Electronics

[gardenman]

I'm now doing most of my movie/TV watching in the living room these days, so it occurred to me that moving my home theater system out there would be a good idea. Yeah. Sure. How hard can it be? And here I am just four hours later and it's finally done. Routing the two cables through the basement to the surround sound channels sounded easy, but it turns out my first hole drilled for the right rear channel ended up in the return air duct for the heating system. You drill the hole, feed twenty feet of cable through the hole, go downstairs and there's no cable in sight. Hmm....after briefly considering the possibility of having a Bermuda Triangle in my basement, I finally figured out what had happened. A bit of remeasuring, a few curses and a new hole and that problem was solved. Everything's now connected and I'm back in business. I'm not sure I'd do it again, but it's done. I'll be happy for this down the road though.

[KingstonsMom]

@gardenman 

Sounds like you had a 'Murphy's Law' day! That would be my luck too!

[feline groovy]

Good tips re: those good results. 

I'd be interested in hearing @hckynut 's too since he also has a decent home theater system.

[Sweetbay magnolia]

Congrats!  Are you going to plug the hole in the duct, @gardenman ?

Our home is 30 years old, and when cable came along, the previous homeowner fished the line through.  Goodness, what a feat.  It's concealed beautifully through exterior and interior walls, underneath siding, underneath the deck (it's just a few feet above grade), into two rooms on the first floor and then upstairs.  Whew.  He was a wiry and apparently quite nimble HVAC pro.

The neighbors' cable/internet feeds are hanging askew on the outside of the house, waving in the wind.  Ugly.

He also fed stereo speaker leads from a room on a slab to one over a pretty tight crawl space, with a half step and three different types of flooring in between.  It's not just under carpet.  It's also attached to the 1st story floor joists.  Let me count the ways we love bluetooth!

He got a little creative with the A/C condensate drain line, located in the crawl space (we have to use a condensate pump).  It now feeds into the sump pit, which is proper to code here, but I've found several small holes on the main level close to household plumbing lines (public sewer) and I suspect that's why - and that when he went to sell the house he brought that into compliance.  He was the king of jury rigging.

[gardenman]

I patched the hole right away, but on the return side it's not vital. That's just the cool air heading back to the furnace. It's a little weird when you feed twenty feet of 12ga. speaker wire through the hole and then go downstairs and it's not there. It's one of those "that's odd" moments. Then it becomes a where's Waldo hunt with Waldo being the speaker wire. But I figured it out pretty quickly and after some remeasuring and double checking and drilling a new hole, I was back in business. X-ray vision would be very handy on these types of jobs.

I don't think my subwoofer is working, so I've got to troubleshoot that, but it shouldn't be a big problem, just something to do another day. It might be an amp issue of some sort as the amp is supposed to go into standby mode (red power light) with no signal, but it's staying green. I'll troubleshoot that sometime in the next few days and see what the issue is.

I've run lots of wires from CAT5, to cable to antenna and speaker wires, so it's not typically a problem, but today it was.

[fthunt]

Sort of been there - as a kid parents decided to better insulate the walls in our big old house.  In the attic we poured bag after bag -  hour after hour but the walls just never seemed to fill up.  You guested it..............big piles of insulation on the basement floor.

Then a bigger job to scoop up and carry insulation back to attic.

[gardenman]

And the subwoofer is now fixed. I'd been using the RCA inputs for it and while troubleshooting it I discovered the sub gave a heck of a thump when unplugging the RCA connectors, so the amp still worked as did the speaker. When you pulled the RCA connectors out so just the center conductor was in contact, the sub vibrated, so I figure there's a ground issue with the RCA connector on either the sub amp or the receiver. The NHT subwoofer amp lets you connect it inline with your speakers, so I cut a few short lengths of speaker wire and switched to that connection method and now it works perfectly again. It turned out to be an easy fix. I tried switching RCA cables but the issue remained with different cables so it's not a cable issue, but an issue with one of the RCA jacks. Luckily there was an easy workaround. It's a tick more involved wiring everything this way, but it works.

[gardenman]

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@fthunt wrote:

Sort of been there - as a kid parents decided to better insulate the walls in our big old house.  In the attic we poured bag after bag -  hour after hour but the walls just never seemed to fill up.  You guested it..............big piles of insulation on the basement floor.

Then a bigger job to scoop up and carry insulation back to attic.

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Ah, the joys of balloon framing! It's not used as much these days, but as you discovered, it results in open studs all the way down to the basement. Modern framing techniques tend to prevent those kinds of issues, but in older houses it can lead to a surprise or two.

[hckynut]

Hey @gardenman 

Between setting up many home theaters,and moving and upgrading my own, I have experienced many 10 minute jobs that ended up hours. Variable reasons, some self I induced, but lots of expletives included. Don't know it saying them helps anything, but seems like it makes me feel better.

My very elaborate home theater system(110" front projector", in my finished basement/gym, got destroyed when I was in the hospital I 2016. Wasn't just water in our master bathroom/bedroom, it was sewage. Lost over 100 grand of electronics and gym equipment. 

Insurance "full replacement"? What a joke. Anything that was older than a couple years, depreciated 80%. Fought that company for over 2 years and did a few thousand bucks more. Ended up with maybe 45% of the value of all my equipment.  Now just my gym and less equipment, but I  do have a 5 CD player/150 watt amp/receiver/8 surround speakers, and 2 subwoofers. Not the same but still great sound, just no video.

Glad you got yours set up with only a few expletives.

hckynut

[hckynut]

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@feline groovy wrote:

Good tips re: those good results. 

I'd be interested in hearing @hckynut 's too since he also has a decent home theater system.

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Hi @feline groovy ,

Just added a post, but that is mainly now just used for my workouts, and my choice of music that fits my hard day/easy day routines. Great audio.  Have a 5 speaker 1 subwoofer setup for our 65" in our patio room. Took my old receiver down to my gym after I bought a new Yamaha 250 watt for our patio room. 

Many more sound settings and HDMI inputs that make it easier to switch from TV/Bluray, and 4k Bluray players. Also added an Aftermaster Pro that works to get the true sounds of all the content which passes through it. All sound, including my FM run through this device. Good sound, but no replacement to the one I mentioned in my post to gardenman.

Be well,

hckynut