Can speaker cables go inside a wall

Have realised that putting the cable through the fire place means I need longer speaker cable so upgrade of speaker cable has moved up. As a result I have been looking at all the cable based topics found one that mentioned good termination mattered a lot for nac a5, does it matter if I go for banana plugs at the amp end rather than a naim dual plug since the atom seems to take a different size to other naim amps. Also seriously considering witch hat.

There is a special Uniti plug, but it isn’t that special. Plenty of places stock the plugs, Witch Hat offer it on their cables (I have a set from them so terminated)

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I was hoping not to go the specialist plug route as I’m not sure I want to stick with the atom forever and then I’d have to get them re-terminated, is the naim plug that much better? When I was on the witch hat website they only offered silver banana plugs as an option so I assumed that would be fine.

It is definitely an option on their N2 cable.

The pins are made/plated to play nicely with the connectors on the amp. Probably not critical if you wish to retain flexibility. Others will be along with more technical reasons in a bit!

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I was looking at the phantoms didn’t realise the n2 had so many options.

I had planned on this in our new home but eventually abandoned the proposition due to the extreme length of the run. From the Fraim to the fire place, up and over it, out the other side and over to the speaker, was approaching 20 meters all together.

To run the cables on the floor ended up requiring 11 meters as it was.

Both size of Naim plugs are simply a pair of bananas in a plastic case thereby giving specific spacing for the back of Naim amps.
If you use the smaller uniti size plugs, and then stop using an atom, simply remove the plastic case and you can spread the bananas to fit a different separation of +|- sockets.

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oh I didn’t realise that thanks so much for letting me know so its not fixed into the plastic casing and I could if I wanted to just swap the the uniti plastic case for a non uniti one?

You will need to ensure that it’s possible to pull the terminated cable through your trunking unless you or your dealer can terminate them on site. Naim plugs are a bit tricky to solder well, especially the smaller ones supplied with the Atom.

I swapped the soldered pins from a standard Naim plastic plug to a Uniti style one, so the pins will work in either Naim style without too much trouble. Without removing the pins from the cable if that wasn’t clear. Though that was with flexible cable. NACA5 might be a bit trickier.

Not sure if the pins would fit any other style plug. Are you thinking of a (shudder) non Naim box after the Atom?

no i’m mainly thinking of swapping to a naim integrated and streamer but that requires more savings than I currently have only way i’d swap to non naim is if I stuck with the atom longer and if its currently hypothetical replacement was too expensive

Ok, I think swapping the plastic plugs would be possible then. I haven’t opened up my UnitiQute plugs to check how the speaker cable is arranged into the slot in the end of the pin, the cable enters the plug differently from the standard plugs (see a standard plug below, the pins are identical between the two types). You might have to bend the speaker cables a bit when you swapped them over. That was fine when I did it, but my cables at the time were pretty flexible.

What I’m struggling to explain is that the cable on the Uniti plug exits in line with the long axis of the pin, yet the slot in the pin into which it is soldered is perpendicular to the pin. In the standard plug the cable exits perpendicular to the long axis of the pin, but in line with the slot! A standard Uniti cable could be soldered all in line, which would require a lot of bending to fit into the standard plug if you decided to change. Phew. I should just take the cover off my Uniti plugs and check!

Yeah, that would be awkward to fit into a standard Naim plug. If it was me I’d re terminate them. Hope that helps!

so I’ve checked and witch hat phantom are a good bit cheaper than nac a5 properly terminated and since they only come with normal banana plugs so I would not need to re terminate them, I’m leaning towards the phantoms unless someone thinks the nac a5 are worth the extra

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Atom plugs with the black box removed will be about the smallest for threading through your trunking. Other plugs may have screw-on covers that cannot be removed so they will be a bit more bulky. Whether or not this is a problem will obviously depend on the size of the trunking and how tight any bends are. NACA5 could even work in your favour here, in that its stiffness could make it easier to push through.

Re termination, unless the duct pipe is very large, I’m guessing you may have to feed the cable through with one end unterminated, then fit yourself afterwards.

Edit: oops, I see this aspect was mentioned a couple of posts further ob

If it can help, few years ago I think in this forum, when I mentioned that I was going to run my nac a5 cables under the floor by the basement somebody recommended to avoid running it close in parallel of the electric wires of the house. Running across should be ok, but in parallel you get chance of electromagnetic field interference. I was told…. :slight_smile:

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I run my speaker cables under the floorboards too. There was no other practical option, and it looks much neater without them.

I agree that it’s best to keep them away from power cables. Mine cross a couple of them at 90° with a few inches between them, which I think is fine. I would avoid running them parallel for any significant distance.

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