It's well known that the audio/video world is filled with people who thing that one cable or another could prevent disasters, solve world problems and complete the lives of their users, but I have a serious question about what happens when a cable is installed (laid, or fastened) on ferrous metal or near a magnet. Knowing that current in a conductor creates a magnetic field (weaker or stronger, based on the current) and this can couple with other cables, I haven't seen anything other than cable stands that are supposed to address this.
The reason I'm posting this thread is due to the fact that I'm doing an AV installation and the only place to run speaker cabling is near/under radiators for the heat and the covers are made of sheet steel. I'd rather not see the cabling, so I thought about the cable management devices that use magnets to allow a wire tie or strip of Velcro to secure the cables, but I thought "If the system is paying at a high level, How do these rare earth magnets affect the signal?" and if they actually have an effect, "Will it affect an amplifier?".
As good of an idea as it seems and knowing that people will sell anything to make a buck, and these aren't cheap (the magnets are, but my distributor charges over $2 each for some of them and I think that's insane. I can get magnets from Rockler Woodworking for less than that but it's not made for cable management.
If I had a scope, I would test this- if anyone has an oscilloscope and has the time to look at the waveform of low/mid/high frequencies when a speaker cable is (very) near a rare earth magnet, it would be a great service. If it's not too much trouble, maybe it could be tested with line audio, too.
Thanks, in advance.