Setting it up.

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by kaillum
her reply... without even asking her....

" I didnt want the bl**dy surround sound ANYWAY!!! and I dont want to see the bl**dy wires!!!"

and who says we dont understand women

damn women! Then they moan if the sound is tinny or whatever.. Yeeesh. They just dont understand us technophiles.

[kaillum]

Originally posted by fondie
well the sony one's from that link i posted ^^ are only a tenner more than the argos ones, i think wifey is getting the idea of this home entertainment lark though

yeah... cheers for that link m8e.. gonna order them tomorrow...

[fondie]

cool, hope you get enough peace from the wife to actually enjoy your new system maybe she'll even come to like it and she'll be begging you for more wires! prehaps

prehaps you might like to look at this http://www.diyha.co.uk/wiring/installation.html for a few wiring ideas including bringing the skirting board a bit out from the wall with some wooden batons to create a channel, and i think you can also buy skirting board with channels aready built in, also, is there no way of creating a channel under your flooring, i don't quite get exactly what is under there? de-cork it? hehe

[Punky]

why not cut grooves into the cork under the floor, and put the wires into the grooves?

[THCi]

Are the laminate boards blued together? If not, take a single board out (if you are luckey enough to have the boards running parrallel with the skirting) and place the wires underneath the skirting, if there is the normal room for carpetting under there?

[Bindibadgi]

Isnt there ususally a 1/4"- 1/2" gap at the edge of all laminate flooring to compensate for wood movement over time and weather change?

[kaillum]

there is normally a gap between the boards and the skirting board to allow for expansion.. but in their infinate wisdom someones invented a magic cork like material that fills the gap and expands and contacts with the boards... i'm gonna look at taking the cork out tonight and see what room is left there... otherwise its a case putting the wires on the top of the skirting board and disguising them somehow...


and unfortunately THCi, the boards are glued together, and they run the wrong way to the skirting board to just lift one up...

oh well, another night on my hands and knee's trying to find a way of making it work..

cheers for the idea's guys... all help is appreciated...

[Zak33]

Kaillum....my man...you and the whole rest of the world are fighting the "women hate cables" thing......give up.....you'll lose...only the hairdrier is allowed to be so badly sotred that the cable gets in everyones way...

Right....on to the problem in hand.....DONT lift the floor board...AT ALL. Dont ruin it .Its a new house...its lovely...leave it.

The flooring should be running lengthways AWAY from the major window....ie away from the bigest light source. Its how they are done to disguise the joins.

For MY money, I'd do the following.

A :Look of the back of the satelite speakers (front and rear) Do they have holes in.....holes deep enough to hold a wire "peg" or "pin"

If so......you just get coat hanger wire... bend it to make a bracket, with a twist in the centre of your new creation, for a single screw for the wall, with a big washer.....so
you make brackets for free...it takes practice but its free

In my livingroom, for my front left and right speakers, I have them supported in the CORNERS of my living room walls with single headless nails banged into the walls, and then the speaker simply slid onto them, into the holes on the back of my speakers....if you cant do that, unscrew the screws in the top edge of the back of the speakers, loosen then, wrap wire or even nylon around them, tighten them back up and use that to hang them out of the way. Totally invisible AND easy to repair when you take them down.

I hope that makes sense....to recap.....either bend coat hanger wire to make a home made bracket that slots into any holes on the back of the speakers OR unscrew the heads on the back of the speaker and use those for wiring them to the wall....

NOW.....cable

If the walls are WHITE or PALE, then conduit is the BEST solution.....you can get smaller stuff....but its HARD to cut and then get the lid back on it Always on TOP of the skirting NEVER around the base cos the floor will be hard to clean

Forget a remote rear speaker set up...you STILL need power to the speakers, and therefore cable to a plug and one between the speakers

No good.....

so my last idea....and this is PSYCHOLOGY.....get stands (or make brackets) and get two cable tidies ......then ALWAYS put the rear speakers away after a film.......do this religiously for several months.....then..one day.....run the wires close to the skirting and leave it out over night after a film.....and simply wait until she iether mentions it or not!

THEN use conduit/ducting along the skirting boards....

thats what I'd do......tidy it away every time you use it. Just use the fronts and the centre for daily stuff.....besides....they're only tiny, and will fit in a draw or cupboard and you will appreciate them more for films

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by Zak33
Kaillum....my man...you and the whole rest of the world are fighting the "women hate cables" thing......give up.....you'll lose...only the hairdrier is allowed to be so badly sotred that the cable gets in everyones way...

You're wrong. My dad and I ganged up on my mum and got ADSL installed and we now have ethernet cables all around the house. Although, she did semi-supervise and made sure i routed them under the carpet whenever possible.

It wasnt until after id finished and we'd had adsl installed that i happened to mention the existance of WiFi hehe

[Howard]

Conduit is the best idea IMO.
It's not hard to cut then put the lid back on...Dunno why you found it so hard Zak..?

Wireless speakers are crap quality even for rears. Especially in Dolby Digital / DTS applications where full bandwidth is delivered to all five speakers. Maybe they'd be acceptable in ProLogic only.

Putting the speakers away every time is just unnecessary hassle...Conduit is easy - it's self adhesive so is easily stuck to the wall above the skirting, looks neat and smart, and you can buy it in diameters as small as about 10MM - sufficient just for rear speakers as the cables provided with all in one systems are rarely thick 12 gauge things.

