iXtreme

I'll put the HD in it's spot once the hardwoods are in. Probably a few weeks still but it's a work in progress so no rush.

Thats the only way to get all four sat's working. RCA to minijack (1/8) then miniplug to dual minijacks. The 4.1's are good, but not good enough to notice any signal loss via this hookup.

Nope, the ideas were all mine. I did alot of research into proper cabling and looked at alot of photos which in some way may have influenced my decisions but the layout is all me. Thanks for the compliments.

Here is a pic of the HT. It's not quite done yet. Ignore the sofa and exercise bike as those are both gone really soon! There are custom made cloth grilles to fit over the speaker cabinets (openings) for a seamless look (covers entire opening). I also have to add trim around the audio gear racks below the speaker cabinets. The TV opening is exactly sized for the Sony 57" HDTV widescreen I have on order. If you look at the top of the pic you can see my room length bass traps I custom made using drywall. The bottom right of the picture you can see the housing I made for the rear channel and it faces the seating area just behind where the new couch will be. What do you think? I'd like to hear your opinions.

Yeah, it's a little hard to tell from the pic as the camera is not very wide in angle at all. These are in the computer room which is off the hallway that is off the hometheater. The room is 15 X 13.5 and the side you don't see has a custom built-in desk designed for two PC's and the front channels of the 4.1 it on the desk. The sub will go under the desk in the middle where I found it gets the biggest boost from the environment where it sits. The desk and HT are wired for CAT5e for the network and for the use of he HDTV receiver which apparently will have network capabilities in the future. With the strong implementation of wireless 802.11g the wiring may become nothing more than phone cable in the future

I saw them on monster cable's web page and found them on the net for fairly cheap. Can't remember the price off hand. They are here, if you want the specs and such: http://www.monstercable.com/productPage.asp?pin=553 Don't buy them there as they can be found elsewhere for quite a bit cheaper. They fit the slot on the bottom of the 4.1's SO well you'd think they were custom made for it. Even the black coloring is an exact match to the speaker housings. I am so impressed with the outcome I HAD to share.

... here's another of both in the shot. They are about 6 ft. apart and are set just right compared to where I sit in front of them. edit: If you look at the wall switch, the switch on the right in the double gang is an IR controlled Lutron dimmer for the wall sconces on the opposite wall. I can adjust my lighting on the fly during heavy online game play. Adjusting lighting to the darker.lighter maps is well worth the cost of the dimmer.

I'm designing the ultimate (imo) home theater in my basement and my computer room gets some TLC too. Here are my mounts for my 4.1's. I ran electrical boxes before I put drywall on the ceiling, after the stipple was sprayed on I put standard blank covers on the boxes. I drilled holes to attach the Monster Cable mounts to the plate covers and another set of holes to accomidate the wiring. I was unsure if I should have wall mounted or ceiling mounted but I chose the ceiling in the end to get them as high up as I could. No banga' da' head on em' then. I have posted some pics... let me know what you think. Thanks alot.

Cool, another Beyma fan. I use their reference 6-1/2 2-ways in my whole house audio system upstairs. I use 2 seperate Audiophile 20W X 2 amplifiers to power the zones and am getting great results. The amps have tons of headroom for their low power output and no apparent distortion even at 95% output. I am thinking of hooking up a Rio Riot to the system to have access to my whole CD library but we'll see. Great speakers, great amps and all for under $150.00 cause I was patient and did them when I could find the great surplus deals.

Anyone here ever used the 20Gb Rio Riot MP3 player? I'd like to use it in my whole house audio system as the source, it has room for every one of my CD's at 192kbps and then some. Seems like a good deal at the $150.00 I could get it for brand new. I'd like some feedback if anyone's ever used or owns one. Thanks in advance.

Fronts to fronts, rears to rears. The sub takes it's signal from the fronts so the center/sub out on the soundcard will not be needed for the 4.1's. Simple hey?!

I knew that'd get some one's attention. As soon as I get my digital camera back I'll be sure to post some pics on this thread. It may be a day or two but I'm sure you'll be impressed.

See, now that's funny! Not irritiated in the least.... just would be nice to see someone post without someone else answering the post with a "mine is bigger than yours" comment, thats all. I have two subwoofers and although they are not in the $1,500.00 each range they do just fine if you all wanted to know:) I bet I have one of the if not THEE nicest layout of most anyone here but I say nothing cause it makes me look silly to brag. Oooops, I guess I just did.

