Please help! Absolute newbie here!

Tell your builder you don't want the ceiling wired... your center channel should be wired dead center of where the screen will be located, and the left/right speakers around 4-6 feet on each side at the same height as the center. The surrounds should be just above ear level directly to the sides of your seating, and for 7.1 two more centered behind your seating. Do not wire in ceiling.

What's your budget?

For wiring, get the Monoprice #2821 wire. This is a 250 foot spool of #14 speaker wire with an outer protective jacket for inwall use; around $55.

I would tell your builder that you want the 4" x 4" electrical boxes for the speaker wires to be 4-5 feet above the floor and that you are NOT NOT doing in-ceiling speakers (which suck).

You can either run wire from there to inwall speakers or conventional speakers. Just tell him to leave a foot or so of wire hanging out of each box and you can select the type of wall plate later (screw terminals, 1/4 inch phone jacks or whatever).

For really good sound, you want freestanding speakers, not inwall. Inwall gives you half the sound quality for twice the money IMO. Some people have to live with that, but don't do it if you can avoid it.

A subwoofer needs to sit on the floor for decent output; no exceptions. Forget about any sort of built-in unit.
Edited by commsysman - 1/22/13 at 11:38am

Before buying equipment you might consider doing a room build that isolates it from the rest of the house acoustically. Usually means floating walls, ceiling, and floor if not on concrete (bottom level room). Also isolating from the house HVAC ducts that transmit sound everywhere; I used a Fujitsu minisplit unit so the media room is on its own heating/cooling system. You'll also need an external air source for fresh air; I did not do anything special with that since I live in a quiet area with plenty of space between houses (2.5-acre lots). I used Kiinetics Iso-Clips plus 6" mineral wool for the walls and ceiling and the contractors had no problem. After all that I can crank the stereo at 1 AM while my kid is sleeping in the room on the other side of the wall.

Pre-wiring is pulling wires for speakers to where you think they'll be mounted. It sometimes includes outlet boxes. Can also include network wiring, cable wiring, etc. I personally don't pre-wire speakers, as I always seem to need them someplace a little different than I thought, so I just run wires along the floor or ceiling. I did prewire for cable, and included a couple of 20-A drops so I had plenty of power to the media room. I also included a couple of switched outlets for floor lights. I ended up with a single standard 15-A run for lights and "back" outlets plus two 20-A drops along the front wall for all the HT stuff. You may also want to prewire for a ceiling-mounted projector (power and interconnect wiring). You'll need to decide what you want and where.

You might want to hook up with a local audio shop to help design the room and wiring.

Can't help on the speakers. I have Rythmik subs and love them but there are many choices. It's a good-sized room; for HT a couple of FV15's should work nicely.

HTH - Don

I think you will probably have to have the side speakers out in the room somewhere, either on dedicated speaker stands or some sort of table. Round "occasional" tables (like they park potted plants on) make good speaker stands and are usually more acceptable to the decor supervisor, since they can be any furniture style that matches.

Well if they run the speaker wire and you end up wanting your speakers in a different place, you will just have to run new speaker wire. You're paying them, so they'll pretty much have to put it where you want it.

If you plan on having front speakers then get them to run wire to that area and leave excess so you have some flexibility.

No point in paying them to do something you wont get good results from. They should do what you want, or not do it at all. Can you post a blueprint of the room or something like that, so we can highlight where everything should be?

I'm guessing those are windows along the inside wall? You'll have to excuse the poor paint skills, and this is not to scale, but this is how I would arrange that room



Obviously I didnt measure anything out with those locations, you would want everything equally spaced and centered around the listening position, that is just the basic setup I would go with.

You'll have to ask about the screen in that sub-forum.

http://www.avsforum.com/f/23/screens

What's your total budget for audio? You cant really go off of the "specs" as manufacturers fabricate them.

Budget's a little tight, but you can still get an impressive high output theater for $2k.

For the L/C/R three of these speakers installed VERTICALLY behind the screen. They're 6" deep, but you may need to sofit mount behind the screen depending on how the screen is installed (cut a recess into wall, fill area around speakers in recess with fiberglass/foam/insulation)

http://www.amazon.com/BIC-Acoustech-PL-28-Center-Speaker/dp/B001VIPUFU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1358963385&sr=1-1&keywords=bic+pl28

Surrounds

http://www.amazon.com/America-FH-65B-Bookshelf-Speakers-6-5IN/dp/B002ISTP8K/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_1

Normally I would go with dual subs, but due to your limited budget, a second sub should be added later.

http://www.powersoundaudio.com/collections/power-x/products/xv15

Receiver

http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/DENAVR1912/DENON-AVR-1912-7.1ch-Network-A/V-Home-Theater-Receiver-w/Airplay/1.html

That's $2k for 5.1, $3k would allow for dual subs and 7 channels.

It'll be fine. You can always upgrade down the road when you need.

Well in that case, you could get a pair of subs like this

http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vtf-2-mk4.html

The cutoff for good subs is really at about $500-600 ea, so you can just squeeze this in. You could still go with 1 sub and upgrade later, but having multiple subs greatly helps with having a room filling smooth bass response without a bunch of "dead zones".

How much is your builder charging for the speaker wire? You may be able to save a bundle providing it yourself.

Monoprice is your friend

You would also need a y-splitter for 2 subs with that receiver.

Seems a bit high, maybe not outrageous. Others can chime in.

Running speaker wire is pretty simple if your ceiling and walls are open. It wouldn't take too much to learn.