Is it o.k. to run the power wire with the speaker wires?

I recall that you don't want to have your power cable come near your rca amp cables for interference reasons. But what about the power cable running in the same space as the speaker wires? I'm talking about running the power cable and speaker wires in the floor board at the edge of the driver's door. Since I'm coming in through the firewall at the boot on that side, I figured I could just run the wire easier that way to the back. I don't have to do it, but it seems to be the simplest route to take. Any good?

 

Yes, you can run them together without anything bad happening. Mr Marv answered this question in detail in the General Car Audio FAQs sticky at the top of the Audio/Video page. Here's what he wrote on it. And good luck with your install!


Q: Do I need to separate my power wire from my speaker wire and interconnects?

A: This is a myth that has been around a long time. I believe it came from cases where people ran the wires together and got induced noise. They would then separate the wires and the noise would go away so they figured it was the wires next to each other that caused the problem. This can be dispelled quite easily if you look at it this way-it takes a positive and negative connection to complete a circuit, correct? The ground wire from your vehicles battery is connected to the chassis/body correct? So if that's the case no matter where you run the speaker wire/interconnects they will always be "on top of the power wire" per se, correct? . This is not to say that there cannot be noise induced with the wires next each other rather that the problem was most likely caused by a bad cable, something electronic the wire was near or what I call a "hot spot" on the vehicle where the wire was and when said wire was moved "away from the power wire" the noise went away.
BTW, I've run all the wires together in the countless number of systems I have installed over the years and have never had a noise problem in any of them.

 

Sounds good, thanks. It's amazing how much dirt and trash gets under those plastic covers. Looks like a rat lived in there.