Home Theater Setup, Help With Cable Length

[Brian_74]

I'm laying out my home theater wall finally. Just got my Vantages a little over a week ago

Now I'm ready to mount my plasma on the wall and run all the cabling in the wall between the TV and my components.

I can measure pretty well the distance between a component and the TV inputs using a string, but how do I account for the extra slack and bending room that I need? I don't want my cords to be tight as banjo strings, nor do I want to have 6 feet of excess cable coiled up. Not to mention, extra cable just costs me more $$

Does anyone have a good rule of thumb for how much to add to the length of a cable measurement to allow for proper slack?

 

[bober]

Installers that do wall mount jobs with flat panel tv's generally always use 12 foot HDMI cables. I'd use that as a rule of thumb. Just buy the cables at a local dealer and fish them through the hole where you are wiring them. If they are too long or too short, return them and get a better size for you.

Oh, and obviously, post pics when you are done

 

[HopelessDFilms]

check out the cables from http://www.monoprice.com they are incredibly inexpensive and very high quality. A thick gauged HDMI cable for a decent run will still cost next to nothing compared to something you'll buy brom a b#*t buy or Cir#*it Shi#*y.

I have their HDMI and some equal quality monster, and can tell no difference aside from having a much heavier wallet after one purchase.:music:

 

[Brian_74]

Thanks for the tip on monoprice, I'll check them out. I need other cables besides the HMDI and I'll be getting most of what I need from BlueJeans or SignalCable. Any other places I should look at? I am looking at custom lengths for most of the cables so the standard 3,6,12 footers from a retail store might not work. I suppose I could purchase some from the local big box to test for the length I want and then return them...

In general, can anyone suggest how much extra length I should figure when ordering a cable? For example, when you order your interconnects or speaker cables, how much longer do you make them than what you actually need? You want a certain amount of relief on the connectors so they aren't being pulled or cable is being bent very sharply. I might measure exactly 2 feet, but then order a 3 foot cable, for example.

 

[Pcar928fan]

Since I am in a wheelchair I need much more extra cable from things in the a/v rack to things outside it (like power, speakers, sat cable etc.) but I can tell you it is always better to have extra that just barely enough. The first time you have to pull one or another component out and don't have enough slack to actually GET IT OUT, you will be ****ED! Same goes for the day you decide to upgrade...you might be able to do it from the front w/o moving a bunch of stuff if you have plenty of cable, but if you don't you will ALWAYS have to move your rack!

 

[Brian_74]

Good point 928fan. I overlooked that. Ok, let me ask this then. Is there a preferred way to coil excess cable? Circular? Oblong? Braided? Big Ol' Knot? Sonically, will it make any difference?

 

[SteveInNC]

The only significant thing is to cross power cables with signal cables at ninety-degree angles if possible. If you lay a signal cable parallel to a power cable, you've just created a one-winding transformer . If you lay a coil of power cable on a coil of signal cable, you've just created a pretty good transformer, feeding 60/50 hz where you don't want it to go. (Shielding helps fight this though).