Pre wire

[Mandinga]

Hello,

First post here. A buddy of mine told me to check this site out. I just purchased a new home with bare walls and while redoing some of the electrical I thought why not run cabling for multi room audio. My goal is to have 5 maybe 6 zones, one of them being outdoor. Zone one (living room) and outside will be the only one with video. Every other will be audio only. From what I've read is that I should run cat5 to the keypads. My question is would it be wise to run more than one cat five to each location. I'm thinking of future upgrades. Once the walls go up It would be difficult to wire so I want to be ready for anything. Cabling is not an issue because I get it cheap so any ideas you can give I would appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[highfigh]

Hello,

First post here. A buddy of mine told me to check this site out. I just purchased a new home with bare walls and while redoing some of the electrical I thought why not run cabling for multi room audio. My goal is to have 5 maybe 6 zones, one of them being outdoor. Zone one (living room) and outside will be the only one with video. Every other will be audio only. From what I've read is that I should run cat5 to the keypads. My question is would it be wise to run more than one cat five to each location. I'm thinking of future upgrades. Once the walls go up It would be difficult to wire so I want to be ready for anything. Cabling is not an issue because I get it cheap so any ideas you can give I would appreciate it.

Thanks

Cat5e is cheap- run two, as well as at least one 4 conductor speaker cable to each keypad box and run 4 conductor speaker wires with the speaker locations. If you run 2 conductor, you won't be able to use stereo ceiling speakers and they provide much better coverage than just the kind with a woofer and tweeter because you will usually have areas where you only hear one channel and that's pretty annoying. Distributed audio isn't for listening for imaging and separation, it's for filling space with music, so be realistic about it. Since that will make it pretty tight for space, use double boxes and a single mud ring. If you think network, audio and video will be a remote possibility in other areas, you might want to just run cable to more locations now. Add at least one Cat5e to each box and if possible (and if you have a basement), drop a conduit of some kind so you'll have access later in case the wiring needs change. You can do this in the attic, too.

 

[Mandinga]

Thanks. Everything is pre-wired now. Drywall doesn't go up for another week so any more suggestion would be welcomed. My only hang up is the inceiling speakers for the first floor living room. My second floor is solid concrete so I only have 1inch between the drywall and concrete on the first floor. Any one have a suggestion on thin speakers. I was thinking of making some type of round enclosure for them if I can't find what would work for me.

 

[highfigh]

Thanks. Everything is pre-wired now. Drywall doesn't go up for another week so any more suggestion would be welcomed. My only hang up is the inceiling speakers for the first floor living room. My second floor is solid concrete so I only have 1inch between the drywall and concrete on the first floor. Any one have a suggestion on thin speakers. I was thinking of making some type of round enclosure for them if I can't find what would work for me.

Rather than use something only because it's thin enough, I would think about looking for some kind of small speaker that can be mounted on the wall or ceiling. Your choices will be better and it'll sound better.