Audio/Video single gang

[rma123]

I am planning to run 12G audio cables in my HT. I need to buy those single gang for terminating the wires. Is the gang for audio different from the ones used for electrical wiring?

Thanks
Ray

 

[jinjuku]

I am planning to run 12G audio cables in my HT. I need to buy those single gang for terminating the wires. Is the gang for audio different from the ones used for electrical wiring?

Thanks
Ray

Are you talking about keystone wall plates or the gang box that is inside the wall, or both?

I just ran 14AWG speaker cable for my surrounds to a generic plastic wall gang box with keystone wall plate and solder type banana jacks.

 

[rma123]

I am talking about the gang inside the wall. I was told by my electrician that the audio/video/data gang boxes are different from the electrical ones. The electrical ones have the back covered, but the audi/video/data ones have their back open.

Are you talking about keystone wall plates or the gang box that is inside the wall, or both?

I just ran 14AWG speaker cable for my surrounds to a generic plastic wall gang box with keystone wall plate and solder type banana jacks.

 

[jinjuku]

I depends I guess on clearance/tolerance of the connection in question. The gang box that I put in has a back on it. Works just fine.

 

[jcPanny]

Low voltage wiring

Audio and video wiring can use the low voltage boxes which are usually orange and have the open back. The high voltage (110 V AC) boxes are usually blue. They will also work fine for low voltage wiring but are less convenient with the solid back. Check out Ray's recent article on running A/V cables.

 

[MDS]

jcPanny is right and I've been through this very recently as I had some AV installers come here to help me run additional CAT5 and speaker wire.

If you are running all low voltage stuff, like CAT5, RG6, speaker wire you can rip out the J-Box in the wall and replace it with a 'retro ring'. These are the aforementioned rectangular ring with an open back. They have dog legs which are rotated behind the drywall and tightened to clamp to the drywall. The orange ones are made by Carlon and are available at Lowes and Home Depot.

You need the normal J-Box type for electrical and replacements are available but you won't be able to nail them to a stud if the drywall is already up. The replacements are often called 'old work' boxes and are similar to the retro rings but are closed in the back. You could use those for low voltage but as far as I'm concerned you don't want to. If you have more than 2 or 3 wires to run to a single gang box, the closed back type or j-box replacements are a nightmare.

My house was pre-wired and they ran 10 wires to a single gang location (not all were being used). Just try to feed that many wires through the two little holes in the top of the box! The retro ring makes it much easier to neatly bundle the wires and not have to bend the crap out of them to push them into the box before you attach your wall plate.

There are other types that allow to you put both electrical and low voltage stuff in a single box and they maintain separation between the two. Something in the electrical code about maintaining a certain distance between high and low voltage wiring.