Building my first and hopefully last new house,
I will be placing TV/HT in the living room.

Vaulted ceiling in a 25 x 16 open plan kitchen - LR. A 1/3 high wall divides what I see being the back or seating 1/2 of the two areas. Photo is from smaller house - ignore dimensions shown - FP is the same layout. I plan on placing TV-stereo on MB wall, side surrounds by front door and end of divider wall, rear surrounds opposite of TV.

General layout.
Speakers - Green
Tv - Blue
Stereo - Yellow
Furniture - Red
Possible conduit - Orange

Concrete slab foundation - With cathedral ceiling. Should I have pvc - "conduit" placed in the slab to accommodate wiring under floor starting behind stereo in the wall at a double gang box, going to these locations so I can pull speaker wire continuing up in the walls to single gang receptacles at these locations as required ?
Surround by front door can be run in wall.




Never been through construction and I'm not at all familiar with slab foundation construction I know once it's in it's going to be hard to change it !

Almost forgot !
Recommendations for in wall speaker wire - I've been checking WWW.AudioAdvisor.Com and possibly Cobalt Cable\'s In-wall wire
- A bit pricey for me - but it's a long term investment. IMHO CC makes good - reasonably priced - well built / shielded speaker cables, I like mine.

Not hard -- impossible, unless you want to practically rebuild the house! You'll want to check with the general contractor to see if it's feasible, and what the NEC restrictions are. We have electrical running to our kitchen Island through concrete slab, so I know it's possible...

The other option you have is to put a raised floor in your HT room. This way, you can run cable under and all over as you wish. It also makes the installation of a "raised" second row of seating (if that's even on your radar) very DIY-doable.

The cobalt cable is pretty reasonable (and it's direct burial rated, which may be required?), although it's a snap to buy 500 ft spools of CL3 Monster 14/2 or 14/4 on ebay for cheap if you're cost conscious.

I think the pipe under the slab is a great idea!!! Don't let it be anything less than 3/4 inch diameter. This will keep your cable runs as short as possible.
I would use a 12 gauge generic speaker wire and spend the money on something else. The insulation should have something like a CM rating. It doesn't have to be rated for direct burial.

Something else while you are building is to run a piece of 2" PVC pipe from the first floor to the attic if possible. This is for future electrical circuits. Good Luck Jim

So PVC is OK set in the concrete, it won't degrade to badly over next 30 - 40 years ? I thought doing it this way made sense to minimize the distance and ease install of wire - whole lot more wire to go up and over - not to mention ever wanting to replace that kind of wire run - seemed like a good solution, wonder how much this might cost - I'll pull the wire and terminate it myself, just want the conduit and boxes in place. Since it's not "true" or 120V electrical use who can lay it in before the slab is poured ? GC's crew or a sub ? ? ?

Make sure the pvc is schedule 40. It will take any abuse better when pouring the slab. The pipe will outlast you! Let the electrician install it. He will have the skill to overcome any obstacles in the installation that may arise, even though it looks to be a simple job. Jim

I did this in a room addition, used schedule 40, 1" PVC in the slab, to run signal cable to the surround speakers. Don't get suckered into buying overpriced cables. 12-14 ga from Home depot is just as good. In you HT room, you may want to consider building a raised wood floor instead of the slab. Sub woofers souns much better on wood floors since the sound waves are transmitted through the floor, not so with slab floors.

Do yourself a favor and make the PVC a minimum of 1-1/2" and make two runs. PVC a very cheap and the additional labor will be minimal. Never know when the extra conduit will come in handy.