Welcome back! If you haven't read part 1 in this series, where I describe the space, the plan, and the equipment for the home theater, you should probably read that first. You can find it here: https://www.shacknews.com/cortex/article/1436/lets-build-a-home-theater-part-1
V. Wiring for sound, picture, and networking
First order of business was running wires and installing the speakers.
Because I wanted to leave the existing walls mostly intact, pulling cables for audio, video, and Internet was a rather complex 2-3 person job. I hired an AV company to route all the wires, specifically:
- install conduit and route HDMI, Cat-6, Cat-5, and pull string from loft to rack location
- install new Cat-6 outlet at rack location
- install ceiling power outlet for projector
- run audio wires for 3x LCR, 2x subwoofers, 2x rear and 2x surround speakers, and 4 Atmos speakers from multiple locations to rack location
Needless to say this was a big job, even for two experienced installers. These guys went the extra mile, and installed the KEF in-wall speakers when they were only supposed to prewire. They were awesome: professional, clean, thorough. It's so great to see people who are good at what they do, and who also take pride in their work.
It took them an entire day to do the install, working from 7 AM until 9 PM. They would have kept going but I told them I could terminate all the cables myself and sent them home.
After the speakers were installed and AV cables routed:
Fast forward a few weeks later, I terminated all the cables to test out all the speakers with a temporary receiver. I first tried the LCRs, and just about had a heart attack. These speakers sounded anemic! The highs were pretty clear, but there was no bass whatsoever, and even the low-mids were muted. They were installed in an exterior wall that's packed with insulation. Perhaps with no real wall cavity, bass response was taking a big hit? After racking my brain and fumbling around for 15 minutes, I hooked up an LCD monitor to access the AVR menu and realized that for some odd reason, the speaker crossover was set to 250 Hz. Phew! Crisis averted. The speakers sound great :D
VI. Soffit Part 1
It took me a little while to figure out how I wanted to frame the soffit. I wanted it to be solid... Looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, it's probably much too strong for its intended use. I could have taken a few shortcuts and saved some time and materials.
Here is the framing plan that I drew in Sketchup:
Soffit running perpendicular with the ceiling joists:
Soffit running parallel with the ceiling joists:
I was unable to find 1.5" wide metal tracks (which is what you'd usually use here) at either Home Depot or Lowe's, so I used 2.5" track with sideways 2x3's. It ended up working out fine.
One thing I was not expecting when I started this project is that the room has a lot of issues with walls not being straight, the ceiling being out of level by as much as 3/4" in some parts, etc. I naively thought with the house being brand new construction, things would be more square/plumb/level. Not the case! Thankfully I have a great laser level, which proved very helpful. I also picked up some cargo bars at Harbor Freight which got a lot of use, as you'll see in the pictures below.
With the soffit framing mostly out of the way, it was time for electrical work.
VII. Electrical installation
I'm not adding any new electrical circuits for this build. Because the equipment is located in different rooms, the projector, amplifiers, and subwoofers are already on separate circuits. The only work that was needed was to relocate some light switches, install/relocate a few outlets for the light columns, run Romex in the soffit framing, and install a floor box for the reclining theater seats. Not exactly rocket science but still a decent amount of work, some of which would be hard for someone to do on their own.
Once I was mostly done with framing the soffit, I sent requests for bids to eight electricians over a few weeks. Due to the current skilled labor shortage, I only heard back from two of them. One of them gave me an exorbitant "go away" quote and never even bothered to follow up on it. The other that I ended up hiring, unfortunately did a rather poor job. I had to revisit about half of his work, reinstall the floor box, fix up a bunch of drywall damage, etc. In hindsight, the fact he was the only one to return my calls/emails when every other contractor was too busy should have been a dead giveaway :)
After the electrical was ran:
I patched it up as best I could, but I couldn't get it perfect -- they really did do a lot of damage. Patching up the AV installer's job was a piece of cake in comparison, you can't even tell where those holes were. Thankfully the wall imperfections won't be visible in the end, because it will be completely covered with wall frames (some of which will house acoustic treatments).
Oh, and I hope you will appreciate my makeshift "bench + bar stools + tripod" laser level stand :D
VIII. Soffit Part 2
After spending a few days fixing up the shoddy electrical work, I was able to move forward. First up was finishing up the soffit framing by attaching the bottoms. Here again the laser level was immensely helpful.
Because my ceiling isn't level, I had to use shims to get the bottom of the soffit perfectly level. I then ran the Romex down the soffit framing and hooked up the ten junction boxes for the dimmable LED downlights. Quick test to make sure they all work -- these things are bright!
When the AV installers set up the two rear Atmos speakers, I hadn't yet settled on building out a soffit around the entire perimeter of the room. So I needed to remove the speakers from the ceiling and plug the hole. I'll reinstall them into the rear of the soffit once it's completed.
I then proceeded to cut up the plywood for the backing faces of the soffit. First a rough cut on the skilsaw, and then I fed each 2x8' piece of 3/4 plywood through the table saw to get an exact cut -- a bit unwieldy, but not too difficult.
Getting these long sheets of plywood up there was a little tricky, but it would have been impossible without those Harbor Freight cargo bars! Now that the front side of the room was completed, I needed to install the entry door before I could finish the rear.
That's it for today... As last time, please ask any questions in the comments below!
