New home build - What cables to pre-wire?

itschris

itschris

Moderator
My friend is buiding a new house. He's not a nut like us, but I want to steer him in the right direction. He's got 2 kids, a 2 story house. I've talked him into the 75" Samsung, but he's far more of a sports guy, than HT/Audio guy.

My initial thought was he should definately run CAT5 or 6 throughout the house. Now I'm not sure if that's even necessary. Some say yes, some say no. Some say run muliple runs for phones as well... other say not. The price difference is between Blue Jean and Monoprice is actually more than double for CAT6... makes me suspect of Monoprice quality, but feel free to correct me.

What about coax? Is that even necessary? If so, where should he run it and how?

Lastly, we did order 500ft of the 12 guage Beldon Speaker 5000 speaker wire.

I need the advice of the hive on this one. Thanks guys.
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
Speaking from personal experience, as a telecommunications tech & building my own home, albeit in 1991, I would run dual CAT6e (Belden) cables/jacks to every room, 8’ apart, in the house, including a single cable to the bathrooms to take care of your phone/network/printers/Ethernet/LAN needs. Wireless has come a long way but still doesn’t hold a candle to a hard wire connection. In some instances run quad cable/jacks if needed; obviously your friends input will have to be well thought out. Get out the architectural floor plans and think it thru. The cost may not be cheap but the convenience for now and in the future will be invaluable. I can’t tell you how many times I was grateful I ran all those cables before sealing the walls/ceilings, especially when the wife gets the bug to move the furniture around, when we redesigned the kitchen or later when I converted my kids rooms to sound/guest rooms. If you want to know how much grief/money you’re saving, just call an electrician to quote you a price on running/fishing a speaker/CAT6/coax cable. You will not regret spending the money now.

With coax I would run 2 per bedroom, 3 per LR/den and 1 in the kitchen and 1 or 2 in the garage. Even if you don’t use them now, you could always leave them buried for future use; make sure to label the drawings with specific measurements for location width & height, be it speaker/coax/CAT6 cable.

Almost forgot to mention to run 5' to 8' of slack for each cable, just in case you pull it back up and relocate it or you're a bit ham-handed terminating the cables. This was especially helpful in the kitchen makeover. This really comes in handy when you go to resell the house also and they'd like re-configure the layout in certain rooms.
 
Last edited:
Andreas

Andreas

Junior Audioholic
I ran CAT6 to every room in the house excluding the washrooms. Before drywall I went to each telephone jack, and ran the CAT6 along the phone line and left the wire hanging in the basement for future connections.

Several years later I have hardwired only 2 connections. Family room (HT system) and Library (Main desktop & 2 Channel). For me its perfect. everyone else uses wifi on their MacAirs and other mobile devices. I installed an Airport Extreme Base Station and an Airport express for the wireless.

With Fibe in Toronto you don't even need cable outlets.
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
If this is a custom build definitely wire up cat6, speaker wire and anything else that might be useful before the build. I also recommend insulating interior rooms especially a home theater one.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
I ran quadshield coax to 4 potential sub locations even though I only intend to use 2 ... just in case.
 
itschris

itschris

Moderator
For CAT6, is monoprice okay or does he need to run belkin from BLUE JEAN CABLE? Would coax just be for cable? His question is... Why cat 6 when there's wireless? I'm not very convincing I guess.
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
For CAT6, is monoprice okay or does he need to run belkin from BLUE JEAN CABLE? Would coax just be for cable? His question is... Why cat 6 when there's wireless? I'm not very convincing I guess.
Monoprice will be fine, Belkin would be better. Yes, coax is just for cable. A hard wire CAT6 cable is always more reliable and cable speed is faster than wireless, especially when multiple users access your main router.
 
itschris

itschris

Moderator
I've also read that you can use CAT6 for telephone as well? So basically, I'm thinking he should run:
1) 3 drops of CAT6/Coax in the main TV room (in case you move stuff around you'll have different walls with access)
2) Same as above for the office, but probably not multiple Coax
3) Master Bedroom - Just like #1
4) Other Bedrooms - Maybe 2 drops of each
5) Kitchen and other areas should be fine with wireless.

How does that sound? I'm concerned that the monoprice CAT6 is cheap chinese junk. I've read that a lot of the Chinese CAT6 doesn't even perform at CAT5. It's just so much more expensive at Blue Jean $150 vs $450 at Blue Jean. I really need to know if it's worth it. For this application.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
The way I look at it is this: spend more up front so you don't have to spend more later. If there is a QA question with the cable, don't buy it. Monoproce speaker wire is great, not sure about the CAT 6
 
ImcLoud

ImcLoud

Audioholic Ninja
When I built my house I ran dual cat 6 cable to every room {and some rooms have up to 3 sets} with a coax to each outlet that got the dual cat 6 cables. I ran all the whole house audio speaker cables, and the surround sound and hdmi cables through the parlors. It was very expensive and time consuming, {we added it up one day at lunch while building my home and I have about 25,000 feet of cable ran through my house} not to mention I have all these wall outlets now that we don't use. I have wireless cable boxes, wireless phones and wireless internet, not one cat 6 ran device...

Anyway I don't regret the whole house audio, the security and camera cables, and I don't regret running the speaker cables and sub cables in the walls for the living rooms, I would do that all over again but the cat cable would not be ran..

If I were doing it over, I would run the 5.2 system in the living room with the HDMI to the tv using a tv specific box, then the whole house audio {even if you don't poke it through leave it up there and draw yourself a map of where they are, we use ours often}... Run the cable coax and a central phone line to each floor, thats it... {I would run the cable coax even if your cable provider has wireless}... Mono price cables are really nice, I would buy 90% of it from them...
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
This all seems silly to me Chris... Not because you aren't thinking about it, but because you are asking for a answer to a question which hasn't actually been asked.

