How Do you hide/camouflage your rats nest?

Most living rooms have @ least one closet attached to them. We have two closets (one a coat closet in the room and one a hallway closet which runs behind the speaker wall). I use the hall closet for my electronics and run the speaker cable through the wall. Just the speakers/stands and three feet of speaker cable (times two) are in the living room. If this is not possible a nice looking furniture cabinet (wardrobe, low boy, etc.) can be gutted to the point that it will house an equipment rack so that the bottom spikes have access to the floor). This ends up being another form of closet/cabinet to hide the gear with no downside as long as ventilation is good (maybe open up the back)? I have used closets over the years to keep pets away from tube gear, plus they offer further isolation for TT's and CD players. We will be converting the coat closet to store LP's and overflow CD's when I am up to it. I also find listening to music more relaxing when the electronics are not in sight (kind of like being in a huge elevator with only the music to move/transport you:-).

I've gotten to the point that most of the cables are wired point to point with just enough slack to be safe. This keeps the installation SOOOO much neater, easier to trace and more organized looking. Rather than having a ton of cables draping across each other, drooping down into a saggy intertwined mess, mixing "stray magnetic fields", etc... you have relatively straight lines. Only drawback is that doing such ( cutting to fit ) plays hell with resale value on used cables and that i have to reterminate all the cables myself, which does take time.

Then again, i've been able to buy some cable in bulk and have saved great amounts to begin with, so it all balances out. My current project for this weekend is to take 40+ feet of Goertz Micropurl, cut to the desired lengths and then then terminate 7 different cables with Neutrik balanced connectors for my HT system. Doing the labor and picking up the necessary parts myself will save me multiple hundreds of dollars AND give me the necessary "cut to length" runs that help keep things looking "neat & orderly" : )

Speaker cables are another matter though. Kind of hard to keep those hidden unless you run a ton of cable, route it behind walls, through floors, etc.... You sometimes have to double or triple the length of the run. I won't do that though, due both to cost and loss of performance. The end result is that one has to deal with the looks.

The one exception to being "uncluttered looking" is my "big" system. There is no way to keep the clutter down on this one. Three racks with cables connecting them is an "artistic nightmare". The first rack, which is centrally located, has the source components, preamp and electronic crossover. These connect to the right and left racks, which house duplicate amps necessary to tri-amp in mono-block fashion.

Each of these two racks contain a stereo amp for the woofers, a stereo amp for the mids and a stereo amp for the tweeters. I am dividing the load of multiple drivers between the two channels on each stereo amp. This increases my dynamic headroom and keeps the impedance at a relatively sane level for each channel of amplification. I am therefore using a total of twelve channels of amplification ( each with their own interconnect needed ) AND twelve sets of speaker cables. Like i said, there is NO way to keep this one "pretty". Sean
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Lord, Sean, TWELVE channels of amplification?!? As in 12!?! Wow....

Sol; Good thread, I'll follow it with interest. I do have a rat's nest behind my double wide stereo stand, but don't have a WAF as I have a semi-dedicated listening room. Still, I'd like to neaten up the rat's nest. I have 2 ft. of space behind my stereo stand and the dedicated outlets in the wall behind. The rats nest is mostly camoflaged from all sides except one by the stereo stand itself. I have added wall support for my stiff and heavy Syn Res. Master Couplers. Cheers. Craig

This one is easy. Just buy large enough speakers where the mono amps, interconnect and power cables are hidden behind them.

This of course does NOT work if the wife hates the appearance of the speakers. Luckily not an issue with my better half.