Well la-tee-da... "I use 12 subs!" Dosen't anyone else ever get sick of your constant bragging? I've been here for over 3 years and that's all you really do. Sometimes one has to read between the lines but bragging is all you do. Everyone is guilty of bragging somewhat from time to time but thats all you ever really do! Man, give it a rest for awhile.....

Sorry to hear about your slight error in judgement. It is laughable though. Trying hard not to laugh here. Oh well, we all have our blunders. I remeber trying really hard to get a peice of 1/2" thick drywall between the framing and window frame itself during the finishing of my basement. I used a wood block and a really big hammer and eventually got the drywall into the slightly undersized slot. It was hard work however but seeing as the window frame was PVC it gave a little during the install. My reward, seeing as I JAMMED this peice of drywall into a "too small slot" the window would no longer operate, ie: open up. Now that was a bit*h trying to get it back out of there! Almost broke the window trying! Should have used a bigger hammer!

Is there any way to get all four satts. working when using the 1/8 jack input on the preamp? I am going RCA left and right to 1/8 stereo jack into the satt. from the TV and using this connection seems to shut off the rears? Any fix for this?

How did you manage to plug the 120V plug end of the Klipsch into your 240V outlet? Isn't that like trying to bash the square peg into the round hole? I KNOW they are not the same plug/outlet so you would have HAD to jam it in somehow. Good job!

I think you'll find that sound travels no matter how you build your walls. Doing fancy stuff with the studs is NOT going to stop the sound from traveling. Insulating between the wall finishings will muffle it and really cut it down but will not stop it. I personally would drywall as it leaves more options open to you for finishing then paneling would and looks alot better. There really are no nice looking panels..... because they look like panels. Drywall is alot smoother and cleaner finished. It can also be fixed no matter what happens. My 2 cents.

You are somewhat comparing apples and oranges. The reason gigabit won't work on cheap cat5 cables (not really possible though to have cheap cat5) is the poorly done twists in the wire possibly. Either too many or too few but there is really no such thing as cheap cat5 cable as I said, as the cable has to meet certain requirements to even be called cat5. Cat5 also only truly meets 100 hZ and gigabit requires 1000 hZ to attain full speed. Maybe it's mhZ but you get the idea...... As far as cable is concerned even the most maximum lengths required in a home would have in-measurable levels of resistance. I have one cable run somewhat over 60ft. and if I run a resistance check on it, it's at 0.00. Thats a 16ga. Audacious Sound Cable and is not expensive and works equally as well as ANY monster cable you could get. I would bet a blind sound test on it. You will of course hear improvements if you want to especially if you paid alot for the cable but sonically there really is no difference you could hear if you did the test honestly.

I think so too. I believe that sound cards in general are not nearly as good as the makers would have you believe. I think there is too much electrical noice inside the pc case and it truely does effect the overall sound quality.

Since my basement and computer room are not done yet I have my 4.1's hooked up to my TV in the soon to be HT area. They truely sound better on my crappy 27" RCA t.v. then they do on my PC with a Fortissimo II sound card. Not sure if it's the acoustics of the room in play but the total output is higher and sounds better. Anyone else hook up their 4.1's to something else and find them better that way?

I do not own RF7's but have heard enough to answer your question. There are two sets of inputs for bi-wiring capabilities. If you don't know what that is then don't worry about that capability. There should be some sort of metal straps joining the two reds and the two blacks together, just plug your bananna ended cables to one set of red/black and you're ready to go. If not, make jumpers to join them together and then do what I mentioned.

I would but I'm not ready to mount them yet because they are going on the ceiling, not the wall, and the ceiling is not stippled yet. How about you just go to Monster Cable's web page at the link I have in the first post and see for yourself that they have 360 deg. rotation and 210 deg. tilt. The socket actually tilts side to side a bit too for even more possibilities... like a 3'rd dimension adjustment. They are made of aircraft grade aluminum if that means anything and they also provide for wire managment to look even tidier plus their color exactly matches the Pro's housing. Or maybe you think they (Monster) are also lying...... I know how manufacturers like them like to false advertise on this sort of thing (joking...). Trust me, I've looked all over and these ARE the best solution for wall/ceiling and vertical/horizontal mounting bar none.

...and another... perhaps blurry a bit too....

Here's proof..... sorry for it being a bit blurry....