Home Installation - Do it Yourself and Save

Penny pinchers throughout the Phoenix area seek to save a few bucks by installing their own home theater systems or adding components. While assistance from a professional theater design and installation expert will always yield the best results, the apt DIYer can carry out some decent work on his home theater system by closely following the tips included in this section.

• How to install a TV on a wall?
• What is cable management?
• How to hide your audio equipment?
• How to hide your video equipment?
• How to hide your components?
• Design the Layout of Your Home Theater
• Purchase Your Home Theater System
• Gather Cable Management Accessories
• Confirm Power Supply is Sufficient
• Mount All Components
• Label Wires and Connect Components
• Conceal or Hide Wires
• Turn on Home Theater and Enjoy

Beginners Beware

Installing and integrating the components of a home theater system can be quite complicated. With wires running left and right, heavy equipment to be mounted on walls, and all sorts of precautions to be taken, missteps can be costly and even dangerous. At Integrated IO®™, we want you to be successful. This is why our experts offer free DIY advice, even if you do not end up using our services!

One of the great things about the smart home is that it’s completely modular. At any point you can add in some new devices or try out some new software and still be able to control your home remotely. Ask our experts about the latest and greatest in products and what might work best for you. Find out more about Control4, and how it can make it possible for virtually any appliance or device in your home to intelligently communicate with another. You’ll need to have a clear sense of what you want to achieve, in order to move ahead with a smart home. Maybe you just need to have the ability to control the lights and help save on energy or have better home security. Or you might want the smartest home on the block and have your robot vacuum cleaning your floors downstairs while you’re using Alexa-enabled devices to adjust the lighting and mood upstairs. Get a clear idea of what it is you want, and don't hesitate to ask us questions.

• Design of Your Home Theater System

The design of your home theater system is really important to your actual installation. Since you took the time to determine how to get the most entertainment value for your investment, you'll want to make sure it's installed the way you designed it. If you're not sure you did this well, please consult our professional home theater system designers to check over your ideas. It's a free consultation, and could help your design tremendously.

• Wiring and Cable Management

When wiring your components together, you're going to want to make your home theater system as attractive as possible. Managing your cables and wiring properly can make all the difference in the world in the aesthetics of your home theater system. Consider options like wireless speakers, flat wires, wiring channels and other means of concealing wires in your home theater system.

• Video Component Installation

When it comes to installing the video components of your home theater, there are a few factors to take into account. First is the location of the screen and the weight. It will need to be mounted on the wall into studs to ensure it stays secure. Another thing you'll need to remember is the distance to your video feed (DVR, BluRay, cable box, DVD, etc.) affects your signal quality. The further away from the component you get, the more degraded the signal gets when it arrives at your screen. This being said, you'll want your cables to be high quality (low resistance) and as close to the home theater component as possible.

Mounting your video components (LCD, LED, Plasma or any flat screen) is important to your home theater system. The screen should be mounted at just above eye level from where you might sit in your room. This prevents neck strain from looking up or down at your screen.  Also, you'll want to consider the angle of the screen to the viewers as well as the distance from the seating to ensure great visibility.

• Audio Component Installation

The sound quality of your home theater system will easily be as important as your video quality. So, it's best you start with a well-thought-out design for your home theater system as well as high quality components and cables. As you get ready to install your audio components (speakers as well as audio equipment), revisit the layout of the system to make sure the sound will be focused on where your listeners are to be seated as well as consideration of the cable management, if you are hard wiring the home theater system.

Your audio components, and where they are placed or mounted, will be an important part of your home theater design as well.  Once they are installed, changing them around will be tough to accomplish.