Audio Systems: 25 volt speaker systems, litmus test, expansion works


Question
Our church sound system has a 25 volt speaker system. We are doing some expansion works and will be adding a couple of speakers. I am also adding some audio runs using Cat5 cable and baluns. My question is, can these all be run in the same conduit or do I have to seperate out the speaker wires? Than ks.

Answer
Technically with cat5 the twisted pairs cancel out any hum or extraneous signals. 25volt means that the AC signal rides on top of 25volts DC. I hate to tell you that you shouldn't have problems and discover that you were my litmus test. If you want to be safe, I say run them separately. On the other hand if the run isn't that long and you have extra cat5 you can always run another line outside of the conduit if there is a problem. If you are running it in conduit for neatness or code I understand, but both cables can be run outside of conduit.