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Refurbishing the living room for Hifi and TV.

lAmBoY

lAmBoY

pfm Member
Has anyone here documented the process? I am thinking cables under floors, cables behind walls, having my equipment located possibly in a separate room. All daunting stuff to me, but I am installing a wood burner and putting new floors in anyway, so gouging out walls and re-plastering isnt a problem. I just wondered if anyone had any decent links or tips to similar projects. I may even post my project for others to learn from.
 
Run a spare cable to each point, especially hdmi, Ethernet & optical cables in case of failure. It may seem like overkill, but it if a cable fails & you have to chase the wall out again, you’ll be cursing. Having a spare cable already installed to plug in is a lot cheaper in the long run.
Put inspection point boxes at the corners etc to help manipulate cables around tight angles. Leave enough cable at the equipment rack & speaker ends to allow for altering their placement.
Try to keep mains cables & signal cables separate from each other to minimise the chances of mains hum interference.
Future-proof yourself wherever you can.
Plan as much as possible,
measure twice, cut once!
 
No documents as I made it up as I went along. I had a doorway moved to give me a longer section of flat wall, replaced damp course membrane a section at a time, repaired the crumbling concrete under the floor and replaced some rotting battens (these should be same thickness but I didn’t think of that until my turntable needed frequent re-levelling later, with an Aro on the deck I could hear when it had gone off and a spirit level confirmed it). That was the main job but while I was at it I put in a dedicated mains supply from its own breaker using 10 square mm cable, it can be tricky to find an electrician who will do this without an argument. I also put in some coax for the aerial and some CAT 5e cable in case it came in handy though I had no use for it at the time, now I wish I’d put in two runs of it or a conduit that would take a couple of runs. All this means the position of the system has to be known when you start. What might have been an idea would have been some concrete islands where the speakers go but that then limits speaker placement and I’d have regretted it later when I went from free space Thiels to Naim NBLs against the wall so probably just as well.
 
Dedicated radials installation if your kit is s/s

Like the above, you do need to have some idea of kit position and speaker positions, However, plastic conduit under floors sufficient to take cables will enable changes later.
 
yeti42 said:
ut while I was at it I put in a dedicated mains supply from its own breaker using 10 square mm cable, it can be tricky to find an electrician who will do this without an argument.
Click to expand...

Better to have its own consumer unit and MCBs, RCDs or (better) RCBOs and more 6 or more mm2 twin & earth.
 
I drew the room, components within it, and colour coded the cables. Especially needed when sorting termination and longer runs out.

I used a decent length of chord, and ran it exactly where the cables were going to go. Then I measured the chord and added a bit on for good measure. Just have had to do this again, with a change of kit.

Patience and triple checking is key. Also worth checking your measurements with someone else.
 
Great tips above, I ran 2 dedicated mains cables wired through independent fused consumer units under the floor terminated in un-switched wall sockets, I used 6mm t and e as I’ve previously tried 10mm and couldn’t say I could hear any difference (but never did a direct comparison). As yeti2 pointed out - chances are you will get a lot of resistance from the sparky, they will question your sanity. My turntable and server are in an adjoining room and cables run under floor, I used plastic pipe brackets fastened to underside of floor joists to cradle the cables and keep them apart plus I have several plastic pipe lined holes through the brick wall. I also run a spare Ethernet cable as security under the hall floor to the router before the floor was finished with floor prep and LVT tiles.
 
Spd said:
I ran 2 dedicated mains cables wired through independent fused consumer units under the floor terminated in un-switched wall sockets
Click to expand...

Two times 6 mm2 T&E to TWO separate C.U.s with breaker ? That's a first for me, and I wonder why you didn't simply use one C.U. for both rather than a three way tails split from the junction box after the meter.
 
Definitely use conduit for cables and have separate ones for power and signals if you can. I had an extension built a few years ago and it had plastic overflow pipe in the the floor from behind the equipment rack to behind where the speakers stood. Made life easy and cables hidden away from sight.
 
Mike Reed said:
Two times 6 mm2 T&E to TWO separate C.U.s with breaker ? That's a first for me, and I wonder why you didn't simply use one C.U. for both rather than a three way tails split from the junction box after the meter.
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Sorry Mike I typed units - should have been unit. My radials are both wired to one CU.
 
