Planning the Home Theater - prewire questions and others (1 Viewer)

[abednego]

I'm in the process of finishing my basement and I'm done with framing and electrical, except for the speaker wiring. (If I leave out some important details, please kindly let me know what other information you need.)


I'm looking at an overall budget of about $8K, but I can see now that this number is going to increase. I would consider a projector, but I want to be able to use the system for not only watching movies and sports but playing video games (PS3 and Wii) as well. I don't know if there would be additional lag/delay when gaming with a projector versus an LCD or, preferably, a plasma. There's only about 10' max from where a projector could be positioned due to a large soffit, and I'd like the screen to be as big as possible for a ~13' viewing distance (underneath the soffit).


I'm mostly concerned with audio quality. I'm really looking forward to just sitting and listening to CDs for the first time in a long time. This will be a 5.1 system.


But for now I need to run the wiring so I can get the rough electrical inspection finished and move on to drywall!


I've visited a couple home theater stores in the area, and at the second store they were recommending wiring from AudioQuest, I believe the size I requested was 14 gauge. My questions are mainly about placement of the wiring and the type of wiring.

• I see that some wiring has two conductors and some has four conductors. Are four conductors necessary?
• Can someone recommend good quality wire that won't break the bank? Is it really necessary to buy super-expensive wire? I'm going to need about, oh, 150' to run the system I believe. I'll be crossing perpendicular to various romex runs.
• I read the article from Home Theater Magazine Speakers: Where Do I Put Them and reviewed the recommendations. A lot of them I won't be able to accomplish due to the size and shape of the room. There simply isn't enough room, for example, to put 3' behind the main front L and R speakers. If I'm 13 feet away from the TV, the speakers should be, therefore, about 10' apart. The rear speakers would be about 10' away from the main listening position, but according to the article the placement depends on whether they are dipole or not. (Right now I'm considering either the Sonus faber Toy or PSB Imagine system, but I haven't done any research, truthfully.)

At this time I haven't picked any of the components. Kind of a blank slate at the moment. As I mentioned, my main concern at the moment is getting the wiring in the right place.


Thank you for your help!


-abe

 

[dmiller68]

I would recommend looking at monoprice.com good cables at a reasonable price. There is no reason to go to with Monster or other overpriced cables. Just go with a good gauge.


http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239

 

[abednego]

Four conductor or two? Is 14 gauge adequate?

 

[dmiller68]

I would do 12 gauge. Two conductor is fine but you could make one run for every two speakers if you use four conductor.

 

[abednego]

But don't some speakers have four posts on 'em? Why? Wouldn't a speaker need all those wires then?

 

[dmiller68]

Yes if the speakers have four or six in the case of my old center channel then it would support bi-wiring. I did do bi-wiring on my center channel but I really never noticed much difference.


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Will it sound any different if you biwire? Some people think it does, but I've never heard any differences, nor have any of our laboratory measurements or scientifically controlled double blind listening tests ever demonstrated there are audible differences. Axiom includes the extra terminals as a nod to those enthusiasts who believe that biwiring results in audible benefits and for the bi-ampers.


This quote is from http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/109419.html