at that frequency is more likely inductively coupled.

From experience I know that 70% braid or better is effective in preventing hum pickup. Braid is easier to solder and works well with some types of connectors. There are of course connectors that work very well with foil.

Thanks Trek!!

Better to wait and run the right thing.

Much appreciated.

What model and brand do you recommend for running SUB, Component etc Runs? Where can I buy it?

thanks.

I am a great believer in cheap, so I use whatever I can find locally that fits the bill. However, if you look at the top of the page there are several cable sellers who sponser this forum. monoprice, bluejeans and ram all get good comments.

Belden is the gold standard. Monoprice is no name Chinese, but it is cheap and people report good experiences with there stuff. I think that if I was pulling cable in a wall and wanted to be certain I had the best I would get Belden- I think Bluejeans carries it.

You pays your money and you takes your choice (or chance).

The connectors are important, especially if you are using solderless twist-ons or push-ons. I prefer soldered. Don't spend $100 for RCA plugs, but don't get gold colored no names from some guy on EBAY either. Good luck! :)

None of makes any difference at 60 Hz. Regardless of shield construction, copper itself is nearly useless at preventing the type of magnetic field coupling you might get from power lines into subwoofer lines. Only thick steel conduit would have any benefit as mentioned in the Belden link provided by trekguy. Fortunately the power line fields are almost always too weak to be a problem. A few inch separation is more than adequate.

Hi Nighthawk,

So the cable I have is OK?

Its from home depot 500 ft spool.

Carol Brand Part #- C5775.38.01

100% Flexfoil Bonded
60% Aluminum Braid
Swept to 3GHZ
Black

yes

Nighthawk-

Glad you clarified that neither copper nor aluminum is effective in reducing power line coupling.

However, perhaps you will comment further on the use of copper plated steel conductors at audio frequencies, and aluminum vs copper as an electrical ground path. I've always felt that it was easier and more certain to make a good electrical connection to copper, and although it is not exactly parallel, that connections with CATV cable aluminum/foil shields are the most common failure points.

With copper you have the option to solder.

The extremely low current levels in line-level signals allow for a small effective wire gauge, but as steel is roughly 20 times less conductive than copper so the effective AWG of the center conductor is, well, pretty small.

If we look at two cables, both Belden RG6. One is 1829 with CCS and the other is 1694 using bare copper. We basicly need to treat 60 Hz as slowly changing DC and the total DC resistance (shield + center) in 1000 feet of 1829 is 37 Ohms and for 1694 it's 10.2. Let's say the OP needs a 50 foot run to the sub. That's 1.85 Ohms for the CCS cable and .51 for the copper cable, a difference of 1.34 Ohms. This value is effectively in series with the input impedance of the subwoofer and the output impedance of the receiver. I'm just going to guess that the audio input of the subwoofer amplifier is near 47 K Ohms or so. So you can see how a difference in cable resistance of 1.3 Ohms can have little or no impact on signal loss.

Point taken on the option to solder. Nothing makes a cable less effective than a bad connection at the connector.

NightHawk-

Let me plead both mitigating and extenuating circumstances. Specfically that I'm old and slow. :o After posting I went for a bike ride (on my Trek naturally) and while riding it came to me that I should have done a bit of scratch pad work before posting.

You nailed it. High load impedance makes the cable resistance a non issue in household runs.

Ok..so I am good then??

:):):)

Good to go! Sorry for leading you astray.

Thanks guys.

I assume that Component VIDEO, and RCA Right and Left AUDIO is another story though correct?

thanks.

Thanks guys.

I assume that Component VIDEO, and RCA Right and Left AUDIO is another story though correct?

thanks.

No problem. Remember that the subwoofer cable is least demanding application in your whole system. Anything will work provided it makes a good electrical connection. The same goes for the L and R audio. Simple audio patch cords will suffice here as well.

Component video however should be transmitted using a good quality RG59 such as Belden 1505F. For very long runs you might consider a good RG6 dual shield cable.

Hey nighthawk,

Ok just so i'm absolutely clear :) Subs and Audio L&R will be fine on the cable I have (RG6 from Home Depot). My runs are no more than 25 - 30 ft.

I'm wondering if it may be better to buy a roll of HIGH Quality RG6 so I can actually use the whole roll. If I only use the RG6 I have I may only use about 100ft. What is a HIGH Quality and fair priced RG6 that you would recommend for all my runs?

I think what you have is fine for everything your doing. It's overkill for everything but component video but that's OK.

You might have a tough time getting RCA connectors to fit the RG6 properly but I believe others have done it.

Have you simply considered just buying the cable in the sizes you need and already terminated?