Home theater build thread

[Adol45]

In process of building my home theater from scratch. Building new Home and we are several months out from it being completed. Real great friends with youthman he helped me find my first Klipsch system. I bought RF7,RC3ii,RF3ii, Denon AVR-591, and a Polk 10 inch sub for $400.

 

Yesterday I purchased RS7 , RC7 and RSW12 from @boston_klipsch.  Had a really great visit.  He was a super nice guy.

 

The room is 13' x 19'. Youthman and I met at the house this morning to discuss how we are going to run the speaker wires and HDMI cable through the wall before the drywall is installed.  We talked about adding conduit for the cables but I have 3 external walls and we are not sure how conduit would fit behind the drywall.  We also were thinking about installing a wall plate for the HDMI cable and the surround speakers to keep everything clean up front but am unsure if there is enough room for that as well.  

 

Youthman said the Klipsch community would be a great resource as I begin my journey of building my first dedicated home theater.

[Gnote]

I would run conduit and as large as you can possibly get away with. If you don't run conduit run more cables than you think you will use, I promise you'll be thankful later. Run Cat6 everywhere ,almost everything short of power can be run through it including HDMI. I would still run the actual HDMI's that you know you will need . Think Projector and Flat Screen even if you don't plan on it at first. Think Atmos even if you're not planning on it, There is so much else , ventilation , lighting etc , etc. Think about your layout and then overthink it again and again . Once the walls are up and insulated you are pretty much stuck with what you have . You ceiling can be your friend if you leave it accessible some how for running new wire Pro's can wall fish down an insulated wall (it can suck but it can be done) horizontally once you hit a stud you are done ( There are a few ways to maybe get through but it is time consuming thus expensive).  After you have made your decisions and it's all done , sit back and enjoy 

 

[dtr20]

Run as many cables as you think you might ever need, and then test them before you put up the dry wall, especially the hdmi cables.

[JohnA]

If it's not too late, try to move the side walls so they are not parallel.  It spreads out the room modes, so there are many small ones rather than 1 - 3 dominant ones.  I built this at my old house. 

 

 

A stair stepped ceiling also diffuses reflections and hides your projector. 

 

[Pathos]

On 3/31/2017 at 3:06 PM, Gnote said:

I would run conduit and as large as you can possibly get away with.

 

I had my walls down to the concrete and regret not putting in conduit to pull cables through.  I thought I had everything I needed, I tested all my cables, everything was good to go, but one HDMI end was crushed after everything was framed in.  Almost impossible to run another one without opening up the walls.

 

Good call Gnote and I can't agree with you more.

[CECAA850]

It's hard to see but are there wires running on the face of the 2x4's??

[Coytee]

My guess is they're going through the 2x4's and there is a nail plate (or whatever it's called) put in front of them to prevent a stray nail from going into the wood and finding the wire.

[Coytee]

Adol....where to begin!

 

Here's what I did.

 

I ran a set of the following of the following from my closet to each speaker location.  (knowing that I'd not need it all at once)

 

2 pair of speaker wires (in case I biamp with amps in closet)

2 pair of XLR wire (in case I biamp with amps AT speakers (this is how I'm running things))

2 RG-6 (why?  I don't know....I had the wire!)

1 pair of CAT-6 wire (why?  I had the wire!)

2 pair of RCA wires (in case I biamp with an amp with RCA inputs)

 

to my center (TV) location, I ran two HDMI lines in addition to FOUR Cat-6 wires.  I use the HDMI but, have the CAT-6 in case the HDMI dies and I need to run my TV over the CAT-6 wires.

 

Ran four circuits at 20 amps each.  I have four dedicated outlets (8-plugs) for each circuit in the closet and another 3 outlets (6-plugs) at each speaker location (front left/center/right)  EACH of the outlets has the upper plug switched and the lower plug is always hot.

 

I have 4 switches on the wall (this was the brilliant part) where the wife or anyone can simply walk into room, hit the 4 switches and it's all turned on.  Leaving for bed?  Hit all 4 switches and it's all off.  Wife doesn't have to think about things.

 

Took me a while to think things through, get the wires and....solder them all in the closet!  Last Christmas, my wife's nephew was here.  Had his Xbox and wanted to use it however, it needed to be near TV to "see" you and lines were too short to cross room to stereo (I wanted to let him have some fun)

 

I was able to patch the output into the wall jacks and take the signal BACK to the closet and then patch into the stereo.  Worked like a charm.

 

[Youthman]

On 4/3/2017 at 7:16 PM, Coytee said:

My guess is they're going through the 2x4's and there is a nail plate (or whatever it's called) put in front of them to prevent a stray nail from going into the wood and finding the wire.

That is correct.

 

Unfortunately, being exterior walls, there isn't enough room to run conduit so I took @WakeJunkie advice and drilled several holes with a paddle bit in the top 2x4 to make a "channel" through the 2x4.  Then I added another furring strip to the width of the that "channel" so that if we have to fish cables down, they will go straight down to the low voltage box below.

 

@Adol45....where u at bro?

[Youthman]

We also put duct tape on top of the insulation to help prevent it from ripping should we need to run cables in the future.