Whole-house speakers: What type of rough-in wires do I need?

[felixrosbergen]

If you can do it yourself then i suppose that is a pretty good solution, but if you have to pay a Contractor to put all that conduit in it's probably not very cost efficient.

 

[Neurorad]

With conduit, you can wait and drop the wires after everyone else is done.

You should wait until after the electrician and plumber are done, to run LV wires and conduit. But yeah, the drywallers could conceivably put a screw through a wire or conduit. If you install the cables deep enough, drilling holes through the framing members a couple inches from the drywall surface, the drywall screws shouldn't be an issue. When it's close, use nail plates.

Conduit would be good for difficult retrofit cable runs. If you can get to the bottom or top of a wall, from a crawlspace or attic, it's pretty easy to retrofit, and the conduit would be a waste of money. But then you can't see where the line voltage wiring is, easily. Take photos before drywall.

Curvy conduit fills with fewer cables, when you run 1 at a time - keep that in mind.

 

[apostolakisl]

With conduit, you can wait and drop the wires after everyone else is done.

You should wait until after the electrician and plumber are done, to run LV wires and conduit. But yeah, the drywallers could conceivably put a screw through a wire or conduit. If you install the cables deep enough, drilling holes through the framing members a couple inches from the drywall surface, the drywall screws shouldn't be an issue. When it's close, use nail plates.

Conduit would be good for difficult retrofit cable runs. If you can get to the bottom or top of a wall, from a crawlspace or attic, it's pretty easy to retrofit, and the conduit would be a waste of money. But then you can't see where the line voltage wiring is, easily. Take photos before drywall.

Curvy conduit fills with fewer cables, when you run 1 at a time - keep that in mind.

Take Pictures!!!!!! can't agree enough. But as far as the price of conduit, it is just so cheap you can pretty much ignore the cost. The grey stuff at HD is like $2.00 for 10 feet. You don't need the curvy stuff if you just take a propane torch and warm it up. . . .voila. . . you have curvy stuff, and better yet, the inside walls are smooth so wires don't hang. Use the prefab 90's for those spots, but when wandering about through the myriad of more gentle curves the warming up works great.