In this post I will highlight some options for running rear home theater speakers without installing long speaker cable runs. Running long speaker wire is often a problem in homes that are not prewired for audio. Also, if zou have certain building materials in some of your rooms like hardwood flooring, it is often impossible to hide speaker cables. In these cases you’ll need to look for an alternative.
Wireless surround kits are a popular option. These kits are offered by a number of 3rd-party manufacturers. There are kits that ship with one wireless receiver per kit and some that ship with two receivers. Having two separate receivers is a nice feature as you can dedicate one receiver to each of the two rear speakers. This will help cut down on cable clutter. However, most entry-level kits only have one receiver. In many cases one receiver is all you need since you can easily hide the connecting wire between the two rear speakers under your sofa or behind a cabinet that is placed along the rear wall, like here.
Some manufacturers of home theater kits also ship their own proprietary wireless products. Most of these are configured as an option. You can often find the expression “wireless-ready” on a product. This expression indicates that you can add a transmitter module which will convert the rear speakers to wireless. The speakers themselves either already have a wireless receiver built in or can connect easily to a wireless module. In most cases, wireless-ready speakers are active speakers. Those speakers have an RCA audio input which can connect to unamplified audio.
As an alternative to wireless products, there are also infrared and powerline products on the market. Infrared products are much less common these days since their range is fairly short and their signal is easily blocked by people. Also, the signal is confined to a single room.
