Speaker Wire for Home Theatre under laminate floor

As I have not yet laid floors in my new house I was thinking about laying the speaker wires for rear surround speakers under the floor boards.

I will most likely be getting one of the click together laminate or semi solid ones which are laid as a floating floor. It will likely be laid as follows:

1) Polythene Underlay (Damp proof layer)
2) Foam underlay for noise/leveling
3) Floorboards

I was thinking I would lay the wires between 1 and 2 i.e. between the damp proof layer and the foam underlay.

What are peoples opinions on this setup? How tight are these floorboards normally to the wall, should I (or rather the installer) cut a small notch (as small as I can get away with) in the boards where the wires enter/exit under the floor next to the walls?

Also what type of speaker wire should I use, the normal stuff or I believe there may be a type of wire with a flat profile?

I will likely be buying a 5:1 system at this point but may run 4 wires to future proof for 7:1.

Why don't you run the wires behind the skirting board? many skirting boards have two profiles, one half round and the other deeper and flatter. (As you can probably tell I don't know the name of that one.)
If you then have a problem with the wiring it would probably be easier to take off the skirting rather than lift laminate flooring, particularly if you screw the skirting to the wall.

BillK said:

Why don't you run the wires behind the skirting board? many skirting boards have two profiles, one half round and the other deeper and flatter. (As you can probably tell I don't know the name of that one.)
If you then have a problem with the wiring it would probably be easier to take off the skirting rather than lift laminate flooring, particularly if you screw the skirting to the wall.

Click to expand...

I'll have a think about that but there is not a continuous run of skirting to the desired location. In the room in question from the intended location of the AV receiver to the intended location of the rear speakers to go one way would involve passing a patio door and to go the other way would involve passing a fireplace, double doors to the kitchen and the hall door into the living room.

dam099 said:

I'll have a think about that but there is not a continuous run of skirting to the desired location. In the room in question from the intended location of the AV receiver to the intended location of the rear speakers to go one way would involve passing a patio door and to go the other way would involve passing a fireplace, double doors to the kitchen and the hall door into the living room.

Click to expand...

Behind the skirting board sounds like a good idea.

This [broken link removed], sold in Peats, gets good reviews. I bought a reel of it on eBay for about half this price.

Would you not consider going for a wireless system? Sounds like it'd save a lot of hassle,

heather said:

Would you not consider going for a wireless system? Sounds like it'd save a lot of hassle,

Click to expand...

Many people feel the sound quality is not there yet with wireless speaker systems. Plus, do you really want to use your entire wi-fi bandwidth everytime you watch a film in surround?

I would go with the wired solution for a sitting room / AV room myself, and use wireless for multi-room or secondary room setups.

Just my humble opinion...

MonsieurBond said:

Many people feel the sound quality is not there yet with wireless speaker systems. Plus, do you really want to use your entire wi-fi bandwidth everytime you watch a film in surround?

I would go with the wired solution for a sitting room / AV room myself, and use wireless for multi-room or secondary room setups.

Just my humble opinion...

Click to expand...

Thats about what I thought so for now wireless is out. As the house is still somewhat unfinished I thought now would be the time to think about options for wiring. Unfortunately the builders extras were quite limited or I would have had CAT5 wiring throughout the house and had speaker wires prewired in the room at the building stage.

On a kinda related topic- can someone please explain the best and tidyest way of having a flat screen tv on wall and lets say dvd and sky box in sitting room with the the minimist wires u can see possible...I see some people have dvd etc in another room and then kinda use an infer red box set-up. Dont totally understand this? But would this be the best? Its for a new apartment with no access to attic.

corco2000 said:

On a kinda related topic- can someone please explain the best and tidyest way of having a flat screen tv on wall and lets say dvd and sky box in sitting room with the the minimist wires u can see possible...I see some people have dvd etc in another room and then kinda use an infer red box set-up. Dont totally understand this? But would this be the best? Its for a new apartment with no access to attic.

Click to expand...

You could sink cables in your wall, to go from an amp to your TV...

You could get away with just power and a HDMI cable going to your TV if both your amp and (LCD) TV are faily new. Although amps that do HDMI are still expensive. Failing that, you could sink a power cable, one SCART (preferably RGB Compatible) and a HDMI cable for future use...

corco2000 said:

On a kinda related topic- can someone please explain the best and tidyest way of having a flat screen tv on wall and lets say dvd and sky box in sitting room with the the minimist wires u can see possible...I see some people have dvd etc in another room and then kinda use an infer red box set-up. Dont totally understand this? But would this be the best? Its for a new apartment with no access to attic.

Click to expand...

I think what you're referring to are those AV senders like this one:

[broken link removed]

Just plug one unit into your DVD/VCR/SkyBox and the other into your bedroom TV or whatever and go. You can get them in Argos I see, but have no idea if they're any good.

inigomontoya said:

I think what you're referring to are those AV senders like this one:

[broken link removed]

Just plug one unit into your DVD/VCR/SkyBox and the other into your bedroom TV or whatever and go. You can get them in Argos I see, but have no idea if they're any good.

Click to expand...

While others on AAM might rave about these, I personally would not use one for a primary setup. To supply a feed to a TV in the bedroom, fine, but not as a main unit as they will be subject to interference and will not give you optimal video quality, due to the amount of bandwidth required to send video and audio. At least, using current Wi Fi (802.11g) speeds.

Thanks for that.Its a standard Plaster board type wall im not sure if it will be thick enough to put a hole in it.Was maybe thinking of building a fake wall, kinda like a fire place type.And then hide wires etc behind it and tv could be flush with wall then.Have seen this before and it looked ok.