Hiding 5.1

Khannie

So.....the mrs doesn't like stuff like speakers and wires on show. Not overly fond of it myself.

Was just wondering how you lot make your speakers inconspicuous?

Khannie

Ok, maybe I should be asking how you have your 5.1 speakers at all?

Idleater

Khannie wrote:

So.....the mrs doesn't like stuff like speakers and wires on show. Not overly fond of it myself.

Was just wondering how you lot make your speakers inconspicuous?

I am making a "feature" out of the front two - they are large floorstanders. The centre is directly under the TV so it is sort of merged in with that and the rear two are bookshelf speakers on, erm, shelves.

I wired all the cabling under the floor as I was doing up the room. The hifi stack is also "built-in" to the wall so all the cabling and ugly wiring tangle is nicely hidden behind plasterboard. I also put the sub behind the wall which makes for great sound - (not sure how the neighbours like it though).

L.

Alkers

Centre on top of the tv/monitor. Left and right speakers on shelves in the corner of the room and the rear two wall-mounted out of sight just behind the couch.

GristlyEnd

Plasma is on the wall in my setup. Front 3 speakers are on the mantle below the plasma, wires behind the plasterboard. Used fishtape to pull them through from my hifi stand.

Rear speakers are on the wall, again wires hidden behind the plasterboard and behind the skirting board. Subwoofer is in the right corner beside the hifi stand.

Darren

the_syco

Wires hidden under carpet. There's alwasys a bit you can tug up at the wall.

Doodee

same problem myself except that I have Tiled floors :E

Any suggestions?

Alkers

Mount them on the skirting boards and paint them the same colour. They're hardly noticeable.

Khannie

Thanks for the replies. I'll probably put them in each corner of the room up at the ceiling with the wires hidden away behind the wall.

FX Meister

I've done a few first fix installations with the speaker points at ceiling height. Does anyone know how this sounds? I thought the best position was at head level when sitting down.

Idleater

FX Meister wrote:

I've done a few first fix installations with the speaker points at ceiling height. Does anyone know how this sounds? I thought the best position was at head level when sitting down.

Soundwise I don't think it would be _that_ different having speakers high up and pointed down compared to at ear height. Afterall, cinemas have the speakers high up and pointed down.

I think that you just have to make sure to point the speakers down to where the ideal sweetspot would be anyway. It might just be a little more awkward but the end result should be the same. In fact quite a few of the new A/V Receivers now 'auto calibrate' with their own microphones which makes speaker orientation all the easier.

Another thing to look at is the NXT speakers which have (almost) no orientation....

L.

FX Meister

Nice one nereid. I'm moving shortly and plan to do a bit of work on the house when I move in, hiding the cables was one of the things. I'll put them up high so.

Guy:Incognito

nereid wrote:

Soundwise I don't think it would be _that_ different having speakers high up and pointed down compared to at ear height. Afterall, cinemas have the speakers high up and pointed down.L.

Sound in Cinemas is terrible though. It's just like they split a stereo sourch and chuck up a load of speakers.

Sparky

except the ucg, now cine something.
They use 7.1 fed to JBL speakers.

Khannie

FX Meister wrote:

Nice one nereid. I'm moving shortly and plan to do a bit of work on the house when I move in, hiding the cables was one of the things. I'll put them up high so.

How are you going to go about hiding your cables? Knock a line out of the walls and plaster it back up? Is this pretty straightforward stuff?

I'm trying to find the best way to hide lots of cables in the living room (5.1 is a part of this). Some will defo have to go through the ceiling. I've never done this kind of thing before so I'm a little nervous that I'll wreck the gaf and get no hot love for a month.

pH

How are you going to go about hiding your cables? Knock a line out of the walls and plaster it back up? Is this pretty straightforward stuff?

If the walls are solid then yes, if they're plasterboard on timber studding then you can make holes and run the cables in the void.

Timber stuffing uses vertical beams, so running vertical wiring should be no problem -- except for the horiziontal braces that are usually used.

If you remove skirting, and use behind it for the long runs (around the room), then if you make a hole in the plasterboard that will be covered by the skirting you can start to go up, and as long as you come back out before the first horiziontal you're fine.

