How do I get the most out of this?

[TopFrog]

Been lurking and learning, thank you for the wisdom. I want to get the most out of a prewired house and it looks like this may be the place to start.

This may turn into a bigger long term project than I want but I want to get a plan together. We've been in our house about 18 months, (purchased in foreclosure) The house is wired with 6 zones of whole home audio speakers (3 outside) and a home theater room. All speakers existing and will replace, upgrade as needed but for now they stay. All the cabling runs to the theater room. The house is 8 yrs old but everything is wired with RCA connections and Cat5 here and there. No pre-wired HDMI

Long term plan is utilize everything to the fullest. Whole home audio controlled thru iphone app and something like Sonos. Home theater 7.1, 106" screen, projector, etc. Short term is a different story. I don't want to buy something and have to trade it out because it didn't meet my wants.

Budget? Let's say $5k all in, (not counting carpet, paint, furniture, decor Etc)Theater room is 12'6" X 17' with the projector approx 12'6" from the screen.

First step, whole home audio. Recommend a do all receiver, amp and bluetooth control so I can stream audio from my iphone down to the basement and run it throughout the house.
Second will be the home theater. I guess all I would need at this point is a recommendation for a projector and screen.

Longest first post ever? probably not but I want to get my $$ worth Dang it, tried to upload photos but I just get the blank square. If you are interested here are some links.

http://s1135.photobucket.com/user/chase237/media/DSC02462_zpsx3sai3tu.jpg.html?o=8
http://s1135.photobucket.com/user/chase237/media/DSC02463_zpsaz7icha0.jpg.html?o=8
http://s1135.photobucket.com/user/chase237/media/DSC02459_zps5t7axeal.jpg.html?o=9

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

Welcome to the Forum!

Glad to hear you’re replacing the speakers in the HT room. Yikes!

It’s hard to get specific because you didn’t give any details as to your expectations for the whole-house system. If you’re fine with every zone getting the same signal (e.g. every room playing whatever is on Pandora from your AVR) then it’s pretty easy. However, if you want each zone to have the capacity to play a different source, that gets real complicated – and expensive – in a hurry.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[highfigh]

One of the first things I would

Been lurking and learning, thank you for the wisdom. I want to get the most out of a prewired house and it looks like this may be the place to start.

This may turn into a bigger long term project than I want but I want to get a plan together. We've been in our house about 18 months, (purchased in foreclosure) The house is wired with 6 zones of whole home audio speakers (3 outside) and a home theater room. All speakers existing and will replace, upgrade as needed but for now they stay. All the cabling runs to the theater room. The house is 8 yrs old but everything is wired with RCA connections and Cat5 here and there. No pre-wired HDMI

Long term plan is utilize everything to the fullest. Whole home audio controlled thru iphone app and something like Sonos. Home theater 7.1, 106" screen, projector, etc. Short term is a different story. I don't want to buy something and have to trade it out because it didn't meet my wants.

Budget? Let's say $5k all in, (not counting carpet, paint, furniture, decor Etc)Theater room is 12'6" X 17' with the projector approx 12'6" from the screen.

First step, whole home audio. Recommend a do all receiver, amp and bluetooth control so I can stream audio from my iphone down to the basement and run it throughout the house.
Second will be the home theater. I guess all I would need at this point is a recommendation for a projector and screen.

Longest first post ever? probably not but I want to get my $$ worth Dang it, tried to upload photos but I just get the blank square. If you are interested here are some links.

http://s1135.photobucket.com/user/chase237/media/DSC02462_zpsx3sai3tu.jpg.html?o=8
http://s1135.photobucket.com/user/chase237/media/DSC02463_zpsaz7icha0.jpg.html?o=8
http://s1135.photobucket.com/user/chase237/media/DSC02459_zps5t7axeal.jpg.html?o=9

One of the first things I would do is remove the riser and install your speakers so they're centered on the walls.

 

[TopFrog]

Replacing the HT speakers is on the list but it WAS down further on the list than it perhaps should be. What does Yikes! mean? Are they expected to be that bad? They might be I haven't heard them and I'm not a huge audiophile.
The whole home audio will all be same signal for now. One concern is the outdoor zones having enough power to hear them. I'm reading up on bridging outdoor zones but that means more channels out of the amp right?
Anyway thanks for giving me a glimmer of optimism in my plan.

 

[TopFrog]

One of the first things I would



One of the first things I would do is remove the riser and install your speakers so they're centered on the walls.

By riser do you mean the raised area for seating? I wondered about that and it is an option. The speakers are centered on the raised seating stage and not the room.

 

[shadyJ]

The room looks nice for a dedicated HT room, and has a good equipment closet. The speakers don't look great, though they might serve OK as surround speakers. One problem is the right side speaker is way too close to the wall. The subwoofer looks pretty bad too.

One projector that receives a lot of praise for the price is the Sony HW-40ES, it can be had for 1500, I would look into that if I were you. As for screens, if you do anything DIY, do the screen. That is a very easy project. Else, if you want to keep it simple, you might just give Carada a call, describe your room conditions and projector, and follow their advice. You have to figure out if we want an AT screen or not before you do make that call. You will want something to calibrate the picture, because in that all-blue room, you will tilt the picture's color temperature to blue. Or you can paint the room black, or put black treatments all around (black velvet for the win!)

Also I wouldn't be so hasty to remove the riser.

 

[highfigh]

By riser do you mean the raised area for seating? I wondered about that and it is an option. The speakers are centered on the raised seating stage and not the room.

Right- I suspect they centered the seating and speakers on the space past the swing of the door or, if possible, move the door to the back wall.