I’m very happy with the Taperwire product, and happy with my install! I don’t plan on painting the flat wire to match my baseboard— it looks just fine to me. After moving the furniture back, I don’t notice the wire on the baseboard at all. Hope this is helpful to some other folks out there.

Another (easier) option is to install a low-voltage junction box in the drywall about 2′ above the baseboard (like the green box I have above) in between your speaker and the slit in the drywall. If you have an electrical outlet on this wall, match the height of your junction box with that. Use this hole in the drywall to make your connection between the flat wire and the normal wire like I did for my first step. Use the same trick with the string and a washer to get the (now normal, not flat) speaker wire up the wall to your speaker/bracket. When you’re done, just put a blank wall plate over the junction box.

Next, I took a wire cutter (you could use scissors) and slit each strand in half the long way and then folded each on top of the other. You need to do this so the wires fit into the connector blocks. Also, I stripped back about 1 inch of bare wire— I found I needed this much to have room to bend the wires so they’d make it to the openings in the connector blocks.

Here you can see the first side of the connection is complete. The termination blocks work with a small flat head screw that bends down a metal connector onto the wire you’ve inserted.

I’m using the same type of white speaker wire as I was using at the start— this wire will go from the termination block up to the surround speakers.

Here the termination is all done— the white wires are connected and I’ve screwed the termination blocks to the baseboard (screws are included with the blocks). After playing some music through the system, I figured out which wire was which and I marked the terminals R+ R- L+ L- with a red Sharpie.

I just used the putty knife to help make the turn, wasn’t hard at all. The adhesive on the wire is just right— very sticky, but you can adjust it a little as you go.

Here the run is about 2/3 complete and you can see the flat wire along the baseboard.

I ran the flat wire along this wall to the corner and behind the couch to the middle of the wall on the right side of the photo. Again, this is a good example of how noticeable the flat cable is after installation.

Here’s the end of the line! I trimmed the wire (you can cut it with scissors) and prepared the ends for the termination blocks. The wire comes with good instructions for doing the terminations— you use a razor to separate the copper wire from the white front and adhesive backing.

Here I’ve cut the white wires and connected them to the flat wire with the special connector blocks that come with the spool. There are better pictures and explanations of how you expose the 4 strands of wire and connect them to the terminal block a bit later. After this, I just pushed the wires back into the wall cavity. I’ve also added a wall plate here for the main right speaker, but if there wasn’t a speaker here, I’d just use a blank wall plate.

Here is the completed photo of the starting end. I took the photo with the camera at normal eye level— you can see the copper colored wire going to my main right speaker, and you get a good sense of how noticeable the flat wire is (i.e., not that noticeable). Looks pretty good.

The copper colored wire is for my main right speaker. The two white cables are for the surrounds. I needed to run the surround wires from left-to-right in this photo. But how to start?

I cut a slit just above the baseboard and planned to have the connection between the flat wire and the normal wire stay hidden inside the wall.

Needed to make sure I inserted it with the white-side up. You’ll see why in a minute.

Once it was in there, I needed to fish it up and out of the green box so I could make the connections. I started with this grabber thing, but ended up using a bent coat hanger.

Here you can see the wire going in the slit in the drywall, then back out the junction box. I’ll make the connection to the white wires in a minute.

Next I want to get the wire down onto the baseboard and start running it to the back of my room.

The orange colored part you see is the back to the adhesive. For the part going into the wall cavity, I wanted the sticky part covered up, but now I want to expose it. I took a razor and carefully cut the adhesive backing and peeled some back.

Here I’ve pulled the adhesive backing away.

And here I’ve pulled the wire back into the wall a bit (I pulled on the end I’d fished back out the green box) so the only part coming out of the wall has the exposed adhesive. I’m ready to start sticking it to the wall & baseboard.

I used a plastic putty knife to help me with the angles & turns. Here I’m sticking the wire to the drywall for just a 1/4″ or so before the baseboard starts.

Now I’ve got it down the baseboard and am ready for the turn. The simplest thing to do is one 90 degree turn. But then the adhesive-side is facing out into the room. I could have put the adhesive side out for the first little run (would have required me to insert it into the wall pink side up), but I’m just going to double-up the fold to keep the white side out.

So I fold it as if I’m turning to the left, but then fold it back on itself so we can turn to the right. It makes this turn triple thickness, but I thought it was worth the tradeoff for not having to paint.

Here is my first corner– I just use the plastic putty knife to help make a nice crease.

Here it is so far. The color isn’t a perfect match, but it looks pretty good.

I had already run wires up to the TV and through to the main right speaker (by the left-most window). But wasn’t sure how best to wire the surrounds.

I did consider going through the walls— cutting up the drywall and/or removing the baseboard and cutting a channel in either the backside of the baseboard or the drywall/studs. But that seemed like too much destruction.

I decided to go with flat speaker cable and run it along my baseboard.

Choosing the Wire

I started at one of the big-box stores, figured I’d patronize the physical store if they had a decent selection and had samples available.

They had just one kind in the store (I did ask if they had others) and no samples. So I left. The one kind they had was Acoustic Research Microflat cable. Couldn’t figure out what gauge, probably 18. This was a 50′ roll for $55.

The big drag with this: the cable is for just 1 speaker. I needed to drive two speakers (left and right surround) and wanted to run both sets of wires along one wall. So first I’d need two of these spools (now we’re up to $110) and I would need to be careful to line up the two cables next to each other or on top of each other along the baseboard so it looked reasonable. Forget it.

Some Googling showed some other promising options. First I searched for Monster Cable. They have a line of SuperFlat wire, but it turns out to not be super flat at all. I found this stuff called Flatwire from DeCorp that looked really nice. Super thin. Cons: still need two runs of cable, plus it requires painting (unless you like the copper look), and doesn’t include ready-to-stick adhesive on one side. Both of these last two could be ideal for some installs— if you need to do lots of 90 degree turns, you wouldn’t want paint/adhesive on there. But I didn’t want to deal with adhesive or painting. Next.

The best product I could find for me was Taperwire.

The clincher– they make a 4-strand cable, so you run one wire that drives both surround speakers. It comes with adhesive on the back, and the other side is white.

I purchased through Sewell Direct, listed on Taperwire’s site as an authorized dealer (Amazon didn’t list the 4-strand option). The price was $55 for 50′, and you only need 1 spool since it includes 4 strands. So it’s cheaper, and I only have to run one strip, and comes already white and with the adhesive on the back. Perfect.

By the way, Sewell Direct was great— they sell this wire in white or clear, 2 strands or 4, 16 or 18 gauge, and in tons of different lengths from 10-100′. I had a little trouble finding exactly what I wanted (4-strand, 18 gauge, white, 50′)— Sewell had live chat support via their web site that was extremely quick and helpful. I placed my order.

It arrived in a few days. Here’s the spool:

Here’s a close-up of the outside:

And here’s a close-up of the inside– you can see the 4 strands of wire: