Hey everyone. I posted this on avsforum and got some good responses. I wanted to post it here as well since I'm getting ready to buy Ascends and I thought it would make sense to get feedback from some Ascend owners.

This is my first time installing speaker wire.

The way my home theater is set up has the tv, receiver, and everything else located on an island in the middle of my living room. That means I can't run the speaker wire for the rear speakers around baseboards on sidewalls. I'm going to have to run the speaker wire on the rears up the rear wall, onto the ceiling, and then down the front wall and into the receiver (Panny XR55). Also, the right rear speaker will likely be out from under the ceiling where the living room vaults up into the loft. So, for the right rear, I'll have to run speaker wire along side the rear wall until I get under the ceiling, and then run up the rear wall, onto the ceiling, and down the front wall and into the receiver.

Do you all have suggestions for how I can best conceal the speaker wire? My walls are all white. Distance should be less than 20 feet although I haven't measured exactly yet. I know there is flat wire speaker that adheres to the wall but I'm thinking I won't be able to use that, at least for the right rear, as the wire is going to have to angle to go from the side and up onto the ceiling (i.e. it won't be a straight line). I assume that the flat speaker wire is designed to adhere to surfaces when you're going in a straight line and not when the wire needs to angle in certain spots.

I've also heard about channels you can get, paint, and adhere to the wall, then run your speaker wire through. Are these a better idea than flat speaker wire? If so, can anyone recommend something specific as far as brand/product?

Finally, is it best to buy speaker wire that's terminated once I know what the length will be? I'm going to go with banana plugs so should I just get terminated speaker wire that already has the banana plugs attached? I have no idea how you're supposed to do it yourself as far as connecting the plugs to the wire. I'm sure it's easy..if you all have any suggestions or can direct me to a site that would explain it, that would be helpful.

ANSWER FROM AVS THREAD:

Since you don't want to get into drilling holes into your walls, I would run the cable under the rug (or tuck them under the baseboard molding) as far as you can and use the plastic wire covers when you have to run it up the wall. You can get the wire covers at Home Depot for cheap. You'll also be happy to know that the wire covers come in a set that includes corner and elbow pieces for right angles.

Don't worry about terminating the speaker wire with banana plugs unless you want to be able to easily disconnect the wire from the speaker. The performance of using bare wire ends is just as good and actually better than using a connector. The connectors are just for convenience.

My Follow-up for here:

I'm going with 170s for my fronts, the 340CC, and HTM200 rears. Is it okay to just splice the speaker wire and insert it directly into these speakers and not worry about banana plugs? Also, do you recommend the wire covers from Home Depot?