AV for a new build home

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Mike8411

Audiophyte
Hi, our new home is nearly finished. I now need to fit any necessary speaker cable. I would like an AV system that can deliver good quality home theatre in the big open plan room or link to an android mobile to play music. A multiroom system would be a bonus. Limitations are no visible speaker cable runs, solid walls so in-wall not possible. My thoughts are that ceiling speakers combined with front LCR speakers would meet the limitations. Not sure how well this set up would perform. Downstairs house plans attached. The large open plan room will have a ceiling mounted projector. Any advice on layout and products would be really helpful. Thanks
 

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M

Mike8411

Audiophyte
I should have added that the projector will be mounted on the ceiling just behind the 2 seater sofa and the screen on the righthand wall.
 
everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
Does that include the projection in the budget?
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
And the walls/ceilings are all closed/finished now?
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
If walls and ceiling is open, it is time to wire the heck out of everything. This is very late in the game if you don't have several days before drywall goes up to figure things out.

You can look at a single point solution, or a per-room solution if you want. A single point distributed system is more common. That is you pull speaker wiring to every room you want distributed audio in from a central location, like the family room. If the theater is to get a feed from this system, then you will need to pull a couple of runs of coaxial cable to feed an A/V receiver in the theater for that room's surround system.

I'm not sure how solid the walls are as I'm guessing you can run cabling up and down the walls.

In the theater you MUST run 1.25" conduit from the projector location to the equipment location or you will be in big trouble when (not if) the HDMI cable fails and when you decide to go 4K in there.

But, right now, you have the unique opportunity to wire the heck out of everything. You also should run NETWORK wiring (cat6) around to a bunch of locations. Wireless may be the 'goal' for your phone and laptops, but room devices, whenever possible, should be hard wired to your home network. This takes burden off the wireless network and gives greater reliability and speed to all devices in the system.

If you want speakers in all the rooms, wire for it. It is still typical to have a volume control in many rooms, but if you use a multi-channel amplifier and a streaming device like Chromecast, you can adjust volume at the source and stream music to different rooms rather easily for not a lot of cash.

If you are buying and own this place and plan to be there for 10+ years, then wiring for audio in rooms that you don't intend to put speakers into is a pretty cheap expense right now. You don't have to open up walls or anything, you just run the wire, tuck it into the ceiling, and make detailed notes with photos of where every wire is located. Oh, and you LABEL EVERY WIRE carefully.
 
M

Mike8411

Audiophyte
Thanks for the advice so far. We are at first fix, so this is the time to future proof. Speaker cables will be routed to all the appropriate rooms. The av receiver in the open plan will be the source location for the feeds. Cat 6 throughout. Still need to choose speaker type and location in the open plan and also need to choose an av receiver etc. Going to wire for a projector but leave the purchase for another time, live with a wall mounted TV for now.
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
Don't cheap out on the speaker cables, it makes a difference. Get a spool (100/200 feet depending on the combined lenghts of your runs) of 12 or 14 gauge oxygen-free copper wire (Amazon, Monoprice, etc.). I wouldn't rely on the electrician/installer to do so and if you do, make sure it's spelled out in the contract. The more specific you are the better.
 
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