I've recently moved into a new home, and for the first time, have a dedicated room to use for my home theater!

The builder pre-wired the room for 5.1, but I don't think the job is up to my standards. They used 18ga wire, which seems a bit anemic to me. The room is 17'7" front to back, 14'2" wide, and has a 10' ceiling. (The ceiling is actually a tray style, sloping from 8' at the walls, up to 10' about 3' from the wall.) The walls are drywall with knock down texture.

I'm pretty sure I need to increase the wire gauge; and for the cost involved, was thinking of going to 10 or 12ga wire. In doing so, I'll end up doing some pretty good tear up of the drywall, and was thinking that perhaps I'd be better off applying some acoustic treatment to the walls, and could use this to hide the wiring / torn up walls?!

My first looks into acoustic treatments have been companies that do bass traps and acoustic panels that seem very pricey. This problem seems fairly low tech, and there must be some inexpensive solutions available. (I'm pretty handy, and willing to do some construction.) Seems like this is an area where a little knowledge might save some major expense!

Is there someone in the group that's tried this? Any recommendations on materials? Any recommendations on how to go about choosing the materieals, and a way to place the materials without lots of trial and error?

In case it's pertinent, I'm looking at using Definitive Tech speakers in a 7.1 configuration. BP7001sc's for the fronts, CLR2500 center, and BPX surrounds, all driven by a Denon AVR3805.

My advice would be to have a Home THeater company come in and look at your situation. They can probably run new wires without having to rip the drywall off. Is your basement finished, do you have a drop ceiling in the basement, do you have a chase ceiling on either floor? There should be a way to get the wires there without creating to much damage. By the way, the BP7001's are excellent speakers as well as the Denon Receiver. Good Choice. Ask the people who sold you on the definitives and the Denon if they can get new wires in.

Mike

The room is on the second story of a two story home. About 1/2 the room area is covered in the attic space by plywood sheeting that is supporting HVAC equipment. Moving that or getting under it is more trouble than poking holes in drywall and patching. The other half of the attic space for the room is inaccessible, due to changes in roof pitch, and the way the trusses are attached.

I was hoping to forego having the home theater company come in and tell me what to do for acoustic treatment, as all the solutions I've seen available commercially seem incredibly expensive for what they are.! ($300 for a single bass trap!)

I can't imagine the company that's going to come in and recommend that I go to the lumberyard and buy 4, 4x8 sheets of R6 pressed fiberboard insulation, tell me where to place them, and all will sound great And even on the sites I've seen, sounds like mostly guessing as to what is needed for an application. I was hoping to apply at least a moderate amount of science to keep from throwing good money into the fire.

Anyone know of good books, web sites, etc?

Don't worry about the 18G wire. Seriously. The room is tiny. It will be a non issue.

I agree. If you are not sure hook up your system and do a test. Use the 18 gauge wire that was installed to hook up the speakers and get some loose 12 guage and keep it ready. Listen to the speakers wih the 18, then switch it for the 12 an listen again. I think you will find that any difference you might hear (if any) is not worth the expense.

If you still want acoustic treatment at lower costs swing by www.auralex.com. They have good general solutions that you can get for more realistic money.

It sounds like you are looking at building diffusers and traps. There is a lot of math and science involved in these - that is why they seem pricey. They don't just have a bunch of these sitting around that they ship out when you order. They use your room dimentions to custom make them for your theater. If they don't custom make them for your room - then you are basically just buying artwork. Building them youself to actually treat acoustic problems is probably not a good idea. If you just want something cool looking to cover your walls - then go for it.

Hope that helps!

BC, I generally agree that you won't have any problems with the 18ga. wire. I, too, have an all DefTech system, and use 2 x 14 ga or 12 ga, but my room is 16' x 25', and (I'm guessing) I run more power than the average bear, as I have a bit of hearing loss. (WHAT?)

However, we all know that nobody wants to hear that their equipment is adequate, so: where are you? I've never met a room I couldn't wire, even one with no attic and/or crawlspace access. It's not impossible, just challenging enough to make it wortrh the effort.

Glad to hear that you are getting to build a theater. I wanted to chime in and let you know a couple of things: 1) Bass traps tend to be very inconsistant in terms of performance 2) The placement of acoustic panels is a very specific science and is not a matter of just guessing - talk to an acoustician at a local tech college and you'll see what I mean. If you are serious about building a high-end theater talk to a few professionals in your area as their experience can be invaluable in terms of what they charge to design a room. I will tell you that the construction of the room is as important if not more so, than the quality of electronics that go into a room. Keep in mind that if you are going to live in the home for a while the room will always be there while you may go through many different system configurations. Good Luck!

Thanks for the comments guys, thought I'd give an update.

I've decided for now to put the speakers in place using the existing wiring and see what it sounds like. After I get things hooked up and working, I'll do an A / B test with some 12 ga speaker cable on the fronts, and see if I can tell the difference. (Actually I'll be trying to hear the difference!)

I need to run a component video cable from the front to the back of the room, so I've decided to try a product I found. It is basically a 3/4" deep plastic channel about 3" tall. The baseboard gets removed, the wallboard is cut away to allow for the plastic channel to be put in place. The plastic channel gets nailed in place at the studs. Run the wires, and then snap on the cover. Last the baseboard gets glued to the channel cover with construction adhesive. In the future if I need to run wires, just pop off the baseboard and reroute. I think this might be a decent solution. Anybody else actually tried this?

I talked with 2 "Acousticians". I'm using that term loosely. They were both of the "lets stick lots of broadband absorption in the room, and see how it sounds" school of acoustics. Absolutely no science from either of these guys. I asked them about where to choose to place the absorbers, and got two different answers. The first guy pretty much said it's trial and error. The second guy said it didn't matter. When I told them I'd read that a panel should be put at the first reflection point, (Sitting at the listening position, have someone move a mirror along the wall, when you can see the speaker in the mirror, that's the first reflection point.) they commented that that seemed like a good idea...

I don't trust much of anything these guys told me, when my 2 hours of research online seems to give me a better understanding of the issues than they had. Does anyone know of someone with a good reputation in the Dallas area that won't charge me several bodily limbs?

Thanks for the info you've provided so far.