Concern about too many wires

[Leights7]

Hi. I have a 1000w 5.1 HTS. The factory cables are quite long and they're basically interwined with each other, the TV power cord, HDMI cable from reciever and a few cables from the TV cable reciever all behind my entertainment unit. Does having so many cables tangled with each other affect sound / performance? Thanks.
-Leighton

 

[markw]

Not that you will notice.

 

[herbu]

Not that you will notice.

At some point in my "research" I found a suggestion that cables should be separated and bundled. Power... HDMI/Digital... Speaker... so I did.
I cannot notice a difference.
Perhaps there is some affect that can be seen w/ a scope, but it's not enough for my ears.

 

[Speedskater]

While it's 'good engineering practice' when going from location 'A' to location 'B' to:
Bundle all the analog interconnects together.
Bundle all the digital interconnects together.
Bundle all the speaker cables together.
Bundle all the AC power cords together.
Have all the bundles follow the same general path from 'A' to 'B'.

But on the other hand a scientist, who helps with some of the cable articles on this forum, recommends taping all the cables and cords together.

 

[Ampdog]

Other than neatness and orderliness I see no technical reason to separate leads - then again, should analogue interconnects be long (many meters) and not properly shielding, having a 220V/110V lead running alongside might worry. Listen, and if you cannot hear any adverse effect, no worry.

 

[herbu]

But on the other hand a scientist, who helps with some of the cable articles on this forum, recommends taping all the cables and cords together.

A mathematician and a scientist were put in a room against the wall. At the opposite wall was a very attractive, young, nude woman. The men were told that every 5 seconds they could advance half the distance toward the woman. The scientist started advancing. The mathematician said, "What are you doing? If we can only ever advance half the distance, we can never get there". The scientist replied, "I can get close enough for all practical purposes".

 

[Josuah]

Power cables and signal cables should not be laid parallel to each other if it can be avoided. Perpendicular is preferred. If that's not possible, then separate them as far apart from each other as possible.

For particularly long signal runs using XLR may eliminate or reduce audible noise.

Line-level cables are more susceptible to interference than speaker-level cables. Digital cables may still pick up noise that affects the signal transfer or audio depending on how the shielding is handled in your gear. Interference picked up by power cables might get into your audio signals depending on your gear and the quality of filtering they employ (if they employ any at all).

 

[slipperybidness]

Other than neatness and orderliness I see no technical reason to separate leads - then again, should analogue interconnects be long (many meters) and not properly shielding, having a 220V/110V lead running alongside might worry. Listen, and if you cannot hear any adverse effect, no worry.

The most likely place to have any problem is the RCA cords from a turntable to the pre-amp. Phono signals are very small in amplitude, thus require more amplification, thus the noise gets amplified more.

I have personally had this problem with phono cable crossing a power cable. Quality shielded cables fixed that problem.

That does bring up another item. If you must cross the signal and power cables, then cross them perpendicular to each other, the less length where the are parallel, the better.

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

If you get audible interference from having signal and power cables run parallel, I’d suggest that your signal cables have inferior shielding and as such are poor quality.

Regards,
Wayne