Hello all. I'm in the midst of building a new house and with that, pre-wiring the family room for 7.1 surround, etc and looking for some advice.

We've chosen and ordered the Samsung 650 series 52" LCD as the "display" for our home theater. As for powering the 7.1 setup, I have a Onkyo 7.1 receiver that I've been really happy with.

From a wiring perspective, I intend to run speaker cable from all 7 locations to a central "7.1 wall panel" I found on Amazon by Dayton. As well, I'll run the subwoofer cable to a discreet location. I purchased four 30 FT HDMI cables which will connect on either end to a "dual HDMI wall plate" by Dayton. From those I can patch into the TV and components. Am I missing anything?

I'm a bit of a loss so far as speakers for the room are concerned. I'd like to use in-wall speakers. I currently have a pair of Definitive rears and Athena fronts. I've seen Boston DSI620 speakers at Circuit City which seem like they might do the trick. Just not sure. Does anyone have any experience with these or have other suggestions?

I also have a McIntosh MA6300 and a pair of B&W 804's that make up my "stereo". I don't think it makes sense to introduce those speakers into the surround sound environment, though correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for the help and advice.

Assuming in-wall speakers (or any surround speakers for that matter), what is the ideal height for the front, side and center channel speakers assuming the individual watching is on a standard couch.

The fronts should be ear level. And the surrounds I think are suppose to be 2 feet above ear level, unless your couch is up against the wall.

This may help to start. This is DOLBY's take on 7.1 speaker placement.

http://www.dolby.com/consumer/home_entertainment/roomlayout.html

As far as speakers are concerned, most here would advocate the use of free standing instead of in-walls if you have the ability to do either. The 804's would work well for the fronts. Most of your sound will come from the fronts, center and sub. The surrounds provide mostly effects so if you had to go to in-walls on them for design considerations, I don't think that would be all that bad but I would take advantage of what you have and stay with the 804's.

Good luck.

McMurphy, is there a way to "share" the 804's between the McIntosh amp and the Onkyo?

Also, do you know what type of wiring I should do in the walls for the 804's (they have two pairs going into the rear - I bought some expensive cables to connect them to the McIntosh).

Thanks!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like I just wire both +'s and both -'s together and run standard speaker cable into the speakers.

I am not an audio expert but i believe that what you are proposing could cause a feed back between the two pieces of equipment and possibly even fry them if you had them both turned on by accident. I read somewhere that what you may want to do is put a switch in for the front speakers something like this?

http://www.nilesaudio.com/product.php?prodID=ABS-1&recordID=Automated%20Switching%20Systems&categoryID=Automated%20Switching%20Systems&catcdID=10&prdcdID=FG00271

If I understand it correctly, you would feed speaker wire from both receivers into the box and then out to the speaker. It autodetects a signal and directs which ever to the speaker. It should not make a difference for 2.0 or surround as you are just intercepting the signal going to the speaker that has already been processed by your 7.1 unit and the signal has already been split.

I would feel much better if you posted this particular question to the AUDIO/AMP section of AVS and get some expert advise.

Good luck. Hope I didn't confuse the issue.

The way to share the 804s between the McIntosh and the onkyo would be to take the L and R preouts from the onkyo (assuming it has preouts) and plugging them into an input on the McIntosh. Since the McIntosh doesn't have a 'home theater bypass' like some other preamps/ integrated amps, you will still be using the volume control in the McIntosh. In order to keep the sound level balanced between the L/R speakers and the center/rears, you would have to choose a particular volume setting on the McIntosh and calibrate the system, then everytime you use the home theater (onkyo) you would have to set the McIntosh to that same level.