LED/Low Voltage cabinet lighting -anyone used it?

I was kicking around trying to use some kind of puck light or something, too. Not because I have an already-finished room, but because I'm trying to figure out how to put recessed lighting in the soffits in my room without penetrating the double-drywall envelope. I don't want to do sconces because I'm not crazy about the look and even the smallest line-voltage cans are 5-6" deep - way too deep for my single-stud deep (4" or so with drywall) soffit.


Gobble, I've seen entire houses wired with all low-voltage lighting. Not a newer house, I guess, but could you fill me in on that? There's all kinds of low-voltage wiring in the walls in houses, isn't there? What about built-in cabinetry? I know you couldn't do something silly like enclose the transformer in the drywall, but if the transformer was acessible, what would be wrong with LV wiring in the wall?


I thought about LED, but I'm not sure I'd like the color temp - I like the warmth of tungsten lighting - a lot.


The major concern I have (assuming it's even allowed) is dimming - which is a problem with low-voltage (inductive, right?) loads. Plus, I'd like to dim it externally with X-10. Anybody do that?


I was thinking about something like this in the soffits:
http://www.usalight.com/em202ch_c_167_p_1_pr_412.html


SC

I did some more research and everything IC-rated and designed as recessed lighting is 6-7" deep, ruling out installation in anything but at least a 2x8-depth space. I don't have that much room. Even non-IC rated stuff is at least 5-5.5" deep.


Now, I'm thinking of going the track lighting route. It's easy to install, makes way fewer (and much smaller) penetrations, and since they're line voltage, I won't have to deal with any dimmer issues.


Something like this should look nice:
http://www.usalight.com/ht225b_c_89_p_1_pr_958.html


I could either do track to be able to move the heads around, or I could use single-point power feeds and fix-mount the heads:
http://www.usalight.com/ht293b_c_177_p_3_pr_991.html


Cost would probably be comparable, but it would probably be a lot more work to do the single-point mounts - boxes on framing, lots of wiring and connections. Either way, cost is probably much cheaper (and much less work) than recessed lighting. IC-rated small enclosures are usually in the $40/ea. ballpark. These track heads are $11/ea.


I was thinking of setting it up like this:

- 1 circuit to control 3 floods on the soffit above the screen

- 1 circuit to control 9 floods (3 per side) on the side and back walls

- 1 circuit to control a spot or two over the front seats (for reading, etc.)

- 1 circuit to control a spot aimed at the rack in the back corner of the room.


Total cost should be in the $250 ballpark vs. $600 ballpark for recessed cans.


Well, I'm kind of talking to myself here - thinking out loud, I guess.


SC