Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Pulling wire for my HT room - questions

Hello all......

I finally have the motivation to complete my basement. The next step is to lay out the HT room wiring and soffets so I can sheet rock this room. The room dimensions are 12 feet wide by 15' 6" deep, with a ceiling height of 8' 6". The walls and ceiling are insulated with some 6" sound bats and the walls are shear walls with 1/2" plywood under a layer of rock. The ceiling is still open to the BCI's with the exception of the insulation. I will be installing T&G knotty pine on the ceiling to keep it the same as the rest of the house (IE, log house with lots of wood).

I want to run enough wires and cables to satisfy a few years of technology advances. My plans are to buy a projector and most likely move my M80's and Outlaw to this room. Then I'll pick up some backs, surrounds and center Axioms. In the front of the room (where the screen will be), I plan to build some permanent shelves and sofet this area out 24" to give the HT a 'built in look'.

Getting to my question, where should the surround and surround back speakers be placed so that I can pull the speaker wires? Toward the ceiling, or? How far back in the room?

What cables should I run to the projector location? How far back should the projector be mounted to the ceiling?

What speaker wire should I be using? I know it should be plenum rated, but what gauge and do you have a suggestion to manufacture and / or link to where I can buy a reasonably priced roll or two?

Anything else I should be thinking about?

thanks in advance..........mike

if your running the wire inside a space that is used for air distrobution you need plenum rated wire,if not then you need just a inwall rated wire.plenum rated wire gives off low smoke or low emmisions and is code(at least where i live) when used in air systems weather it be ductwork or a space used for air dist.as for ga.bigger is better.imo....good luck

One piece of advice that I wish I had followed is to run all of your wires (especially for video) inside a good sized conduit. This will allow you to change cables with technology changes. I did not do this and am now stuck with DVI in wall cables with no ability to upgrade to HDMI without tearing down sheetrock. Doh!

Conduit is a good idea. I had planned to run conduit to the J-box that will be above the projector, but was going to run the speaker wire without conduit.

Anyone have any comments on speaker and projector placement in this room? I’ll be working on it this weekend and would like to know where to place the J-boxes and run conduit and wire.

Here is a good place to start on the speaker placement.

As far as the conduit goes, you shouldn't need it for speaker wires, but definitely run it for the projector wiring. Use at least 2" PVC for that. Make sure you don't put the outlet too close to center. Depending on where your projector ends up, you don't want to have the conduit outlet in front of the PJ.

As far as the placement of the projector, that's really dependant on the actual projector you choose. The throw distance on projectors can vary tremendously. I would poke around Projector Central and look at some of the recommended projectors. They will have throw distance calculators that you can use to see what the different throws are in relation to your room. To do so, you will have to have an idea of what your future screen size will be. You'll also have to consider whether you want a 4:3 PJ or a widescreen PJ. This will affect the type of screen you'll need. Also, there is a vertical offset with projectors (top of projected image is lower than the lens vertically if ceiling mounted). This shouldn't be too much of an issue, unless you are mounting to a large soffet that is significantly lower than the ceiling. This really only plays into how long your PJ mount is.

As far as cabling to the projector, that's really dependant upon your applications. I presently have a 25' svga and a 25' component cable pulled. The svga cable will go away once I have my receiver that does component switching. If you think you'll need it, you can pull an s-video, as well. However, this type of application begins to beckon for a receiver that does video upconversion, which then limits your needs to a single component cable. Just make sure you pull through extra strings for future pulls. It's a pain to pull cables through once another cable's in there, so you end up pulling one out and then pulling both back through. Not having extra pullstrings available could make it more difficult.

Another thing to consider is where you put your speaker outlets for the fronts and centers. Make sure you don't put them centered on the screen wall (made this mistake). They will be a distraction. The same goes w/ the power outlets. Both of them should be offset to where they'll be behind the speakers, etc.

Good luck.

Thanks for the links. I'll check them out.

2" conduit!! Daaammmmmmm that's big. Why so big? I thought I was going oversive with 1".

Take my example for a minute....I have an svga and a component pulled through right now. When you are dealing w/ a 25 food run, both cables are going to be beefier than the cheapy little Radio Shack 5 footers. The component that I use is actually a strip of all three wires, so it's at least an inch wide. Now, you take that and the width of the head of the svga and you now have a big lump of cabling coming through the conduit. On top of that, you have to remember that the surface of the PVC and the cables isn't a slippery arrangement by any means. Therefore, you don't want to have any added resistance coming from the clump of connectors as you pull it through....the general resistance between the wires and the PVC will be enough. Finally, you have to think of the future. When you start getting into DVI connections, 1 inch becomes VERY small.

Oh yah, almost forgot. There is also the issue of the 'turns' in the PVC. Make sure you buy the gradual PVC turns (larger radius). The turns are what generate the resistance, so you don't want to have a sharp turn. This is another reason for the 2" conduit, as the turns on 1" are going to be shorter radius.

Good point, thanks. I'm new to the higher end cables and their respective sizes. I appreciate the tips. I've actually got about 4000 hours on the books with IEBW before getting sucked into management. Even though I've ran a few thousand feet of conduit and pulled all sorts of wire, this HT is all new to me. It's refreshing to see acurate installation advise on a forum.

Hi Mike,

Just to sound a cautionary note, since all rooms are different, it might be prudent to wait until the speakers have arrived before you decide ahead of time where you are going to place them. While Axiom QS8s/4s are very accommodating to asymmetrical setup, it's always useful to try listening to them in different locations/heights. This is especially true of subwoofer placement. You may decide on a location and then discover either your couch or the sub is in a "null" where you hear little or no bass. The standing waves in a room are a function of its dimensions, where you sit, where the sub is located and the wavelengths involved, so some care in placement coupled with some listening is essential.

Regards,

There you have it....you now have an excuse to buy the rest of your speakers prior to completion of the basement. The only problem is that you have a chicken and egg scenario. Without drywall up, you can't really get a good sense of how your system is going to sound. However, if you wait until that point, you can't go back again and do your wiring. Hopefully, your room is 'standard' enough in shape that you won't have any weird reflection points, etc. In that case, you start getting into the area of accoustic panels and sound dampening....fun fun.

As far as theater construction advice, you might want to start trolling over at the Home Theater Builder section at the AVS Forums. There are a great bunch of people over there that can answer any question you can come up with. It's also a great place to view other people's theaters and pick up ideas. I have learned so much over at that forum about anything from projectors, HTPC, electrical work, construction, theater building...you name it.