A home theatre room is an exciting prospect. There’s nothing more enjoying than watching your favourite sports team play or much-loved movie in a cinematic setting but in the comfort of your own home.
Home theatre systems need not be complicated nor overly expensive, however, you do need to be aware such set-ups require re-wiring. Home theatre wiring can be complex, and will obviously depend on the equipment you have. Unless you are a qualified electrician, this is an exercise better left to the experts.
Here’s why you shouldn’t DIY your home theatre wiring:
- Risk of overheating. Setting up your home theatre system without adequate ventilation will cause overheating and bake your components. If you’ve set up your home theatre wiring in an area without airflow, you will encourage a burn out of your electronics. Overheating components not only damage your home theatre system but could also be a fire hazard. Don’t risk it.
- Incorrect cables. A rookie mistake for DIY home theatre wiring is choosing the wrong cables, particularly with speakers. Remember there’s a fair distance that your cables need to run from your AV receiver to your speaker set-up. If you have cables with high resistance, this will affect the flow of electricity and cause a problem with the frequency response. Don’t think the most expensive cables are the right ones for your home theatre wiring either; gold plated RCA cables and battery powered HDMI cables aren’t necessarily going to make your system sound better.
- Power surge. When you set up your own home theatre wiring, have you considered the power required to fire up your system? Most people don’t and this is where things can go wrong. Think about it; you’ve got your television, subwoofer, receiver, Blu-ray player, possibly a games console set up in your home theatre system. With all that extra power, you are risking a power surge if you don’t have a power protector in place. A power surge could result in an expensive mistake with the damaged caused to your electronics.
- Unlabelled wires. Your home theatre wiring system will be a myriad of cables. It is all too tempting to set up your home theatre system without thinking too much about when you need to fix or replace equipment. Imagine when you need to replace your speaker or AV receiver, but you can’t figure out which wire relates to what. That’s why it is important to correctly label your cables, to quickly make the right connections. A professional home wiring installation will ensure this isn’t an issue.
- Not leaving room to replace equipment. Home theatre wiring must have enough slack to allow for equipment to be replaced. If you don’t allow extra length on your wiring, this becomes incredibly difficult to replace equipment with new models. For example, when you need to replace your AV receiver or speaker, and you’ve got barely any leeway to reconnect the new. This again is a common rookie mistake with home theatre wiring.
Don’t try to DIY your home theatre wiring, call in the experts. Not only are you putting yourselves in a potentially hazardous situation if you try to wire your own system, but you are at risk of an expensive mistake in the long run when your wiring isn’t quite right.
Brisbane based AV Everything takes the stress out of your technology by installing home wiring theatre systems into your living space.
Call AV Everything on 0418 737021 or complete the online contact form to get your free consultation today.