How to terminate speaker cable

[Luvien]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently building a house and I would like to know the best way to terminate speaker cable. I would like to buy a Nuvo GC so I know that I will run 1 CAT5 to each keypad and 2 speaker cable from the keypad to the speaker.

But how to terminate the speaker cable? Is everyone using something like Banana bindings?

Thanks a lot,

Luvien

 

[Sacedog]

I used the Leviton quick port bananna jacks to terminate mine, so that I could add other wires to the same jack. In the wiring closet I did the same thing, but snapped the quick ports into a patch panel. I then bought a ton of screw-on bananna jacks off of eBay for cheap.

 

[Steve]

If you are going to use a GC then you don't run speaker cable from the keypad to the speaker. You run a Cat5 from the keypads homerun to the 'hub' and the speaker wire is run homerun from the speaker to the GC. Some people like to look the speaker wire near the keypad location just in case they ever change to a different system and need a volume control or something. If you plan to use any of the LSA's (Local Source Amplifiers), then you need to run wires between that and the keypad (see the manual for wiring if desired).

On the terminations, I just use the raw wire. The GC has screw down terminal where you can just insert the raw speaker wire. If you want, you can introduce a connection block, terminating all your wires on a wall plate and then run from there to the GC, but I just used one of those plates that allow the wire to come nicely out of the wall direct to the equipment. I guess it would depend on the location and setup of the equipment that would dictate how you do it. The speaker end is the same thing, but most speakers have a connector where you can simply insert the raw speaker wire.

 

[Luvien]

Hello Spacedog,

I used the Leviton quick port bananna jacks to terminate mine, so that I could add other wires to the same jack. In the wiring closet I did the same thing, but snapped the quick ports into a patch panel. I then bought a ton of screw-on bananna jacks off of eBay for cheap.

This is exactly what I used in my first house. I think it's the best for bedroom where you can have Coax, Cat5, phone. But these plate are big and I'm not sure it's gonna look great near the ceiling behind a speaker.

Luvien

 

[Luvien]

Hello Steve,

If you are going to use a GC then you don't run speaker cable from the keypad to the speaker. You run a Cat5 from the keypads homerun to the 'hub' and the speaker wire is run homerun from the speaker to the GC. Some people like to look the speaker wire near the keypad location just in case they ever change to a different system and need a volume control or something. If you plan to use any of the LSA's (Local Source Amplifiers), then you need to run wires between that and the keypad (see the manual for wiring if desired).

On the terminations, I just use the raw wire. The GC has screw down terminal where you can just insert the raw speaker wire. If you want, you can introduce a connection block, terminating all your wires on a wall plate and then run from there to the GC, but I just used one of those plates that allow the wire to come nicely out of the wall direct to the equipment. I guess it would depend on the location and setup of the equipment that would dictate how you do it. The speaker end is the same thing, but most speakers have a connector where you can simply insert the raw speaker wire.

Thanks a lot for the info. It's a good idea to run 2 speaker cable, one to the utility room for a future Nuvo and another one near a local receiver just in case

Using a raw wire is cheap and like you said, you can always plug in direclty in the speaker. But what will happen when they install the dry walls? I don't know to have big holes near the ceiling

Luvien

 

[felixrosbergen]

Just have the pre-wire wire hang out of the wall with a coil and when you hang the speaker terminate direction on it. Less pieces, less potential for error/interference, cheaper.

On the panel/amp side a distrituion/patch solution makes more sense.

Are you sure you're going with the GC? On the GC the speaker wire gets terminated directly on the amp (or via your patch panel if you wish). The E6G (6 zones instead of 8 and less power per channel, but cheaper and much more energy efficeint, and smaller (but still OLED) keypads) has a 'AllPort' where the speaker wires get terminated. The allport is intended to go inside a 2 gang LV ring (or maybe a nice deep box).

Anybody really using these LSA's? I like the idea, i suppose they are particularly applicable for when you have local tv in say bedroom or bathroom and you don't want that to be one of your 6 sources on the main system. 6 sources (limit of both GC and E6G, note expanded expand listing zones and not number of sources) is actually not all that much. I currently have: FM/AM/WX tuner, XM tuner, MusicPort1, MusicPort2 and CQC-TTS-Paging. Leaves me 1 open slot...

Can't find much specs/manual for these Local Source Amps on Nuvo site. Anybody know what power they use when not on? I got the E6G primarilly for it's energy efficiency and don't want this going to waste due to these LSA's.

If the are efficient then i wish i had pre-wired better for them. Starts to get a bit messy to stay flexible at that point... Wiring room > Keypad (not really necesarrilly, but just in case) > Local source location (i.e. local TV) > speaker. Then a cat5 from wiring room to keypad and a cat5 from keypad to local source. Not too bad i guess if you're wiring anyway. Sure would allow a lot of flexibility.