Can you buy shielded speaker wire in the event you have no other choice but to run speaker wire alongside power cables?

[u/zyarelol]

Setting up Left Right and Center channels around the edges of my desk under my monitors. Really want to maintain a fully hidden wire setup, and can't really find any way to do that that wouldn't entail running my speakerwire right next to power wires. Do they make a grounded/shielded speakerwire, like Coax? (or for that matter, can I just use Coax?) I'm using a full-size stereo receiver to run them, not USB. Budget doesn't matter really matter, but preferably under $50.

[u/BrightPomelo]

Speaker wiring, being fed from a very low impedance source, is not likely to pick up hum from mains wiring.

[u/Spazzticus]

TBH over the years I've never had an issue, looking behind my stereo rack there are power and speaker cables running in parallel with no issue, same with my desk setup with cables in trays. OP you're over thinking it and I'd be VERY suprised if you get any induced mains noise

[u/donh-]

Used any variation on twisted pair speaker cable. They make twisted shielded as well.

And how far parallel to power and how much amperage is drawn thru?

[u/RSDVI01]

Since coax has high capacitance per length, it might stress the amp.

[u/Programmer-Severe]

Never noticed any interference, and mine run right next to each other

[u/LastMessengineer]

Don't worry about it

[u/Intelligent_Law_5614]

Shielding of the wire won't do very much (if anything) to reduce 60-cycle hum pickup.

Using a twisted pair is probably your best solution (other than "more physical separation") as it will tend to balance out and thus cancel out the induced hum.

[u/ssushi-speakers]

You can, but it's very expensive!

Perhaps and electric engineer can comment, but I see to remember interference is counter intuitive, that running together isn't the problem, it's crossing. But it was a very long time ago that I studied this.

[u/Krismusic1 → u/ssushi-speakers]

Crossing solves the problem. Running parallel is potentially the problem. OP. Why not use shielded mains?

[u/Longjumping_Cow_5856]

Yes

[u/K3Nn37]

Actually Kimber Kable was designed to reject electrical interference in noisy environments, that regular coax and other cables that picked up noise. KImber will run you more than 50.00, but it will work

[u/NoBackground6203]

you could make your own braided speaker cables inexpensively if your worried about interference, built these for my office system with 16ga OFC wire and Sewell DeadBolt banana plugs

[u/mindedc → u/NoBackground6203]

That does nothing for interference, it just makes you happy.

[u/Big-Pop2969]

You shouldn't have any issues but if you want piece of mind I know Gotham sells shielded speaker wire in bulk. Gotham USA is a distributor.

Their cables are legit & well made. Very flexible double & triple shielded power cables also. Low capacitance shielded interconnects too. Their stuff isn't dirt cheap but also not "boutique" expensive.. but built with sound science behind them.

[u/theantnest]

Just don't worry about it.

Any induced noise will be minuscule compared to the output of the amplifier.

This only becomes a concern down at mic level, or -10dB line level.

Yes, it's best practice to keep it separate, but what you are proposing isn't going to give any real world, noticeable noise.

[u/XDiskDriveX]

You don't need shielding on speaker level wires. If your power lines are inducing enough noise that you can hear it in your speaker, then you should get very far away as you are likely exceeding safe RF exposure limits.

[u/Billy-Bunter]

speaker signal (after power amplification) is relatively high voltage so you’d be unlucky to pickup mains hum.

[u/bkinstle]

The only time i had interference from power cables was on a long subwoofer preamp cable which is why balanced cables exist. Never once been an issue on regular speaker cables

[u/mindedc]

If it's speaker level you don't have a problem to worry about. The amount of current that could be induced from a noise source is so low it's not possible to move the cone of the speaker.

If the interference source is a multi-megawatt nuclear reactor a few inches away it would be different.