Helping friend with theater room in his new townhouse (1 Viewer)

[McPaul]

Right now it's a 27" tv and a HT in a box. He will upgrade when he has money.

I was thinking about running flat speaker wire up inside the HT front wall, out at the top, and along the ceiling, where he will have his little HTiB speakers hanging from brackets. We bought brackets $28 and flat 16g (is this ok?) wire today ($1/ft)

I'm a little concerned about when he upgrades and what is a common way to run spkr wire that is in the ceiling down to speakers on stands?

His room is about 20' x 14' (I'll have to measure to be sure) however because of where the stairs are, his couch will only be about 14' back from the front wall. I suggested that for a long term project he build a box "step" to put the couch on for theater seating behind his loveseat. He really liked this idea.

Problems with the room ... slanted ceiling (it's a 4 level split condo), one wall is stairs up and down and a railing into the dining room below that runs the rest of the length of the room. The other wall has a long, large window.

Where can he pick up the dark covers for the window that I've heard about on this board? and what is it called? Home depot? Revy/Rona?

is there anything he can do (sonically) about the railing and open space to the dining room a half level below? (and the dining room ceiling is stepped (1/3 of it is the height of the theater room ceiling, the rest is shorter to acommodate the bedroom below. Will this do anything to his sound? cause some odd reflections? and is there something that can be done about it?

that's most of my questions for now. I've got to get to bed so I can get up and help do stuff tomorrow...

Thanks guys!!

 

[JustinG]

As for running the speaker wires...
Are you going to run them in the walls or just up the walls and accross the ceiling?

If in wall, go up the wall from the receiver, across the ceiling (in it) and down the back wall where the 2 speaker stands will be. You can have one wall plate behind the receiver that has 2 pair of binding posts in it. This will give the wall a finished look.

On the wall where teh speakers will be, run each pair down the wall where they will end up behind the proper speaker. Then mount a plate where each pair come out with one pair of binding posts (mimicing the front wall setup). Then just run speaker wire from the speakers to the wall plates.

If you're gonna run them outside the wall, you can run them along the base boards or under the carpet and have the wires come out the back where the surrounds will be. I've done this in several places before.

From the sounds of the room, it seems like the carpet/baseboard route is the way to go. If you have ever seen it, there is usually a 1/2 to 3/4 inch gap between the baseboard and slab/subfloor. You can then stuff the wire in this gap to hide it. If you have to span a doorway, you can cut a small slit in the carpet and run under it. The slit would be about 1/2-1 inch wide and you won't be able to see it when you remove the wires.

Good luck.