I finally have my Zone 2 system installed and working great. If you remember back I was trying to get a Terk wireless IR repeater working with my Rotel 1098 pre pro but it wouldn't work so I sold that and purchased a hard wired system as detailed in this thread here. I also used to have a pair of Paradigm Atom's that sounded very nice and were in cherry so they went well with our livingroom furniture but they had been sitting on the floor since I hadn't purchased stands and neither one of us really wanted to see speakers in this room so I sold those too and bought some BIC muro in wall speakers from Smarthome I just finished installing the speakers after cutting the holes last night and painting the grills the same colour as the walls and have given them a quick listen on a variety of music...though not to loud since my 5 month old daughter was/is asleep :Z So what do I think? Well to be honest I'm glad these aren't in my theater b/c I'd have to rip them out ASAP. They'll do for what I intend to use them for (background music) but they're very bass shy and seem overly bright sounding. Granted these are only a 5.5" driver and a 1/2" tweeter with the only crossover being a single cap so I wasn't expecting audiophile sound but I will say I'm a little disappointed so far. They might break in a little I guess so we'll see how the pan out...but that said these were intended for background music and for my wife to listen to the news etc upstairs so I shouldn't be too picky. Anyway I thought I'd show a few pictures I took along the way.
This is the wall I installed the speakers to. You can see I've already cut out one hole and pulled the wire though from the basement and you can see the template for the other speaker. I must say installing these really is very easy with the templates and mounting system they use. The hardest part is pulling cable though the walls etc. What I did since we were painting the backside of this wall in my wifes craft room is I pulled the baseboard off and drilled a fairly large hole above the bottom 2" * 4" so that it was easy to push a good section of cable in. I could then easily drill though the floor and push the other end though and then lift the false ceiling tiles below to fish the cable along to the equipement rack in the theater. To get the cable up from where I pushed it in on the craft room side I simply used a fishing lure (spoon) with a treble hook on the bottom and some fishing line. By tossing this into the hole I'd cut on the livingroom side I could snag the cable and pull it up and though the hole quite easily.
Here's the speakers installed and painted! They blend in very well with mottled paint finish we did on the walls which is the seemless look I wanted.
To control the gear downstairs I installed an IR receiving plate (one on the right) which is connected to a IR block in the gear rack via cat 5e cable. This switch is located directly above one of the HVAC ducts so it was very easy to run the cable down though the wall and into the duct work and out though a small hole in the basement. The switch to the left is an X10 light switch that I just installed. The nice thing about that switch is that its really just a wireless remote that sticks to the wall and looks like a light switch...ie you don't have to run any cables:T This controls the two lamps we have in the corners of the livingroom as well as an additional unit (christmas tree's etc) The IR plate comes in white and beige which was great since beige neatly disapears on the paint for a nice stealth install but unfortunatly the X10 plate only comes in white so I decided that since we wanted to locate these side by side having both white made more sense.
Finally at the other end of the cat 5 cable we find the buffalo connecting block that you connect the IR blasters to as well as a power source. I have four devices that I need to control from the second zone those being the Rotel 1098 pre amp, Denon 1600 DVD player, Bell ExpressVu DSS receiver and the Sony 300 disc CD jukebox. The DVD player is only used here as a single CD player in case we want to listen to a CD that isnt' in the jukebox and the DSS is just a source or radio channels. The great thing about Rotel gear is that they have IR input jacks so I didn't need to run an IR blaster to that you just plug in a 1/8" patch cord from the connecting block to the Zone 2 IR in on the back of the Rotel and you're done...perfect signal everytime. The other devices on the other hand required that I stick on some IR blasters to the front of the equipement. For this I bought two dual emitters so that I'd still have a free port on the Bufallo unit in case I ever needed it. So far in my testing this system seems to work very well when controled via my pronto...so good in fact that that the IR receiver upstairs picks up the pronto signal down the hall, in the kitchen and anywhere in the livingroom regardless of where i'm pointing the pronto:T
This is the wall I installed the speakers to. You can see I've already cut out one hole and pulled the wire though from the basement and you can see the template for the other speaker. I must say installing these really is very easy with the templates and mounting system they use. The hardest part is pulling cable though the walls etc. What I did since we were painting the backside of this wall in my wifes craft room is I pulled the baseboard off and drilled a fairly large hole above the bottom 2" * 4" so that it was easy to push a good section of cable in. I could then easily drill though the floor and push the other end though and then lift the false ceiling tiles below to fish the cable along to the equipement rack in the theater. To get the cable up from where I pushed it in on the craft room side I simply used a fishing lure (spoon) with a treble hook on the bottom and some fishing line. By tossing this into the hole I'd cut on the livingroom side I could snag the cable and pull it up and though the hole quite easily.
Here's the speakers installed and painted! They blend in very well with mottled paint finish we did on the walls which is the seemless look I wanted.
To control the gear downstairs I installed an IR receiving plate (one on the right) which is connected to a IR block in the gear rack via cat 5e cable. This switch is located directly above one of the HVAC ducts so it was very easy to run the cable down though the wall and into the duct work and out though a small hole in the basement. The switch to the left is an X10 light switch that I just installed. The nice thing about that switch is that its really just a wireless remote that sticks to the wall and looks like a light switch...ie you don't have to run any cables:T This controls the two lamps we have in the corners of the livingroom as well as an additional unit (christmas tree's etc) The IR plate comes in white and beige which was great since beige neatly disapears on the paint for a nice stealth install but unfortunatly the X10 plate only comes in white so I decided that since we wanted to locate these side by side having both white made more sense.
Finally at the other end of the cat 5 cable we find the buffalo connecting block that you connect the IR blasters to as well as a power source. I have four devices that I need to control from the second zone those being the Rotel 1098 pre amp, Denon 1600 DVD player, Bell ExpressVu DSS receiver and the Sony 300 disc CD jukebox. The DVD player is only used here as a single CD player in case we want to listen to a CD that isnt' in the jukebox and the DSS is just a source or radio channels. The great thing about Rotel gear is that they have IR input jacks so I didn't need to run an IR blaster to that you just plug in a 1/8" patch cord from the connecting block to the Zone 2 IR in on the back of the Rotel and you're done...perfect signal everytime. The other devices on the other hand required that I stick on some IR blasters to the front of the equipement. For this I bought two dual emitters so that I'd still have a free port on the Bufallo unit in case I ever needed it. So far in my testing this system seems to work very well when controled via my pronto...so good in fact that that the IR receiver upstairs picks up the pronto signal down the hall, in the kitchen and anywhere in the livingroom regardless of where i'm pointing the pronto:T
Even the PSBs with quality drivers sound overly bright unless you turn down the tweeters and then they are dull sounding. 
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"
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