Speaker Plan

[wrinkster22]

Hello Macrumors,
I live in an old house and want to add speakers cheaply to my house. Currently we own the right stuff (Bose cube speakers, recover, airport express, subwoofer, etc) But we are can't think of a plan. The problem is that we don't want any visible cables and we can't cut up the ceiling. We could not figure out a solution until yesterday I thought of (if I do say so myself) an amazing solution. My idea was instead of running the speakers to a a receiver in the room why don't we put it in the basement! It gets better! The room below us is our server room! So the idea is we will mount the speakers on the corners of the walls, run the speaker cable through the well, along the outside of the house, have the cable some back into the house through the basement, connect it to our receiver, and connect our receiver to the airport express.

Living Room:


This is were we would put one of the speakers, and I would put the other in the opposite corner:


This is they type of speaker cableing we would be useing (Does anyone know what this is called and were to get it cheaply?)


The reciever would be located down here connected to the airport express:


More pictures to come + more info

 

[wrinkster22]

Sorry, I seem to be having a lot of issues with attaching files

So this is were the cabling would re-enter the house:

 

[wrinkster22]

I have had no luck attaching files so here are some flickr links! (Sorry about that)
These are the speakers I am using (I have wall mounts to but did not bother to photograph them) \:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67500475@N02/6492829195/in/photostream/lightbox/

This is the ports on the receiver

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67500475@N02/6492826579/in/photostream/lightbox/


This is the airport express which I will use (So I can airplay from upstairs using the remote app)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67500475@N02/6492830729/in/photostream/lightbox/

If all goes well we will do the same in this room:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67500475@N02/6492832979/in/photostream

Questions:
1) What is the name of the cable I am using
2) Does it need to be in plastic tubing to protect it (I am in Canada)
3) Do you predict any problems
4) Do you think we will get OK sound (Remember the objective was not to get great sound it was to get music playing through our existing stuff while having the least amount of cables showing)
5) Do you like the idea?
6) We have a subwoofer that I am trying to figure out what to do with. Any ideas?

Thank you so much to anyone who read and look at all of these posts. Any advice will be appreciated!!!

 

[warvanov]

1) Is this just for listening to music, or will this be part of a home theater set up?
2) Have you considered going through the basement ceiling and into the living room floor? You could use floor standing speakers so that there would still not be any visible cables in the living room.

I'm not sure I like the idea of running speaker cables outside of the house. That seems like it would be more unsightly than having speaker cables visible in the living room.

The picture of your speaker cable is out of focus so it's hard to get a good look at them. Regardless, I highly recommend monoprice.com for all of your speaker cable needs.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239

 

[wrinkster22]

1) Is this just for listening to music, or will this be part of a home theater set up?
2) Have you considered going through the basement ceiling and into the living room floor? You could use floor standing speakers so that there would still not be any visible cables in the living room.

I'm not sure I like the idea of running speaker cables outside of the house. That seems like it would be more unsightly than having speaker cables visible in the living room.

The picture of your speaker cable is out of focus so it's hard to get a good look at them. Regardless, I highly recommend monoprice.com for all of your speaker cable needs.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239

Thanks so much for the reply.
1) This is strictly to listening to music, not part of a home theater setup.
2) There is no chance of going through the floors a certain lady in the house would kill me if I went through her wooden floor is you know what I mean

I frankly dont care about cables outside of the house because it is in our neighbours driveway anyway. And it is cleaner to get the cable directly in the location on the wall then the wall stand (Wire would drape down...)
Does monoprice ship to Canada? Thanks in advance.

 

[warvanov]

Yes, it looks like they ship to Canada.

http://www.monoprice.com/scripts/disclaimer_international.html

I wouldn't think that running the cable would have an adverse affect on the audio quality provided you bought some decently well shielded cable.

 

[gtmac]

Hope moisture doesn't enter through the holes in the wall. I have done something like this going through to the garage but never outside the house.

 

[Hammie]

You don't have to go through the floor, but you can come from the basement into the wall cavity. It will be MUCH cleaner than going outside the house. Any holes in the exterior wall will create a hole the the insulation value of the home. This will create a leak and allow cold air in during the winter months and cool air out during the summer months.

Also, why the Bose cubes? IMO, they are not "all the right stuff," especially for music listening.

 

[gtmac]

You don't have to go through the floor, but you can come from the basement into the wall cavity. It will be MUCH cleaner than going outside the house. Any holes in the exterior wall will create a hole the the insulation value of the home. This will create a leak and allow cold air in during the winter months and cool air out during the summer months.

Also, why the Bose cubes? IMO, they are not "all the right stuff," especially for music listening.

Listen to this post. Both points are right on.

 

[jmcrutch]

Do NOT run your speaker cables outside and then back inside your house. You will get moisture problems as others have pointed out. Either run them through the walls (hire a professional) or have your drill meet your floor exactly where you want to put some bose floor standing speaker stands (which have channels for hiding the speaker cable - you will not see it at all). If you drill the hole in the right spot and don't use an overly-large bit, it will be completely unnoticeable. As others have pointed out you might not want to state so boldly that having bose cube arrays is the "right stuff." To anyone who appreciates hearing the full spectrum of audio they are definitely NOT the right stuff. Nevertheless you can get much enjoyment from them.

By the way, that speaker cord is probably 16 American Wire Gauge stranded silver-plated nickel or copper (or stranded copper with silver or nickel-plated tips). Bose actually will call it "lamp cord" because it's the same gauge as "lamp cord" you find at the hardware store.

 

[Sirolway]

Why run speaker cable at all when you could network with Airport Express & plug powered speakers into that? (e,g, AudioEngines)

If Airport Express doesn't have the range / can't penetrate some thick walls, couple them up with Devolo HomePlugs.

More expensive than running cables everywhere, but a whole heap cleaner & more flexible ...

 

[carlgo]

You are getting into a lot of effort to hide what, an amp and a subwoofer? Easy to hide or minimize.

Drilling holes and fishing wires in what seems to be a very pristine house that you don't own is more difficult than you think.

There are lots of wire channels available that can be painted to blend in and do a decent job of hiding speaker wires and power cords. They can be attached using that landlord-friendly removable double-sided tape and placed along the baseboards as much as possible.

The suggestion about wireless speakers is a good one, no wires and an audio upgrade as well. Still, you will have power cords and they can be harder to hide than speaker wires, depending on where the outlets are and where the speakers are placed.

In the end I would recommend an attractive small receiver, a couple of quality speakers either wired or not, a small sub and some wire-hiding channel. Don't spend much on the speaker wires if you use them. Obviously the sound characteristics of the room and the choice of components will determine how good this will sound. Some receivers have ways to set up the speakers to the room and any way you can do this will be as important as any buying decisions you make.

 

[wrinkster22]

Thank you all for your response..
In regards to why I have those bose cubes.. Quite frankly when we got them none of us knew anything.. but they were cheap and they produce noise so that was good enough! (They are quit old actually)

In regards to moisture.. Honestly we have done this with other things (cable tv, ethernet) and never had a problem. After we drill the hole we use some spray foam installation to fill the area. We have not had any problems in the 14+ years like this (Our house was built without cable, our house is also pre WW2) We also will use some caulking to see the hole.

In regards from insulation... If you can not tell already bye our houses old age our house has little if any insulation. We will take this opportunity to add more (see above)

jimcrutch thank you for pointing out the type of cable.
Carlgo, our speakers do not require a power source (they use the speaker cable?)

Thank you all very much.
Other than those "issues" do you see any concerns?
Thanks again
~Wrinkster22