Although I bought it a year and a half ago, I finally installed my Gecko Cable flat speaker wire under my new carpet before it was installed on Friday. I'm writing this to give my two cents and top marks to the product. I bought two 25' spools of four-conductor 16-gauge flat wire (product link
here).
The stuff does exactly what it is supposed to do. It is FLAT. I couldn't feel it when I slipped it under my old carpet and pad, which was absolute junk compared to my new carpet and pad (and probably anything that you all would get - I don't think that you can even buy pad that lousy). I sure can't tell it's there now, and it runs right through the path that I walk all of the time.
Removing my baseboards would have been quite a challenge for me (I think that they were put on with adhesive and not nails), so I used a drywall utility knife and cut a slit right above the baseboard. The slit is the width of the knife blade, and the Gecko Cable slid right in. Most excellent, IMO. I have not tried to paint it, yet, but the literature says that it can be painted. Also, because it is flat, it easily fit underneath the tack strip for the carpet (the old one was taken out and a new one nailed down over the top of the wire).
A nice thing (that I had forgotten) is that it comes with an adhesive backing. You can leave the thin plastic liner on and not use the adhesive, but I chose to adhere it down to the slab.
Another very nice suprise was that the flat wire, when prepared for the "terminal blocks" that are used to transition to round wire as described in the instructions, can be curved a bit to fit right into a binding post. So, I didn't have to use the blocks or round wire. I connected them directly to the wall plate binding posts that I bought from Parts Express. I was very happy about that. Granted, stripping the ends was a pain because the copper conductors are surrounded by adhesive, but it was well worth it to me.
So, if you are looking for flat wire, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Gecko Cable. I recall that they shipped me my wire promptly. They were my top choice last summer after doing a bunch of research. I can't say if there's a better choice now, but I'm sure happy with them.