I always thought the conduit was pretty specialist stuff...To find the higher quality, smaller dimension stuff you need to shop around a bit. But I'd still highly recommend it over glueing wire wrap (That'll look untidy if any glue is showing, and generally won't look as neat) and any other methods such as packing away the speakers each time!

Just my advice after setting up quite a few surround sound systems in different environments.


The small satellite stands from Argos I think have "cable tidying" features so the cable is not trailing all over from the top of the stands to the floor, just maybe a little bit where it goes from the stand to the conduit.

[Zak33]

Originally posted by Howard
Conduit is the best idea IMO.
It's not hard to cut then put the lid back on...Dunno why you found it so hard Zak..?

OH mate I had a NIGHTMARE with it. When I cut it, the overlaps that hold the lid on were ruined and it wouldn't come off

And once its stuck on.......to the skirting board or whatever, the lid only came off by SLIDING, not by pulling.....and it wouldnt slide cos it was wall to wall.

Horrible experience....so whatever you buy..TRY IT in the shop first

[kaillum]

thanks for the advice guys... 'specially Zak.. great informative post there m8e..

I rigged up the system to try it while watching Fight Club last night, and it sounds pretty awesome, even to my untrained ears!!

gonna go with the speaker stands for all 4 speakers.. bit more expensive, but think it would look loads better as the Sony ones have a hollow centre that allow the cables to run up...

Gonna go with the Conduit way, so this weekend is crunch time, gotta gloss the skirtings before I put it on tho
gonna have a shop around the local DIY stores and see what size conduit I can get, as you've said smaller the better...

was having a look at the layout of the room last night, and the main wall I need to run the conduit across is under the front window, and the window sill is quite low and is hidden either end TV stand on the right and a radiator on the left... so i'm gonna get the smallest conduit I can find, and run it underneat the window sill, and then down to the skirting underneat the radiator, but then its got to go around the door frame... and behind the sofa for the rears...

thats the plan... will let you know how it goes on when its finished

[Zak33]

cor...exciting innit....hope it works

MAKE SURE YOU KNOW which is positive and negative cables on each strand.....ie at BOTH ends....AND if you have 2 lots running together, label them with tape BEFORE you start work

AND.....im my humble opinion....the REAR SPEAKERS should be ABOVE your head height and pointing AT EACH OTHER..ie firing across the room at each other....

the fronts should be the same height as the TV screen pointing inward toward your sitting position....

the CENTRE should be as near possible to the TV as you can get it...(I personally cant tell diff betwen under or over but) most agree under the screen is best.....

Then.....you need Saving Ryans Privates and Final Fantasy on DVD.

Why Final Fantasy? Cos its a created piece, and while you might not like the film/pc game link, its really ace AND the sound is awesome.....it was not filmed....its animated with computers SO there was no tie or restriction on where sounds came from

Any other films for him to watch / hear/ live through?

[kaillum]

out with the l337 paint skills!!

first a piccy of the front room.. coz I like it
This is taken from the other side of the front room, and shows ish where the tv and sofa's are.



now for the l337 paint skills... an over head plan of the front room would be something like this...



with my indended positioning of where I think the speakers should be... is that right?

or would it be better with the centre under the TV and the fronts either side of the tv? with the rears where they are???

we mainly sit on the 3 seater sofa, and as the tv is off to the side of the room, I thought it would be better for the sound field to be around the area your sitting...

lemme know your thoughts guys..

cheers again for all your help.. i'm a bit of a n00b at this lark!!!

[fondie]

it's a nice idea, but unfortunately, that'll only work if you face towards the centre speaker and move your eyes to watch the tv, because if you turn your head to watch the tv then the positioning will all go to pot, as the right front will become the right rear channel, the right rear channel will be directly behind you etc. if the tv and sofas are staying put then the best position for the speakers probably is as you say, either side of the tv, a la :-



i'm afraid my paint skills are poor, so haven't got the angles of the speakers at all right, and you might like moving that rear speaker (the one opposite the window), further up a bit, as you look at the image. you should play around with angling your rear speakers, if they are positioned very close to the listening positioning then some people find better results by not having them pointing directly at the listening position but prehaps towards a wall or a ceiling to produce a more diffuse effect.

if your willing to move your room around a bit though, tv in front of the window, with main viewing area being the opposite wall would probably be the room optimum. just seen that'll block your window quite a lot though, so not much use afterall.

[Howard]

Your room layout is certainly less than optimal. Can we have a photo of the other half of the room?

You could perhaps try moving the TV to the right of the fireplace and creating a slightly smaller surround sound area, which will still sound good, like this:



Or if you really can't move the furniture much, then this would be better than your current layout:




The rear speakers shouldn't really be placed facing each other, aparently this is only good for ProLogic where you shouldn't be able to localise the rear ambience effects. With Dolby Digital and DTS they are meant to be more aparent.
Use things like Terminator 2, Star Wars Episodes 1 and 2, Minority Report, U571, etc, for superb sound to test it to it's limits!

And place the subwoofer as close to a corner as you can!

With the conduit, I don't see why Zak had any problems. To remove it you just get a screwdriver and pry it off from the top or bottom. No need to slide it. You don't need to slide it on either, just align it and give it a hearty whack with your fist all along it.

Each set of cables will probably have a small thin black line running down the positive strand, and will probably have labels on each end for determining which is Left and which is Right. If not, just test. Play the amplifiers test tone and see whether the sound coming out of the rears corresponds with which speaker it says is playing!