Home theater system setup...

[Samuel L. Jackson]

it would be so easy to get wires in the wall. better than drilling in your floor. well it would be easy for me i do this for a living. if you havent retro fitted wires before let someone who knows what they are doing do it

I've moved a cable outlet before, but got lucky enough to find an unused existing hole in the floorboards right between the studs I needed... I just cut the box slot in the drywall, fished the coax up, and connected it to the faceplate...

That said, the wall along the right side of the living room is an external wall, so I am assuming it has insulation and crossbeams that would make it nearly impossible to run a wire through... Is this not correct?

Edit to add: I've read that if you run speaker wires alongside existing wiring runs it can cause interference... is this not true?

[Carolina Husker]

Do you have a crawl space you can run the wires underneath?

[Samuel L. Jackson]

Do you have a crawl space you can run the wires underneath?

Our land slopes like something fierce, so in that area, I can go under the house and it's like 3-4 feet tall... I can probably stand and lean over... or at least work from my knees...

Also was going to throw in: That wall on the right side is not only an exterior wall, but it also has a brick/concrete porch just outside it... I don't know if that hurts/helps my chances at fishing a wire through the drywall...

[SMACKDAB]

My truck came with a Bose system.....and I LOVE IT!

[southcakalac]

I've moved a cable outlet before, but got lucky enough to find an unused existing hole in the floorboards right between the studs I needed... I just cut the box slot in the drywall, fished the coax up, and connected it to the faceplate...

That said, the wall along the right side of the living room is an external wall, so I am assuming it has insulation and crossbeams that would make it nearly impossible to run a wire through... Is this not correct?

Edit to add: I've read that if you run speaker wires alongside existing wiring runs it can cause interference... is this not true?

Good questions.

The exterior wall will be insulated, but I doubt it will have blocking in it (cross beams as you say.) There are these rods called glow rods or wire fishing rods that are about 6 feet and can be connected together to make longer ones. They are very flexable and are made to fish wire through walls. It can be done on a exterior wall.

As far as running low voltage wires with high voltage here are the rules.

Never run wires next to them. If you have to cross them, that is fine. That wont cause any interference with your audio.

Here is a link for the glow rods. http://www.lsdinc.com/content/product_details/51

[Samuel L. Jackson]

I'm probably going to finally get around to setting it up tonight/this weekend... At first, I'll probably run the cables across the top of the floor during the initial setup, and then once I get it sounding how I want, I'll venture under the house and see what everything looks like...

Thanks for the advice everyone!

[southcakalac]

So what you would do is this.

Measure the height of the speaker placement. Cut out a single gang box hole in the wall where you want the speakers to be.

Go under house with drill, find your location and drill a 3/4" hole up between then exterior wall and the interior wall. Attach speaker wire to glow rod and then feed up through wall. Have someone on the other end ready to grab the rod coming up.

Then feed other end up to your console area. Then repeat.

As far as finding the right spot to drill under the house use these tips.

Look for things such as electrical outlets,air returns on the wall to give you a point of reference. Someone tapping on the location helps too.

[southcakalac]

I'm probably going to finally get around to setting it up tonight/this weekend... At first, I'll probably run the cables across the top of the floor during the initial setup, and then once I get it sounding how I want, I'll venture under the house and see what everything looks like...

Thanks for the advice everyone!

I would do it opposite. You can always tweak the sound. If you cut the speaker cable you are stuck with those lengths. It might come up short if you do retro later.

[Samuel L. Jackson]

I would do it opposite. You can always tweak the sound. If you cut the speaker cable you are stuck with those lengths. It might come up short if you do retro later.

Well the ones Bose provides are a set length (50 feet) and have connectors on the end... They aren't the typical speaker wires where you put the bare wire into either the speaker or the unit...

So, first I have to make sure I have enough length above the floor and try to judge if I have enough to run them sub-floor... If I have any excess, I will just bundle it up/tie it off behind the box or under the floor...

[Samuel L. Jackson]

My truck came with a Bose system.....and I LOVE IT!

Mine too... I love the sound of it!

[Seamonk]

gross bose. *shrug* i guess if you like it, it's good.

i'd suggest doing it drywall/floorboard, simply in the event that one of the wires goes bad, or you wanna rearrange the configuration for whatever reason. probably moreso if you ever move (nice house btw). i guess if you want pro or prosumer advice, some place like hardforum would help, but since it's a bose, i'm sure you can just get away with what you plan on doing.

probably the best way would be to get some wire concealer thing and run it around the wall and decorate it all fancy in order to conceal it. this way you don't have to drill holes or damage the integrity of anything.

[Samuel L. Jackson]

Well as of right now, it's all hooked up and we have some speaker cords ran along the baseboard/across the opening to the hallway...

I'm going to venture to Lowes at some point to see what kind of options I have for concealing the wires without cutting into the drywall...

It sounds amazing though, and I couldn't be more pleased!

[southcakalac]

Cutting drywall is no big deal. Do it right and retro the wires!

[Samuel L. Jackson]

Cutting drywall is no big deal. Do it right and retro the wires!

That'll probably be the plan eventually, lol.. but for now I am just too damn lazy... Hell, we might even just have to step over the one cord until the beginning of next year for all I care, and if she whines about it I'll just blame her for buying the system for me... hahaha