A dedicated mains circuit is certainly worthwhile in my experience.
I had no choice but to run speaker cables under the floorboards, but now it’s done, I’m glad they are hidden. Just make sure you are absolutely certain of speaker positioning before doing this.
Having moved the system from a room with a solid floor to an upstairs room with suspended floorboards, I was concerned what the sound would be worse. Actually, it turned out to be much better. The room was rewired, replastered, and many of the floorboards needed lifting, so I was able to start from scratch. Fixing the floorboards very securely to the joists was important. Also, there was a load of old wiring and water pipes, all loosely fixed so that they would more than likely have vibrated, along with all sorts of debris lying in the void. I cleared away all the mess and secured loose pipes and wiring before replacing the floorboards. I’m pretty sure that any loose stuff like this, vibrating with the music, is best avoided.
 
I have 2 friends who have both made the same mistake with their installations - they both missed one cable to the TV - so best to double check.
 
Do it like a pro. Run the biggest proper conduit you an get away with on all cable paths in the render, behind skirting and under floor and make sure you drop and leave pull cords throughout. Make all paths direct, under floor, if possible. Then you can run whatever cable you damn well like. If you can't, then I'd use surface mount conduit to all locations.
 
When I had building works to extend my listening room's width in '09 involving digging up the concrete floor, I ran two 25mm round plastic conduits from amplification wall to one speaker position and square access hatch; 3.5 metres. From there, 2 square section parallel conduits across the room, about 2.5 metres to the other speaker position and access hatch. This takes 1 speaker cable (NAC A5), (old installation dedicated)mains for ELS speakers and TV plus Virgin cable.

Hell of a job, but glad I did it. There really wasn't another satisfactory way with my through lounge. Speaker cable lengths = 11 + metres. A decade on, working well and room all underlaid/carpeted at that time.
 
Mike Reed said:
Better to have its own consumer unit and MCBs, RCDs or (better) RCBOs and more 6 or more mm2 twin & earth.
Click to expand...

This. I did this, because I could. The equipment now appears to be electrically silent but the legacy wiring turned out to be an unsafe mess.

Ethernet circuits - install two running parallel to each other with access points near each plug point. You may not need them now but....

Put in twice as many plug points as you think you will need. It still won't be enough :)

Under floor insulation. My builder (a superb professional and expert) recommended some kind of thick (~5ins) insulation foam that he cut to slide between the joists. Prevents echoes propagating in the under floor space - and keeps me toasty. He also re-laid all the floorboards with folded cardboard fillets between the boards and joists - this got rid of all the squeaks and provides just enough movement to allow for temperature and humidity expansion. He was a counter-sunk screw advocate but others believe clouts are better - again to do with expansion/movement control.

I had the fireplace removed but requested that the base be left in situ. It now provides a solid immovable place for vibration generating/sensitive components. You could have concrete pillars installed where the kit will go, decoupled from the flooring.

New radiators were tall thin jobs either side of the window - they may be an echo reflection point and were probably not a good idea. In retrospect should have gone for under floor heating.

You only get to do this once so do everything at its best and future proof. I had major building issues so used the repairs as an opportunity. Added very little to the total cost.
 
I did it, and then canged speakers and needed to relocate them about 3 months after I'd screwed down the last floorboard :) But it's a great idea if you really are sure that upgrades are a thing of the past. IF I were even in that position again, the first thing I'd try tp do would be to construct a conctrete shelved platform on concrete foundations to stand the gear on. Speaker cable hiding is just not worth the later inconvenience IMO. Good luck anyway, would love to see pics of the project if you do it.
 
Plan for a huge thick rug in front of the speakers, and the speakers firing directly into a big sofa. Break up the corners with tables, lamps etc. Allow the speakers a little space, and a little toe in. It breaks my heart when I see a big stacked system with speakers flush either side of the rack. :(
 
Many thanks for the excellent advice. This project will commence in July/Aug, in the meantime I will be sourcing conduits and planning. I will post the project for folks to provide further advice/scorn :)
 
Apologies, hijacking this thread as I'm also in the process of refurbishing/replastering a room and would like advice as to what cables should go where.

I've dropped in a couple lengths of co-axial and CAT5e back to the router and attic aerial (appox 10m from where the tele and hi-fi will be) but where should HDMI and Optical go to and from?

I have a reasonable idea of how to set up a turntable but clueless about any modern wall mounted screen/AV kit and its requirements, and I'm being berated by the teenagers for still having a 10 year old 24" freeview TV.....
 
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