Help! Too many messy wires!

I recently took apart and moved my hi-fi system to another room, and began reassembling it two nights ago.

In and on one big cabinet I have a TV, VCR, DVD player, 8-track tape player, CD player, turntable, three amps, two-piece preamp, Monster power center, and a pair of speakers. Needless to say, it's a rat's nest of interconnects, power cords, and speaker cables.

I'd love to hear how you folks neaten things up. Are there good ways to organize wires (keep power away from interconnects, f'rinstance) or tie them together (Velcro? String?).

Help a guy get his system wired organized!

 

We do sell velcro Kable Keepers at NorthernLightFX.com. Another place to check is one of the Harriet Carter, Carol Wright, etc. type of gift catalogs.

 

A general rule of thumb is to keep signal cables away from power cords and electrical outlets. Also if all possible, cross all wires at a 90 degree angle to minimize crosstalk between wires.

 

How to find Kable Keepers is to go to NorthernLightFX.com and type, at least, Kable, in the search engine.

 

This might sound like heresy to many of you guys, but...

I found the perfect way to keep my cables nice and tidy. I just use Cat5 wire with the insulation, and get 4 RCA cables out of them, all being tidy and small. Or else I peel off the insulation, and wrap a bundle of twisted pairs together.

So far, I like their sound a lot more than the Radio Shack gold cables they replaced, and my installation has gone from being an absolute mess to being so tidy it bores me...

 

Is clumping the power cables all together and then wrapping them up with a Velco strap a bad idea?

 

Oyama is right-on This may sound crazy but a planned rats nest is actually the best sonically. Try to keep all the cables away from one another, by at least 4 inches or more. As long as you can hide the cables from people viewing the system do not bunch them all together, because cross talk just goes up.

 

Kable Keepers are a velcro strap essentially and some of the DJs I work with do use them. www.kablekeepers.com