Building Home - Need Advice

[Clint DeBoer]

<font color='#000000'>OK. Here's the deal:

I'm building a new home in March and I have time to make some adjustments for setting up my audio [read: living] room. Considering the room will be 19' deep by 16' wide with 9' [flat] ceilings, I'd love to hear your recommendations, if any, for what I might want to do special for power, acoustics, etc...

I thought this might be a fun discussion, and I can then share photos and experiences later (perhaps even a thorough article) about what we did in the room...

Here's my rig:

Mains: Paradigm Studio/40s
Center: Paradigm Studio CC
Surrounds: Paradigm Studio/ADPs
Sub: Paradigm Servo-15
Amp: Sherbourn 7/2100 (December arrival date)
Receiver (pre-pro + effects channel amplification): Yamaha RX-V3000
Monitor: 32&quot; Toshiba
DVD: Sony DVP-S550D
CD: Harmon Kardon FL8350
Power Conditioner: Panamax 1000+
Interconnects are Monster this and that...

So far, I'm planning on running two 15amp circuits behind the main wall with 12 guage wire. Other than that, I'd appreciate any suggestions.

I'm contemplating pulling in my couch to allow for rear surround placement, however I'm not sure if this will work or not in the layout... the dining room )open area) woudl be on the righty and the left wall has french doors which open to a porch.

All ideas are welcome - I'll entertain and evaluate all feedback!</font>

[RLA]

<font color='#000000'>Hi
I will make a few quick recommendations and then do a follow up later
make one of the two outlets a 20 amp outlet &nbsp;that is dedicated circuit all the way back to the breaker
with its own neutral wire to the neutral bar. Use Industrial grade outlets ( The orange or gray ones)
available at Home Depot. The reason for this is that they grab and hold heavy power cords better
than residential outlets. Buy a 250ft or 500ft roll of RG-6 Quad Shield and pull it to every location in the room
even if you leave it unterminated in a box for future applications RG-6 can be used for
Subwoofer Cables, Digital and Analog Interconnects, Component Video Cables
two runs of RG-6 &nbsp;together can be used as a long S-Video Cable &nbsp;It can even be used as
speaker wire if you employ a matching transformer to the amp and speaker end
It is truly a multi purpose wire. When I prewire a room there is allot of unterminated
wire left in the wall and crawl spaces for future applications and it has saved the
clients down the road. &nbsp;Shielded Cat 5 is also a multi use cable and you should consider
Installing this as well
More Later
Ray</font>

[nickstr]

some say that unshielded cat 5 is good too in the sense that you dont need to worry about grounding the shield (ungrounded the shield acts as an antenna) Also, with the use of baluns, you can run component video and s-video/audio over cat5 without taking up the room in the conduit that coax needs. I will say that it will even have advantages if properly installed over coax since coax is a compromise in some ways that is simply tolerant of tight turns and metal objects in its proximity. audio needs one pair and a balun at each end so a cat 5 cable gives four channels of very good audio in a super low-cost low volume install. it is reliable and lossless (under 3db) for like 1000 feet but that is a silly length. at 100 feet i doubt you will hear any difference from a mogami mic cable..well thats not true but it will be very slight and with efficient speakers (88db at 1 watt or so ) you wont have any trouble making up for a 1 db loss.

[Dan Banquer]

Keep the two 15 amp circuits on the same phase.
d.b.

[Rip Van Woofer]

Invite us to the housewarming party!

[jneutron]

#12 is good for 20 amps...Make both runs 20 amps.

At the breaker box, use a 1 inch dual 20 amp independent leg breaker. That will use the same blade for the unit, guaranteeing the same phase is used.

When dressing the wires in the panel..keep hot, neutral, and ground of each wire in very close proximity to each other, as far up to the breaker screw as possible. You want to make sure the magnetic fields of the other loads cannot get into that loop. If possible, arrange it so that the new breaker is directly next to the neutral and ground strips, so those wires are near the hots till the very last moment. And if possible, put the new breaker as close to the main mreaker as possible. That will reduce the loop pickup from the stereo lines to the other house loads via the buss structure, not to be confused with IR drops.

If possible, keep the heavy load circuits in the panel away from your new ones.

Transient pops from heavy 220 volt loads can be reduced by either tying the two hots or twisting them lightly..but I am not sure if that is allowed by code.

The wire runs to the outlets, if you can, twist each wire independently, I know it makes install a little worse, but you eliminate the loop pickup between each wire, and subsequent circuits.

Do not use the strip and push feature on any 20 amp circuits, it is not allowed by code...the outlets will specifically state this somewhere, should they have that option.

Do not connect grounds or neutrals anywhere, especially at the outlets. That would allow 40 amps to go through a wire without tripping a breaker.

Good luck

Cheers, John