bose system, tv in corner, glass on one side, open on the other, have you tried prayer?

That would require the Bose to have better high frequency response than the main speakers, which is unlikely.

Hmm, if the customer enjoys Bose sound, wants an SD TV in the corner, and doesn't want wires I have an old Sony Watchman you can buy from me.

It only has a 4" screen, but it runs on batteries so no wires, and the speaker makes that nice 'whee' sound she loves.

I'll even provide discrete codes for the tuning dial.

George,
You are in for a battle no doubt...
I have some ideas, but I need more info.

Chances are that the electrician's cabling goes into the wall at the equipment area, up through that wall's header into the joist cavity and over the room, and then down through the header into the wall at the TV location. Biggest question is whether it is a straight shot down one parallel joist space, or drilled across the perpendicular joists...

If the orientation goes the right way, and IF the second floor room has wall to wall carpeting, I have a semi-secret method taught to me buy a friend that retros HVAC into old houses.
(you thought YOUR retros were tough)

If there is carpet, you can pull the carpet back from the tack strips and carelfully roll it back a few feet at each end of the room. The flooring is likely 5/8", 3/4" or 7/8" OSB or plywood, depending on how well the house was built. Determine the orientation and exact location of the joists with some needle bit drilling. (1/64" or 3/32" x 12" bits, buy lots you will break them often)

If the joists run N and S, you can get this done without too much fuss. If they run E and W, maybe not. If the orientation goed the correct way, set a circ saw blade depth to barely penetrate the flooring, you do not want to cut into the joists themselves AT ALL.

Assuming the joists are 24" on center (confirm with needle bit before you cut), cut 24"x12"squares from one joist to the next closest in the cavity you need to be in at each end of the room, close enough to the wall (<6") to feed the wire through the existing header openings and/or to drill an extra hole in the header for your chase tubing that you will be insightful enough to include.

Cut the flooring from half the width of one joist to half the width of the other, meaning that the board you replace will sit on half of the joist edge and the remaining floor is still on the other half, this will keep the floor from getting weak spots or sqeaks. You will need to place blocking between the joists to support the other two sides of each cut out the same half and half way. Pre-drilled & screw the replacement piece to the joists and blocking and make sure it's solid and level with the existing floor, if there are large gaps or bumps, you might feel them through the carpet.

Bring some small sheets of the flooring material if you know, or go buy them on lunch break after you figure out what the flooring material is, you will almost certainly destroy the cut out section getting it off the joist, because it is probably glued down with construction adhesive. Obviously, you want to clean the joist with a chisel and maybe rough sandpaper to recieve the replacement panel.

You can also pull your corrugated orange Carlon tubing for the future HD feed at this time, you don't want to do this more than once.

Rolling back carpet and stretching it back onto tack strips sure beats plaster work in a ceiling.

Use a powered speaker and a two channel UHF audio transmitter / reciever system.
I take it there is AC power at the location since it is near the plasma?

Rick, I think you speed read this part.

Tom.

Whats the slab have to do with the second story?

The floor surgery is under the carpet of the second floor.

Since the first floor sits on a slab, that led me to believe that the current wires are run overhead.
Since the existing cable positively denotes the location of the correct wall cavity above the header, George should easily be able to get the runs into the correct wall cavity on each end of the room without test drilling at all on the finished surfaces in the first floor.
Even if he needs to, a needle bit hole is small enough to be disguised with paint.

If the wallplate locations are offset by a couple joist cavities, like to offset for the fireplace George mentions, it just means more hours carefullt cutting access holes and patching them back up. A single joist offest can be done by using a right angle drill and a selfeed through the web of the joist that seperates the correct cavities at either end, and snaking the tape or rods through to the other opening and pulling back.

If George can get these cables placed into the correct wall cavities from above, then the rest should be pretty straightforward.

IMHO, being good at retro is truly what seperates the best companies from the good companies. I would like to think that we are pretty good, but I see old salty plumbers and electricians on old house restoration jobs come up with things that make me feel like I am still in first grade.

Had a customer in an apartment in Queens. Comes up in conversation that he ran wires to his rears himself... I look around, and see them 'floating' behind the couch (not near a wall). The wire comes up through the floor. I ask did you renovate the floor? No... Turns out his friend is an electrician, and he drilled a 1/2" hole on both ends and snaked it through the neighbor's ceiling... I said - "I'm glad you did that, and didn't ask me to...

There is no line out w/ Bose...
and using a speaker-to-line transformer, then a leapfrog, then a powered speaker is a pretty big science project with far too many ways to fail for my comfort.

Well I guess there is no magic bullett. Acomplishing this task is a major undertaking. I thought about trying to access the second floor cavity, but one side is a bathroom with floor tile and the other side is carpet.
I think I'll just take the magic bullett and shoot myself.
Although a good suggestion, I have concerns about the reliability of Teknobeam1s configuration.

GP

Yes, the solution is... the electrician knew what he was doing, and you should have the customer go back to the electrician to have him show how to run the center channel!

Unless of course the electrican was in over his head, and sold the customer a line of BS. In which case he should fix the problem for the customer at a big discount.

The way I would handle this issue is by sitting down with the owner and explaining reality to him. There are really no stakes on your end, you aren't the electircian, and you wouldn't have let that happen had you benn involved prior.

Now that you have that out of the way, ask him how he would like to proceed?

He is either going to have to spring for some retro construction costs (with enough cash anything is possible), or he is going to have to compromise on a pseudo LCR experience. In a way, he is already compromising, he has chosen a Bose system.

Use a Kenwood RFU-6100.

Teknobeam's follow up is spot on...
It's a bad deal that you inherited, but it looks like you have been looking at this from every angle.
You may want to point out how much leg work you went through here with all of these pros, and probably a few other places as well. It's not like you shrugged your shoulders becuase you didn't want to get your hands dirty.