Remodeling my bedroom theater.

My fellow home theater enthusiast has been trying to talk me into doing something about the state of my bedroom theater at some point. Here's what I currently have set up.

Mitsubishi 46" CRT Rear-Pro
Yamaha RX-V1600 Receiver
Panasonic RP-61K DVD Player
DirecTV HR-20
5.1 Yamaha speaker system circa 1998

What began as a quest to replace my 480P/1080I behemoth TV with a Panasonic plasma has gotten... more complex. In an effort to make the room more elegant we've decided to wall mount the TV and move all the components into the bedrooms walk in closet.

Now, I could just mount the Yamaha speakers on the wall. Or I could go with some in ceiling mounted speakers. I like the idea of in ceiling speakers as it's less obtrusive and will be easy to wire as the bedrooms ceiling is the attic.


So I'm narrowing the plan down with my installer. Here's what we're thinking.

Equipment List
Three KEF Ci200.2QT's, one front left, front right, and center channel.
Two KEF Ci160.2QS's for my rears.
Panasonic TH-50PX80U Plasma TV
Oppo Digital 980HD DVD/SACD player.
And some tiny 8" sub mounted under the bed. TBD


Install
The front's will be wired in Music Mode so they come down when they receive an audio signal from my Yamaha RX-V1600. I'm hoping the downward angle of the motorized drivers will help imaging on the bed.

The Panasonic will be wall mounted to the and pitched down slightly to allow easier viewing in the bed.

We'll use a hardwired IR retransmitter to eliminate lag in commands from my Harmony remote. The video signals will be delivered to the TV via a 25' 24ga HDMI cable from the RX-V1600.

I'm planning to expand in the future by wiring the receivers second zone outputs to the master and guest baths which will allow me to install some dipoles at a later date.

My viewing habbits in my bedroom are HDTV and TV series on DVD. For movies I have a dedicated home theater in my basement. So any input or suggestions would be appreciated.

Well, the Panasonic is a flat panel plasma. As for the in wall speakers, I can't. The far wall where the TV is is the wall into the bathroom and I'm very concerned about mosture. So the ceiling speakers will have to do. Thanks for the input though!

Any recommendations on IR re-transmitters?

I still need some recommendations on wall mount brackets for this installation. I'm looking for ultra low profile w/ a 10 deg down tilt.

As well as how to wire the power for the TV. I was considering an extension cord from the Tripp Lite in the closet, through the attic, and down into a hole in the wall behind the TV. It seems like the easiest but also the most unprofessional way to do it.

Idea's?

Well, the goal was to completely eliminate any theater furniture in the room at all. The Bello stand, while nice, would remain empty given I'm relocating everything to the closet.

I only need the one HDMI to the TV as my AVR can transcode other sources to HDMI. As for the speakers, they're already delivered to my house.

Still need advice on the wall mount though.

Well I have the shelves and the electrical wiring in place. I plan to measure out the ceiling speaker locations this week and try to get the speakers in and fished by next week. I'll post some pictures of the shelves as soon as I clean up the paint a bit.

Oh I'm aware. I was going to wait until I had all the speakers installed and the plasma hung to do an audio test and see where my reflections are. I'm not planning on this being a very loud setup, I'm mostly going for unobtrusive. I want it to look clean. I might have to put up a couple of wall pannels.

My whole house is done in an Asian/Industrial theme so I might be able to use some shoji screens with batting behind them to cut the sound down. You can see the screens I used to make my entertainment center. I might just disassemble them and mount something behind them to damped the sound.

I finally got the chance to start installing my bedroom theater having had the boxes of parts laying around my condo for months now.

I started by cutting the holes for the front three KEF Ci200.2QT's.





I then had to climb into the attic to move the insulation from around the holes and put the housings in place for the motorized speakers.





Here's a picture of me in the attic.



Once that was done I was ready to install the front three speakers. Fortunatly my dad was on hand to help with the heavy lifting.









