Wiring a house

[Dreamthief]

I have recently purchased a Klipsch 6.1 SF-2 Sound system, with a Yamaha 6.1 DC series receiver. I have this setup in my old house but am having a new house built and they have just began the framing. I was wanting to wire the entire house for speakers in every room, and have found some Klipsch recessed speakers, and I think I know how I need to attack this. I have been trying to do research on how to wire a home for Audio, Video, and Ethernet. Audio seems to be the most complicated out of what I have found and read about.

My thought process was as follows,
Buy a **** load of wire, wait for the electrician to come in and drill holes through the studs of the frame, and run my wire through his holes. Buy a Hub or a distribution center, plug everything in, and wala.

After reading some material that I have found, I read that you can not run speaker wire along side electrical wire. Infact they say (www.hometech.com/learn/hdi07.html) you shouldn't have speaker wire any closer any two feet from the electrical wire. Is this true? If so I guess I am going to have to drill my own hole through every stud in the house to run it.

What I am looking for is some good reading material on how to wire a home for audio. Do's and don'ts. etc...etc..

Any help on this would be very much appreciated.

[JohnA]

First thing First! Do it right the first time, use quality parts, and run extra lines just in case!

Here is what I would do:

Cable/SAT line: RG6 Quad Shielding
Parts Express # 100-381, 100-385, 100-390

Phone Line: Cat 5 or Cat 5e
Parts Express # 100-414, 100-415, 100-411,
100-412, 100-408

Data Line: Cat 5e or 6
Parts Express # see above and 100-406, 100-404

Speaker runs: use "in wall" wire atleast 14 awg if not larger
Parts Express# 100-764, 100-766, 100-770, 100-772
(these are monster cable, you can use it if you want to spend the money but that is up to you 100-654, 100-656, 100-658

Control lines: either Cat 5, or other 4 conductor line
Parts Express# see cat 5 numbers above, and 100-462, 100-452

Now for installing:

Plan it out first, lable everything on both ends, run extra lines (you never know when a stray nail will short a line, make smooth bends (never sharp, will kink the wire) and NEVER parallel with power lines, if you must cross a power run do it at a 90 degree and strap it above it, but if you can't place some rubber between the two to cut down on interferance. Buy at least 10% more wire than you need (better to have more than not enough)and again plan it out(be sure to think of future upgrades) and when drilling holes make them bigger than you think (you don't want to cram wires in a hole...they don't like that), and if you need to add a line later you would have to drill another hole...remember think future expansion and upgrades) If you can make the runs "home runs" (all wires come from one central location)esp. the phone lines...don't daisy chain them..run a home run line to each room, this goes for speaker lines and calbe lines as well. Hope this helps...feel free to contact me with any more questions @ johna@parts-express.com
:D