I'm about to take on a project for my mother-in-law by connecting her audio gear in her new condominium. It's a new building and she's on the top floor - so, there's access to the attic. However, for the past month, she's had new light fixtures installed, a 220V receptacle installed by running line from the fuse box to the kitchen - which meant throwing out a basically new gas range. In its place, is a new Frigidaire electric range. New hologen can lights were installed in the kitchen as well as rope lighting above the cabinetry. All of this meant for many drywall holes to be patched - which meant for a fair amount of dust. Oh, I forgot - the new carpet was ripped up and removed so some other "new" carpet could be installed that she really wanted as well as all the walls on this new condo were repainted a color very close to what the builder provided. Needless to say, she spent many days cleaning up all the dust from the drywall sanding.
This left one project on the list. Installation of her audio gear, which consists of a Sony stereo receiver, Sony 5-disc changer and 4 Bose speakers. Though, only 2 of the Bose will be installed since her new place is smaller than her previous home. Cognizant of all the dust, etc. that had been placed on her home, I thought of the Rocketfish wireless sender/receiver kit for speakers. However, she was a bit undecided on the placement of the speakers, and this kit would still mean trying to hide the receiver and some of the speaker wires. Plus, I've read that the receiver for the Rocketfish has to basically be reset each time you use it - not too pretty if you ask me.
I did some more digging and came up with cord covers that would attach to the wall and could be simply painted the wall color. I could run the cord covers over the molding of one of the doorways and then through one wall so her Bose speakers could be placed on top of her china cabinet. I'd only use about 10 feet of the cord concealing material and none of the wires would be exposed. I explained to her we could separate the speakers about 6' apart due to the width of the cabinet. We could start with the larger Bose speakers - and, if she felt they were too visible, we could swap-in the smaller pair.
We had the discussion over the phone. The first question from here I get is - what's going to happen to the stereophonic sound if both speakers are placed on the top of the cabinet? I explain in small detail that the detection of such would be minimal. I realize this is a concern for her. However, following our conversation, I did run into Home Depot and purchased all of the necessary pieces to conceal the speaker cables.
On my drive home, I thought of many answers to her question - though, I'm sure she'd not care to hear them.
1) Well, your speaker and listening arrangement isn't of an equilateral arrangement, so there's always going to be some conflict with the stereophonic effect.
2) Most recordings nowadays are done so horribly, it's hard find recordings with good stereo effect.
3) With your level of equipment, you're already at a disadvantage. You're not running $10,000 worth of McIntosh gear driving $50,000 Wilson speakers.
4) Your ears are 79 years old. What do you
really expect to hear?
5) From the way your gear has been setup in your previous homes (one was an in-house system with a wall-mounted cassette player and radio with in-ceiling speakers; the other was with the Sony and Bose gear) - you really haven't ever had a "true" listening system or experience. Those configurations have been mainly to provide ambient music - much as this latest setup will provide.
I could go on ...
