Do I have to mutilate my BOSE speaker wires to make them work in a new pre-wired room??? (1 Viewer)

[mrcp77]

Little help please? I have the Bose Lifestyle V20 system that comes with 5 speakers that have traditional bare speaker wire on the end that connects to the speakers but the other end terminates in an RCA type plug that plugs into the powered subwoofer. I bought a new home that I have the option of getting pre-wired with 16 gauge speaker wire but wouldn't I have to cut my speaker wires near the RCA plugs and splice in the speaker wire provided by the builder so they can still connect to the sub? Is this safe/recommended or do I run the risk of inferior quality? The only other thing I can think of is to give the builder my speaker wires in advance and have them build it into the walls but that would leave me without my system of almost 6 months! Any help is appreciated!

 

[Stephen Tu]

If you are getting a new house pre-wired, presumably this is only for the surrounds? Normally you'd have them wire so that there are wall plate terminals that look something like:


Then at the speaker end you just use normal wire from the terminal to the speaker. At the other end, closer to your equipment, you could just use the existing wire from your subwoofer to the terminal, no splicing required.

If the room is large enough you should consider prewiring for 7.1 (surrounds on the rear wall behind seating, in addition to the normal surrounds to the sides of seating) in case you upgrade later.

For best sound quality, sell the system, the limitations are with the speakers not the wiring, Bose is rather disliked by home theater enthusiasts since you can get much better sound for a lot less.

 

[mrcp77]

At the other end, closer to your equipment, you could just use the existing wire from your subwoofer to the terminal, no splicing required.

Thanks for the reply and the suggestions! The wire that feeds into my subwoofer from the speakers isnt bare speaker wire, it ends with a single RCA type plug. So if the builder runs one of these terminals (or even if they just had a piece of speaker wire hanging out of the wall) I have nothing to connect to it because the subwoofers input for the speakers is an RCA type plug and not the traditional + and - connections that you can feed bare wire into. So i figured i would have to cut the RCA type plug off and then splice in a stretch of speaker wire so that a coonection could be made between the wire in the wall and the subwoofer. Does that make sense?

 

[Stephen Tu]

No, not making sense. You aren't thinking clearly and simply.

You have existing wire, that is RCA plug on one end, bare speaker wire on the other, right? You plug the RCA into the subwoofer. You plug the other end into one of these wall plate terminals, close to the subwoofer location.

The wall plate terminal has connections on the other side. You use regular speaker wire and run this in wall to another wall plate terminal, near the surround speaker. Then you run regular speaker wire from the end terminal to the surround speaker.

 

[mrcp77]

THANK YOU! I SEE! I am new to this pre wiring thing and I failed to see the simple solution you suggested. Now that we have that out of the way, and since you've seem to be quite knowledeable, until I upgrade to something better how much attention do I have to pay to speaker placement? I hear alot about how important it is for fronts and surrounds to be ear level but the TV will be mounted above a pretty high fireplace (mantle in 53" hight, current tv is 42") which may leave the front speakers a foot or so below the lower edge of the tv, does how high the tv is above the front speakers make a diff? Also my wife is giving me grief over having the surrounds "floating" in the middle of the wall (if the couch is in the middle of the rectangluar shaped room she thinks it will look awkward having them popping out in the middle of an otherwise empty wall) so she wants the surrounds wired on the back corners of the room but this will put the surrounds 4 feet BEHIND the viewer as opposed to beside them which I believe is optimal. Also, Is there any harm in putting fronts and surrounds in corners of room just below the ceiling (9') or is that too high? Thoughts?

 

[Stephen Tu]

- I forgot to mention that the terminal near the subwoofer should also be near where you put your components, in case you change system in the future which would then have wires going straight from receiver to the terminal instead of into the subwoofer. Also I would advise having wires set up for 7.1 (rear surrounds in addition to sides) in case you want to add them later, if the wife allows.

Check out
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/home_entertainment/speaker-setup-guide/index.html
as a guideline for how the speakers are supposed to be placed.

- the surrounds are supposed to be above ear level, not at ear level. It's fine to have them up near the ceiling pointing down, still to the sides of the seating location, rather than in the middle of the wall.

- the fronts however should not be placed in the corners. Usually you put them on stands on the sides of the TV, the idea is to roughly form a bit narrower than equilateral triangle between the viewer and the speakers. Corners of the room is a lot wider than normal, usually you just have them a few feet on either side of the TV.

- Very strongly advise against above the fireplace mounting. It is going to cause uncomfortable viewing, you have to tilt your neck up all the time. It's just not practical for home theater, it might look OK that way from a home decoration stand point, standing up looking at the room, but for actual seated viewing it's a disaster. Consider putting the TV on a different wall altogether if there is not space alongside the fireplace. Draw a diagram of the room and attach if you need suggestions.

 

[mrcp77]

Thank you once again, you certainly are a plethora of great advice! I visited the dolby site and i'm afraid the "optimal" setups have been vetoed by the wife, apparently having the tv on the wall opposite the fireplace in the "Great Room" wouldn't be "zen(???)" but when we get the basement finished in a year I'll pre-wire for 7.1 and get a system that doesn't come in one box! Thanks again!