speaker cable placement/arrangement

Keep them away from power cords if your setup has the potential for them to cross. If so, right angles is best if unavoidable.

I agree exactly with both above responses. Also keep in mind prepping all contact surfaces including the speaker spades/bananas/pins, as well as the speaker and amp binding posts (not to mention all your system connections). I find Caig deoxit and Pro gold excellent for this. You might also like to get yourself a binding post wrench (Audioquest makes a good one) for securely connecting the cables (better than bare hands, easier/safer than "real" wrenches or pliers).
I also found it's best not to disturb all your cables (incl I/C's ,PS's, speaker cables), once you've placed them, don't move them after that. Good luck

Be flexible about it.

Thanks all; as usual it's audiogoners to the rescue!

Keep up the good work.

russ

The only way to insure your cables are not exposed to vibration is to not use the speakers. Otherwise, as long as all your other cables are sufficiently shielded it simply makes sense to keep AC and speaker wires away from signal cables, with the speaker wire visable so you can look at how pretty it is. Keeping speaker wire off the floor can be useful when vacuuming the dust under it. Or run the speaker wire through a hole in the floor suspended in the basement ceiling (or lower floor) air...this is very useful for hanging laundry or drying plants from it as long as your laundry or drying plants don't vibrate.