All this is so much easier at the 1st/2nd fixing stage, all much harder in an already decorated sitting room.

To be honest, if you're serious about doing it properly you will need to redecorate afterwards, so kill 2 birds with one stone - all women feel the sitting room could do with redecorating, so let her have the room decorated as she wants it and get the cabling done properly while you're at it!

Khannie

Nice one. Great reply. Many thanks. One last question:

pH wrote:

To be honest, if you're serious about doing it properly you will need to redecorate afterwards, so kill 2 birds with one stone - all women feel the sitting room could do with redecorating, so let her have the room decorated as she wants it and get the cabling done properly while you're at it!

Fair enough. I'm prepared to put in the effort to get it right. Do you think that someone with very little experience could get it done in a weekend? By that I'm thinking:

Knock a cubby-hole in the plasterboard above the sitting room -> dining room double doors for my projector
(alternative is a ceiling mount, but I'm concerned about the main ceiling mounted light getting in the way)
Run a DVI and power cable through ceiling (or possibly down and along the skirting) to the far left corner of the room (HTPC is there)
Run 5.1 cables from the HTPC to the four upper corners of the room (I'm prepared to leave the bass and centre speakers on the floor)
Plaster all the cack back up
clean up
paint the (average sized) sitting room (it's skimmed).

pH

To be honest a weekend would be ambitious, maybe not for 2 guys who knew what they were doing (if everything was prepared) but for a DIY novice it would be tough...

Its not so much doing the work, more that you would have no reference for solving the (inevitable) problems you will strike as soon as you do the first destructive thing to the room. These will then take the time (and trips to B&Q) to solve

I'd avoid making that cubby hole if you could as it will need to be framed (like architrave around a door) Again not impossible but you'll need moulded wood and a mitre saw etc ... A ceiling mount is much easier, though getting cables up into the ceiling to drop back down might be hard .. what sort of floors/access to you have in the room directly above where you'd want to mount the PJ?

Getting a decent plaster finish is quite tricky, a real plasterer would not sand but you may have too! This is a quick way to having a room/house full of dust. Maybe I'm just biased here cos I can do most things (plumb/do electrics/do woodwork lay blocks) etc etc but whenever I try to plaster it looks like crap!

Even painting, a couple of coats of emulsion(with drying time) and doing the glosswork could easily take up a good chunk of the weekend if you're not a professional decorator!

Khannie

Again, thanks for the quality reply.

pH wrote:

what sort of floors/access to you have in the room directly above where you'd want to mount the PJ?

Not great. We've just moved into the house. I did consider this, but it's laminate, then felt, then floorboards, and like I said, I'm fairly new to this kind of thing (though willing).

Perhaps the ceiling mount is the right way to go allright. The ceiling is stippled, so it should be easier to hide chiselled out bits. I'll check out the cost of the mounts. It might be the same cost as getting a chippy in and have a nice frame around it.

All things being equal, the cubby would be a preference. I'm under some mild pressure to make the projector as inconspicuous as possible.

pH wrote:

Getting a decent plaster finish is quite tricky, a real plasterer would not sand but you may have too! This is a quick way to having a room/house full of dust. Maybe I'm just biased here cos I can do most things (plumb/do electrics/do woodwork lay blocks) etc etc but whenever I try to plaster it looks like crap!

Even painting, a couple of coats of emulsion(with drying time) and doing the glosswork could easily take up a good chunk of the weekend if you're not a professional decorator!

I'm happy enough to sand my (inevitably) crappy plastering job. The last owner made sh*t of the place by not doing so in about 10 spots around the house including a chunk about 1M x 0.5M in the living room. Absolutely shockin' stuff.

I'm a fast enough painter. Plenty of experience there. We did up our last house before selling it. The room needs a lick of paint anyway.

FX Meister

Khannie wrote:

How are you going to go about hiding your cables? Knock a line out of the walls and plaster it back up? Is this pretty straightforward stuff?

THe ceilings are all stippled downstairs so I'm pulling them down and replastering which will give me access to the top of the walls and I can run my cables along with the joists.

melekalikimaka

what bout them cool picture frame speakers,, wires aside, no one would notice em