Anybody using wireless speakers?
 

Just curious if anybody was using wirelss speakers in their home theatre setups, specifically rear speakers? If so, what has your experience been with them. I had some a few years ago that were just terrible. I am hoping that their may be some new alternatives out there as my house setup prohibits me from concealing any wiring.

Thanks in advance for responses.

Chad

Short answer.. They still SUCK!

On another note, tell us about your house setup (in detail) that you believe to be noncondusive for running wire. You'd be amazed at the ways available.

Sonicflood

My setup
 

Well, short answer is I cannot run it through the attic to the back wall because there is no crawl space to where I need to get it to. In addition the back wall is glass. My seating is just away from this back wall. I wanted to put speaker stands behind the couch. Technically I could run it under the carpet, but I don't want the bulge. I remember seeing some sort of ad for a speaker wire that looks like tape. That would be pretty easy to run under the carpet if I could find it. Any thoughts?

Chad

I have a friend who made his own, and I will be doing the same once I get my widescreen television (probably a few months away still--damn it!). It does take work, however, but you can do this for cheap if you take the time. Grab 15ft or whatever length you need, use 18-Gauge wire and:

1) Cut the surrounding insulation off completely
2) Make sure you have one end attached to something, so you can keep the slack to a minimum.
3) Place the wire under a flat hard surface--like a long cutting board or something
4) Fray the wire out as flat as you can--this will take time. Most wire is "spun" so you have to "unspin" it. :D
5) Spread a section of wide electrical tape with sticky-side up.
6) Place the frayed wire on the electrical tape
7) Once a certain section is complete, use some wide electrical tape on the top

You can use a larger gauge of wire if you want.

Now, on both ends of this frayed and flat wire piece, you have normal speaker endings, so you can attach more speaker wire to it with little difficulty. This is great for putting under a rug, and you won't even know it's there unless you uncover the rug and actually look for it.

I've seen places sell "superflat" wire but it's far from flat. If you have the time, want to do a little work, you can flatten your wire so flat that you might even forget your speakers are wired.

Here is a photo of some reasonably-flat wire:

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S...=XL#morephotos

I think that 'fraying' procedure may in fact degrade the signal, esp. for longer runs and/or lighter wire. Some available wire is pretty flat, and the wire tape is amazingly so (and paintable). Or, you can probably run the wire under/behind the baseboard moldings, etc. (I'd pass on the Monster stuff--it really isn't that flat at all.) If you have wall-to-wall carpet, it's a no-brainer to run wire along the edges.

Thanks a bunch..and another link
 

Thanks for the replies. I will probably end up going with a flat wire of some sort. I ran across this while searching on google:

http://21st-century-goods.com/Mercha...tegory_Code=FW

Chad

If you live near a Home Depot check them out. They probably still carry flat speaker wire. Cheap and relatively good speaker wire.

techno, looks like a good link there. I used similar 'tape' wire -- think it was from Acoustic Research. Prices are OK. I have the 16g stuff--wouldn't go any thinner than 18, but 16 should be fine. It really is invisible, as I laid it (higher up the wall) and painted it. It disappears.

Hey try ac4l.com or partsexpress.com. They have good prices on superflat wire or for that fact, on any wire. I use the super flat wire for ac4l.com and it is good wire. It's 14awg wire under and up the wall. Works good.


Hope this helps.


P.S. I've used both CO's and both are very good.

I'm using advent wireless speakers in 3 rooms in my house and most of the time they are great. Every now and then I'll get a couple static clicks, but most of the time is ok.

The original poster was interested in use for home theater surrounds. I believe the only way to raise/lower volume on wireless speakers is on the actual speaker(s) themselves. All of them that I have seen (including the Advent) are this way. They are self-amplified (low wattage- 15-20 per channel) and utilize a line level input, not traditional speaker outputs. This would make them useless for his purpose, even if the sound quality were perfect, as you would have to attempt to match the front sound level each time you prepared to watch a movie.

Wireless speakers are suitable for secondary sound in places such as bedrooms, work areas, outdoors, but are still not of the quality league of the wired versions.

Sonicflood

I have hardwood floors and there's no good place to put rear surrounds, so I was planning on checking into the wireless solution. So the bad news is no leaps in technology yet.

=(