We then moved onto the rear two Ci160.2QS's. We started by drawing an outline of the speaker to cut out.



We then cut out the holes and mounted the rear speakers.







All 5 in ceiling speakers are now mounted. They are not, however, wired up yet. I have to relocate the RG-6 for my satellite and wire up the HDMI cable that will be running to the plasma screen. I figure I'll spend another day wiring the speakers for power and sound, installing the HDMI cable, and putting in the in-wall break out box in the closet.

Monoprice is an excellent company. I use them for all my cabling needs, home theater or not. The only complaint I've ever had was thier shipping times suck. Generally takes 7 days to get something to me from thier CA location.

I ended up going with an Acme Mounts GUB-1 mount.




I'm surpised my dealer didn't recommend the Panasonic specific one since I am using a Panasonic plasma but I bet he was concerned about future compatability. I just wanted something that would mount the TV as close to the wall as possible as it's immediatly in the door way of the bedroom.

As for the speakers, I mounted the center channel 6" from the front wall and centered to the wall with the front left and right 30" to either side of the center. The rears are 4" from the rear wall and 84" apart putting them 7" further left and right than my fronts.

The fronts are motorized and will articulate down 30deg making them face the listener directly. The rears are not but are far enough to the outsides of the bed as to be where you'd want a dipole speaker. I'm still planning a smallish subwoofer under the bed fed via RCA wall jack but I won't install that until I do the in ceiling wiring. Likely after Thanksgiving.

ImJay,

Thanks for taking the time to comment! It's always fun to hear from other enthusiasts. Especially considering my co-workers think I'm nuts.

I do indeed have a dedicated theater room. If you look at my signature there is a link to it. Currently it's using a Mitsubishi 62" DLP TV and a KEF 7.1 iQ system. I watch 90% of my TV in the bedroom and almost 100% of my movies in the theater room. That might change slightly once Oppo releases thier BluRay player and I can move the Oppo from the theater into the bedroom.

In the theater I eventually plan a JVC RS-2U projector and 109" Draper screen. But for the bedroom I wanted something simple to install, long lasting (no bulb replacements), and unobtrusive. My 46" CRT Mitsu takes up considerable floor space, the plasma will correct that problem.

So, I agree with you 100% about recreating the theater experience in home. And I will do so probably early fall of next year when my finances are in order enough so that I can afford the projector and screen. I spent the money I planned to use for that on remodeling my kitchen. I'm glad I'm a DIY kinda guy as kitchens are REDICULOUSLY expesive to contract out.

The speakers were purchased from a friend who is a KEF dealer. I've not had the opritunity to hear these particular speakers but I have heard other KEF in ceiling speakers before and was very please with them. They seemed to be higher quality than the other In Ceilings I'd looked at like Speakercraft and such. The front's may not work for your application as they're rather tall to account for the motorized housing. I'd say at least 10" worth of space. So unless your basement ceilings good and deep the Ci200's might not work.

As for the price, I hate to say but that's between my dealer and myself. I do some install work for him from time to time and he gives me a reasonable price on the speakers. If I had to guess on retail, I'd say you could probably get the whole set for about $1500-$1200. That would include the 3 fronts, the 2 rears, and the amp to power the motors on the front speakers.

I love KEF. I have a 7.1 KEF system in my theater room that's amazing! Living as I do in St. Louis makes it difficult to find a place to audition thier speakers. My dealer doesn't have a show room per say and the only company that does sell them in town needs to learn a thing or three about staging speakers.

I finally uploaded the pictures of the closet before I painted and built shelves as well as some after pictures. They look a little yellow due to the flash but they were antique white when I started as you can see from the first picture.









Here's the shelf install:



The shelf is 22" wide and 22" deep making it perfectly square. I used 1x2" for supports screwed directly into the studs. I then mounted a piece of birtch finish plywood to the top. I finally trimmed it out with some rounded moldings. I also installed a grounded outlet for my power needs. I also cut a hole in the top shelf in the rear left corner and installed a cable gromit to run wiring through.

