Need to pre-wire a room for a mid level theater. Were doing two sub woofers and plan on running XLR to them and terminating it with a nice XLR wall plate.

Both subs will be right around 25 ft from the rack so about 40ft of actual wire per subwoofer.

Preferably like to get some wire less then 100ft so i dont have 1,000 ft sitting around :)

Can I make 18/2 shielded w/drain work? cut a 100ft microphone cable (hack since it is not CL3 rated) or find some in-wall rated XLR cable

Thoughts?

Thanks!

you can order what you need from these guys.

http://audiosupply.com/

Mogami Star Quad Mic Cable is very nice. But you could use Belden 8451 and it would perform just the same in the real world.

Pricey but they'll have what you need.

http://www.markertek.com/

They have a sister site that does whole sales, you might want to through somehassle processes to save a few bucks.

I wired a guy's studio with Belden 8451 and it is TINY... it's barely over 1/8" thick. Studio sounds great, no problems with noise, interference, etc. Super easy to work with.

As long as it's copper, shielded, 24AWG or better, it doesn't matter too much. Belden 8451/9451/2221 as well as West Penn 291 are pretty common, Canare Starquad is a nice step up.

Get your terms right so that if you're in a difficult situation, you're used to describing things correctly. Here it doesn't really matter except it's helpful to have the habit of being, well, technically correct for when it makes a difference. There's no such thing as XLR wire unless there's also F wire and RCA wire, where that designation alone is enough to make the right choice every time. There is definitely "speaker wire," but that means 20 gauge to 12 gauge... while that's a common term, it's only useful after you have the answer to your question. Otherwise even it has too many answers.

There are, however, XLR connectors, which are for balanced lines.

Does your sub have a balanced line input?

If so, 18/2 with a shield is definitely going to work. Your requirements are a) balanced, b) shielded, and c) able to carry the current. Since you're presumably sending a line level signal (you don't say, but you probably are), current is tiny and the real small Belden will work, too.

You could actually use one pair of a CAT5 for the signal and both conductors of another pair for the ground/shield connection. Lately we've found that just having a twisted pair is enough to avoid induced hum in most circumstances.

Indeed it is quite thin. I have worked in and wired many recording studios (its my actual background and foundation in AV), and the Mogami microphone snake that we use in the wall and under the floor for all lines from wall plates to the patch panel and between all line level between gear and the patch bay is even slightly thinner than 8451.

Mogami is MUCH nicer to work with than Belden, and well worth the extra cost. For microphone line in the wall, I wouldn't consider anything other than Mogami (maybe Canare).

For line level, Mogami 2944 (or any 29xx snake assembly) or 8451 should perform equally.

I think he's only running 2 wires, though. :)

Agreed, wish I would have used snake for the job I did.... live and learn, the guy was fully aware that I knew what I was doing but had zero experience doing it. :)

Yea, the Mogami snake is a bit more $$, but the mental anguish of having to keep track of every black cable (versus color coded and numbered snake) can kill you!!!

Check out Mogami next time. The insulation is so soft and flexible, yet never seems to react to the heat of the iron's tip on the exposed copper. Pretty crazy stuff.

thanks everyone, Ordered the Belden!

Using two Martin Login Descent I's with a Marantz AV7701 preamp