Basement/Den walls going up, ideas on anything b4 walls put up?

Question

Contractor is redoing our den walls (it's paneled and he's Sheetrock + painting over it). Any ideas or suggestions as to anything that we should build into those walls before they are put up (i.e. speaker/theater wiring so no wires for that stuff for surround sound), any other suggestions related to electronics or anything to get put in b4 walls go up? Room will be used as home theater room / play area / relax.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Well I would seriously consider placing at least 2 stereo wire jacks (RCA style) on each wall, maybe 4.  The reason for that is you could then rearrange the furniture down there at any time and move the speakers accordingly.  If you have 4 jacks on each wall on a central wiring system and a stereo amplifier powerful enough to hit each one you would be able to set up your room in anyway you want.  A friend of mine did this with his new house and it works out rather well and I thought it was a very smart idea. Also with said wiring hookup you could actually have your players on an entirely different wall then the screen (as long as you aren't using HD because the longest connection you can have for that is about 6ft unless you want the picture to suffer). This will allow you to have the TV as the center point of focus while your watching movies/TV with no distracting electronics around it.

Answer 2

Although you can install wiring at a later date, it IS much easier to do it now.    For my living room, I installed Cat5, coaxial (for cable), and 2 speaker wires just in case.   It turned out that I needed em.  :)  

If you are going to use this for home theatre, plan out your speaker locations.      If you will have 2 rear surrounds and a subwoofer located on the back wall, its best to plan for having a total of 5 speaker wires.   2 for the rears, 1 for rear center, 2 subs, etc.

Depending on your climate, you might also consider insulation for both sound proofing and keeping the cold out from those concrete walls.