I used ebony stain to smooth out the finish. It took 3 coats, sanding between coats to get a smooth finish. Unfortunatly as you can see the stain ate RIGHT THROUGH the painters tape.



I then painted the room with Valspar Shark Loop Grey paint.











As you can see, the paint covered the stained drywall nicely. Next up is the installation of the On-Q in-wall wiring terminal in the closet and wiring up the in ceiling speakers.

Theres a slider under the access pannel that you can adjust to set how far downwards they articulate. It's not remote controlable to my understanding although there is a RJ-45 connector on two of them which might go to an optional bus controller.

Well, I'm not getting it currently but that doesn't mean it's not something to be concerned with going foward. Actually my attic was remarkably dry. I do hate blown insulation though. I really should have worn a mask and I will the next time I'm up there to run the wiring for the TV and power to the speakers. I'm wondering if I should paint them when I paint the ceiling.

Well Matt, Dad, and myself put in a full 2 days work and got 90% of the room finished! Big thanks to YourAVHandyman aka Matt for his expertise and assistance getting the parts, assembling the equipment, and finishing the install.

Now, on to the pictures!


TV Bracket

Originally the plan was to use this Acme mount with our distributor insured us would work perfectly fine with the Panasonic plasma. Guess what, he was wrong. The screw holes would not line up with the mounting bolts on the rear of the TV resulting in us needing a new mount from Peerless. The new mount ended up being far better as it is now COMPLETELY flush to the wall. In this photo we see the old Acme mount, the wall box, the HDMI cable, and the electrical before the outlet was installed. What's not show is the IR Blaster receiver which was installed later. We left the plate removed from the back of the box in order to back feed the extra HDMI and power cabling into the wall.




Workin'

Matt, Dad, and myself then got to wiring. Here Dad gets down with some romex wiring.



Here is me removing the old coax and speaker wiring that was tucked under the base board.




Here's Matt soldering some connectors for the speaker power leads and working in the attic.








Closet Wiring

Here we cut the hole for the in wall terminal plate and pulled through the wiring. Pictured is the wiring for the satellite and the power/turn on leads for the KEF speakers.



Here is the back of the terminal block we used to wire the room too.



Finally here is a picture of the equipment connected and racked up. You'll notice the DVR is on cardboard boxes. I found the hard drive spinning caused the shelf to "hum" slightly. I plan to eventually mount some rubber matting under it to reduce the vibration.




Mounted TV

Here are two pictures of the Panasonic mounted on the wall. In the first you'll notice how there is ZERO room between the TV and the wall making it appear totally flush. In the second you'll notice the IR reciever mounted under the TV used to relay the IR commands via hard wire to the component rack in the closet.






Some Thoughts

Now that everything is more or less installed there are a few things left to attend to.

1.) Automatic speaker triggers.

The speakers are designed to motorize down either by switch or by a trigger sent from the AVR. Currently its set up to run off the AVR and while cool it is... distracting. The center speaker is a model year older than the other two and it's servo motor is distractingly loud. When you're about to go to sleep the last thing you want to hear is it retracting the speaker into the ceiling. To that end I think we're going to rewire the trigger to be switched as opposed to automatic. That way when it's time for bed I'm not jolted back into conciousness by the speakers.

2.) Subwoofer.

I don't currently have a subwoofer in the room but will install one as soon as I can come to a decision. We've not pre-wired for it just yet as neither Matt nor I was particularly interested in playing around in the ceiling insulation anymore than nessicary.

3.) IR Blaster.

The wiring is in place but I've yet to hook up the actual flashers to the equipment rack as we'll be tearing it back down to get to the PSU for the speakers. So for now I'm having to lie on the right side of the bed so the remote can hit both the TV and the components.


All in all it's been a productive couple of days and I couldn't have done it without Matt and my father. Thanks guys!

So, what do you think?