That is, what is it that is desired? WHY was speaker cable purchased? What is the cat-6 for? What is the intent, what is the goal? If you don't have a goal, then how can we recommend a plan to achieve that goal?

Building a house is awesome! It's a very unique time to really wire the heck out of the home. If you actually have the access, and the right to run wires, then just go nutso-crazy about it.

So, let's talk, and be serious about the talk.

1. Where are the TVs going in the house? Remember that if there are any 'old' tube TVs, they are relics. So, all new TVs for the next 50+ years that the house is there will want a flat panel display (or what comes next). So, pick TV locations right now, think about the layout of rooms, where the TVs will go, and then wire appropriately.

2. Every TV must be fed from the sources which are needed. The easiest and most common location is by placing a TV on a stand and having sources located right under it, but if there is a goal to wall-mount a TV, then that TV needs power on the wall, and a way to get cables to that location. If the path is straight up and down, then it's easy to put wires behind the wall at any point if there is no firestop in the way. But, across studs should have at least 1.25" flexible conduit (Carlon) put in place. This gives a path for wiring from the equipment to the TV at any time.

3. Speakers and distributed audio, etc. should be extremely carefully thought out and planned. I like having the option of audio anywhere, and Monoprice makes decent enough speakers for $50 a pair or so. Regardless of actually putting speakers in, go ahead and run the wiring. Consider that all wiring should be run to a central location which has plenty of room for equipment. Always better to have it next to the telephone, cable, and network distribution center.

4. Networking! I'm sure you have NEVER had issues with Wi-Fi not working. I'm sure your friend has never had an issue as well, so as I'm sure this is the case, then there's no need to put in a wired network. Wait... What's that you say? You HAVE had issues over the years with wireless connectivity? Well, what do you think they are putting into $100 Blu-ray players? Top shelf Wi-Fi products? Of course not! You are also talking about streaming video (most likely) and Internet content. So, you MUST put in a good wired network and it should be in place to all 'critical' locations. Those location (IMO) include: One in a good 'desk' location in each bedroom. One to a home office, or perhaps on each wall of an office. And one to any equipment locations for 'Smart' devices. We also put one behind our couch in the family room in case a laptop in use doesn't play well with Wi-Fi. The goal of Wi-Fi use for general web-surfing is fine, but heavy use in a home can eat up wireless bandwidth, and more importantly Wi-Fi from A/V gear can really suck balls. Get the wires in place. Cat cabling is incredibly inexpensive and completely worth it. I have no issues with Monoprice cabling that I've used.

5. Consider the rest... Anything and everything. Think about what you may dream of having in the house. If it's a stand alone house, then consider outdoor locations as well. Speakers in the garage, on the porch, out front. All the 'weird' locations. I have over 20 zones of audio in my setup and can hardly imagine setting up a home with less than 8 zones. It's pretty easy to think them up if you look around. Consider TV locations over fireplaces if that is to happen. Consider fireplaces themselves and if they should be setup in a FAR more A/V friendly manner.

There are dozens of things which can be done. But, after the drywall is up, the options become far less likely unless you will repair drywall.

I'm in the later category. Putting in recessed lights, adding lighting control, putting in all those speakers, TVs, control, etc. It's way easier to do it up front, and far less money if you come up with a list of what you want to accomplish so that recommendations can be made.

Remember! HDMI didn't exist 10 years ago. If you put an HDMI cable in a wall, and it's then drywalled into place, what's the game plan for when HDMI is replaced with something else? Plan for it, install for it, be ready for it.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
Would coax just be for cable?
Yes, coax is just for cable.
I used RG-6 Quadshield as a subwoofer signal cable for a nearfield dual sub set up in the back corners of our living room. I guess I could have used RG-59. When I ran the speaker wire for the front left and right I added RG-6 quad to those locations as well in case I opted for subs up front one day but I left the RG-6 buried in the wall behind the speaker wire binding post wall plate.

Aside from that the only useful thing I can add is that if it were me I'd pay real close attention to BMXTRIX.
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
I used RG-6 Quadshield as a subwoofer signal cable for a nearfield dual sub set up in the back corners of our living room. I guess I could have used RG-59. When I ran the speaker wire for the front left and right I added RG-6 quad to those locations as well in case I opted for subs up front one day but I left the RG-6 buried in the wall behind the speaker wire binding post wall plate.
I stand corrected and it can also be used for CCTV, for security camera(s)/video applications.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
Likewise: Cat-5/6 cable is by far the most versatile cable on the market, and it is also one of the least expensive. Cat-6 is great to use, but cat-5e is still prevalent. In a new home build it's entirely up to you what you want, but keep in mind that cat-5e gets replaced with cat-6... so there will be a cat-7, cat-8, etc. Don't overspend on something which you know will some day go away.

So, buy some good cabling, and certainly MP doesn't suck:
Cat 6 Ethernet Cables - 1000ft Bulk Cable - Monoprice.com

Read the reviews, they are a decent cable.

I would buy 4 or 5 boxes, and I would NOT duplicate colors. That is, if you pull network and phone to the same location, use a grey wire for phone, and a blue wire for Ethernet. If pulling to a TV location, pull grey, blue, green, and yellow. This helps immensely with your wiring back at the main equipment location as you can just look to see what wiring is in place to a single room.

Oh, and if you are pulling the wiring, LABEL EVERYTHING! I use this label maker which can produce labels which wrap the cable:
Brady BMP21 Label Printer: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

You get results like this:
av02.jpg
 

Latest posts

newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top