How to Retrofit 'Hidden' Speakers
By Jason Knott
We follow CE pro who upgrades 5.1 home theater setup to a 7.1 system by adding rear surrounds.

The bottom line regarding any installation in an existing home is that you never know what you will find - and no matter what, it's guaranteed to take more time than you thought.

That was the case as CE Pro followed electrician Steve Slapski of Granby, Mass. as he installed a pair of Triad Designer Series Speakers. Slapski is an experienced electrician who has also been working in low voltage for years in his service business.



The installation of the speakers themselves went like clockwork. The five-part directions (yes, he read the directions!) were simple to follow with absolutely no problems.

"Once I got to actually installing the speakers themselves, it was a piece of cake," says Slapski. It was the issues encountered before he got to the speakers that turned this 2-hour job into half a day.

The 13x18-inch rectangular units are "stealth" speakers in that they are skim coated with plaster as the final step, making them completely invisible in the ceiling (or wall). In this case, the units were being added as rear surrounds to upgrade an existing 5.1 home theater setup to a 7.1 system. The 20x24-foot room is a multipurpose playroom/mancave in a 3-year-old new addition above an oversized garage.

Heat, Wiring Snags and Sawblades
Problem #1: As luck would have it, the day of the installation was the hottest day of the year, a record-breaking 95+ degrees in New England. So the prospect of crawling into the attic to pull the wires was not attractive.

Click here to continue.