Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HT in-progress

One of the interesting things about all those articles is that they all seem do a lot of hand waving. Very little practical detail on what to watch for and exactly how to do it. I've research this quite a bit and it's quite obvious how lacking the info out there is.

I originally hired a PRO to this. But after making him redo the first wall layer twice (because of rattling) I ended up taking it over myself. In hind site , it's obvious, I hired the wrong PRO. This stuff takes specific knowledge and you can't afford a "PRO" who's learning on the job. You most likely are not going to get end product you're expecting. Note: on the rattling my PRO told me that it's not a problem ... that I would not hear it. So I called the guys who sold me the clips ... they told me that it should not rattle and they would not close up the walls if it did. That's another issue I've learned the hard way ... don't take a "PRO" advice if it goes against your instincts. In the past I've always been burned ... from plumbers to financial advisors.

Now that I'm doing it myself, I find I have to test, think, and correct a slew of issues as I go. I've had to back track a few times. It's my hope recording this here will be valuable for anyone who may try this in the future.

I'm going to take care of hanging all of the channels on the ceiling and wall myself. I fortunately have someone I know really well who hangs drywall. When I get closer to that point I'm going to have him come over and look at the job and tell me what he thinks needs to be done and see if that matches what I know needs to be done. Even though I know him if he's off on what he plans to do I will purchase a drywall lift and do it myself. I can take me time and make sure all of the screws are put in between the joists to eliminate any possibility of shorting out the channels. I have come across two things as I've been planning my projector and screen. One I don't have enough room below the screen for my center channel on stands with a 150" screen, biggest I can do comfortably with a center is 135". Secondly, I'm using an adjustable mount for the projector because I will have some leeway once the screen is hung to make adjustments to make sure the projector lens is below the top of the screen and at a perfect 90º angle to screen.

Not much going on here ... so I thought I'd post something ...
Printing the connector boxes was the first time I ever printed something in mass. A hundred+ things at 3 hours a piece gets you thinking ... maybe I should upgrade the printer to run a bit faster. So ...


And while I had the sleeving out (the black weaved cable covering ... usually keep a few sizes of this stuff on hand ... That last roll is actually shrink tubing to keep the ends from fraying).



I thought I should do up my LFR speaker cables ...

When the Active LFRs were introduced besides giving you an incredible deal on speaker/amp combo's Axiom also threw in a custom built cable set at no charge. And they did not disappoint ... the cables I received where top notch. The actives need 5 speaker cables per speaker. Their cables were each 12AWG wire (obviously made for Axiom as their names is printed on the wire), nicely strained relieved in a gold plated double banana plug. The stranded ends had been dipped into a solder pot so you could easily insert them into the plugs ... very pro. Each of the five wire were marked with colored shrink tubing at each end so you could tell them apart.



This was very nice but 5 wires to each speaker looked a bit messy. So ...

That looks nice and clean. Where do you source the tech flex at? Parts express?

Which brand of HDMI do you like to run? I needed a 30 ft cable and went with an active cable because I was worried about not getting full 4k 60hz at that length of cable.

Wow, looks great. I should do something like that.

I know you weren't asking me, but I'm also curious what everyone is doing for longer HDMI cables. I got a 30' Furui cable a while back, and when my picture kept going out, I was afraid it was my new TV. Finally isolated the problem to the cable. They replaced it at no charge, but then the replacement failed very quickly too, so I'm done with that brand. I've had good luck with BlueRigger, but I haven't had to do any HDMI 2.1 stuff yet. Seems like there are a lot more options out there now, so I wouldn't know where to begin.

I found mine online at Amazon.
It was just like this:
https://www.amazon.ca/Entry-Cable-B...ve+velcro&qid=1636737421&sr=8-15

Is there any brand name of the manufacturer for the Axiom cable?
I bought some from Axiom a long time ago but i'm not sure which set of speaker wires i have which came from them. I have some long lengths here at home by "Allied Wire and Cable". I'm not 100% sure it came from Axiom though or if i bought it somewhere else. The stuff is terrible. The sheathing is degrading to the point where all the cable inside is oxidized BUT also gummy from the cable sheath. The sheath itself almost feels sticky on the fingers, tacky. The wire itself is probably fine to use, but in setting up to use the switcher this week, i had to use Deoxit to try and get the newly cut ends cleaned down to a new copper look. Even THAT wouldn't take all this gummy gunk off. I have two other brands of speaker wire (one was Ultralink and the other was Prolink, Made in Canada) and the sheaths are perfectly fine, smooth, like new, the Prolink has a clear sheath and the copper looks perfectly fine, no oxidation and both are equally as old. None of these were purchased for more than $1/ft.
I wouldn't buy anything by this Allied manufacturer and would have to know the company Axiom uses to make theirs. I want to replace this crappy Allied stuff though so i might have to make a purchase for 60 feet. It would either be from Axiom or Solens.

I looked at Monoprice and a few other brands but settled on Zeskit.
https://www.amazon.ca/Premium-Cable-Wall-Vision-18Gbps/dp/B07TW6R7NZ?ref_=ast_sto_dp
I had just bought a 6' 8k comptabile cable and then decided to move the media cabinet to another wall and of course now i needed a 20' cable.
[sigh]
Anyone need a good 8k 6' HDMI?

From everything I've read once you go over 35 feet you need to use an active cable and runs longer than 50 ft right now cannot support 4k @ 60hz. I went with a monoprice active cable. I'm running electrical conduit up to the projector to make it easier down the road to replace any HDMI cables because I know technology will improve and also the wires will eventually start to fail.