Hey +Iyaz This is the scary mess of cables behind my modest home theater It looks like a hous...

[G+_Nik Kearney]

Hey +Iyaz. This is the scary mess of cables behind my modest home theater. It looks like a house fire waiting to happen.

 

How about a show on cable management for both power and AV cables?

 

I've heard all sorts of different things about how cables should cross each other at 90 degree angles or run parallel or be coiled up and have no idea what to believe.

[G+_Andre Klärner]

Best comment on this is just: do it as you like. Nowadays most cables are shielded properly enough to no care for interference or they are simply not prone to interference. So you are free to chose every way you want. I personally have a quite huge wooden back panel on my desk in which I simply put a lot of screws and attached the cable with small wires to the screw. Most of the power supplies like notebook docking station are also easily fixed with two screws beneath and on on top.l. Only thing to care about is the power lines, which should be at some distance from you analog audio cables.?

[G+_Matt Bonnett]

Yeah. Looks like the space behind my home theater too. And all I have is the AVR, HTPC, and external hard drives and printer. One of these days I have to rewire the whole thing and tidy up that area.

[G+_Bradley Bishop]

I'd like to see iyaz akhtar try, but I don't think it can be done. Every time I've tried it in the past it's usually jacked up by the time I'm done.

[G+_Bruce B]

+ Andre Kläner hit it on the head. You could use automotive conduit (the flexible stuff) and attach the conduit to the cabinet. Just keep the power cords away from the interconnects and speaker cables (to avoid the AC 60 hz hum). If your components have HDMI connectors that would clean things up nicely. Monoprice.com sells the HDMI cables for a fraction of what the brick & mortar stores do. I would keep all your speaker wires the same length and gauge for each speaker pair.

[G+_Rich Guy Miller]

Gives a whole new meaning to "firewire." 

[G+_Martin Tatlock]

Hey Rich, like the FireWire reference. The back of my home theatre stack of boxes is like a telephone exchange. Full of "hard to get to" dust as well. The occasional critter may have crawled back there. Future upgrade will probably be a slim AV receiver with Ethernet connections to my network, perhaps also an Apple TV or similar sat on top. Less is more !

[G+_Rich Guy Miller]

Hmm. I've got a similar mess of cables and I liked your suggestion for a Know How show on the topic. Yes, hard to clean is only the start of it because dust and warmth can attract critters that will nest and maybe chew into a wire ready for a sparking opportunity. But I don't see a solution to my situation. My situation is lo-tech. A TV box for viewing, a DVD player, stereo, Roku and Wii. The wires are mostly electrical wires that power these devices. They just look scary all tangly like that. 

[G+_Martin Tatlock]

Cable management is a skill, that's for sure. I had some HiFi / AV experts set my system up and it was great. But once you've "managed" your cables, just try and move or rearrange something! Tricky. My Mrs decided the units were in the wrong place and needed moving. I believe the term is the "WAF" factor. Before was like a pack of uncooked linguine, tightly organised and neat. After the movement, which meant cable ties etc had to be relaxed or removed, it was like cooked spaghetti thrown on the floor. With meatballs.

[G+_Yonas A (eriman)]

i would love to see happen go for it iyaz akhtar 

[G+_iyaz akhtar]

I've had many a cable mess. Take a look at my cover image! For such things, I remove every cable and reset the whole dang thing. 

[G+_Bruce B]

Martin Tatlock LMAO @ the WAF factor! I spent 2 hours setting up my AV system, even making sure the "sweet spot" was a little larger (at some cost of performance) so my wife would feel immersed. She's not as psycho about acoustics as I, but loves movies. She moved the furniture the next day. AAARGHH ! I even let her take the carpet out of the living room and she repays me like this? The nerve lol. I "made" her watch what it took to reset the room the next weekend. . I turned the AC off and used the Audysey system on the Denon and some more tweaking from there. She doesn't notice the stuff that drives me nuts. She wasn't impressed and didn't seem to notice much. I'm trying to convince her that since the carpet is gone we need different rear and surround speakers. Any suggestions on a sales pitch would be appreciated! Yonas Abraham is right too- go for it!

[G+_Matt Bonnett]

iyaz akhtar That's usually how I end up doing it as I am real finicky about a lot of things especially cable management. Normally don't go for the elaborate setups like routing through a box. At the most just coil them up tightly and tie them up. In fact when I get the energy I need to do that with my AV setup as I recently dropped the cable STB out of the mix and the old unitasker DVD player is going to go in favor of letting the HTPC do the job so everything is going to be moved around for better space use and cables all redone.

[G+_Jason Spencer]

I hate it when I clean up all my cords. Then one goes bad. Then I have to tear it all up.