Whole house audio installation. help please?

[adam03]

Hi, i am moving into a new house in a few weeks and would like to install a 'simple' home audio system. I dont know much about this sort of thing and so any help would be appreciated.

The house is not complete yet and so while the wiring is going on i want to take this oppertunity to install any necesary audio wiring while i have the chance.

In my living room i will be running speaker wire to my 5.1 surround sound system straight from the dvd player. I would like to add 5 or 6 other speakers in different rooms to this system which i can use to play music throughout the house when people come round and for parties etc...

Questions...
1. How would i go about adding speakers to my system, would i need an amplifier and how would i go about wiring them...?

2. Is there an easy way to control the volume of each speaker seperately For example could i have quiet background music across the house but louder in the living room?

3. If i wanted to control the music from anywhere in the house how would i go about doing this? Would an IR to RF to IR range extender be sufficient to work across two floors?

4. If i want to change the audio source is this easily done? For example if i wanted to change my input from a cd player to the TV audio can i just unplug the CD player from the amp and Plug in the TV audio output or is it not that simple?

Apologies if for any obvious questions but this is all new to me.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks Adam

 

[digdilem]

The best way (I think) is to run cat5 to every point you think you'll need, whether it's tv, speaker, phone, control point. You can do the lot at once if you're building or decorating soon, or a little at a time as you feel like it.

Terminate each run of cat5 to a central point - cupboard, loft, whatever.

Yes - cat5, not speaker wire. You get 8 wires for the same effort of installing, which you can use independently - and it's cheap and universal.

At that point, having numbered and identified each bit of wire, you install a patch panel and connect each cat5 to it.

Then - when you need to assign a function to each point, you just switch between the ports with a patch lead. Then each point can be anything from phone, data, audio etc.

There's some stuff on here about patch panels which will help you understand if you're fuzzy.

1. Maybe, depends on sound source.

2. Yes - depending on source source or amp. You can control different speakers independantly - like fader in a car. You could assign them to different areas.

3. You can add IR sensors to cat5, but we're onto the proprietry stuff. Once you have a decent cat5 network to play with, a LOT of things are possible.

4. Sure, very much that simple.

Depending on budget, you might want to investigate various proprietry systems to see what functionality is available to your budget, or go all creative and cobble something together out of string and beads.

 

[ChrisFrost]

Have you had a look at Sonos yet? If not, then you really should.

It will do everything you want now and a load of stuff that you'll later kick yourself for overlooking.

"But Sonos is expensive, right?"

Well no, not really. It's actually one of the lowest cost and most flexible ways to do multi-room. I know this because I sell Sonos, Squeezebox, Systemline, Niko, Living Control and Netstreams/Naimnet, plus I have access to Russound, Niles, Speakercraft, Opus and Crestron. It's not everything in the market, but it covers all the costs from low to high for anything worth spending money on.

Don't get me wrong.... Sonos isn't the last word in multi-room audio, but for what most people want it covers all the bases.

Questions...
1. How would i go about adding speakers to my system, would i need an amplifier and how would i go about wiring them...?

Put in some decent grade speaker cable...wired back to a wall panel (near a mains socket). Add the Sonos ZP120 streaming player with built in amp when you are ready.

2. Is there an easy way to control the volume of each speaker seperately For example could i have quiet background music across the house but louder in the living room?

Yep, Sonos does that. From one or any controller, or your PC, or your iPhone or iPod you can talk to all the zone players in your home. You can control them individually, in groups that you decide, or as a whole.

Two neat tricks - Sonos plays your music in sync across several zones. There's no time delay because of cable length, so you don't get an echo. Second; having a party... set some rooms quiet and others louder. Group those rooms and Sonos gives you a master volume control that preserves the different levels in each room.

3. If i wanted to control the music from anywhere in the house how would i go about doing this? Would an IR to RF to IR range extender be sufficient to work across two floors?

see 2 above and 4 below

4. If i want to change the audio source is this easily done? For example if i wanted to change my input from a cd player to the TV audio can i just unplug the CD player from the amp and Plug in the TV audio output or is it not that simple?

Rip your music to a NAS drive. Plug the TV audio direct in to the AUX on one of the Sonos players. Now you can have TV sound anywhere there's a Sonos zone player.

 

[StretchArmstrong]

I guess squeeze boxes do the above as well? although they will need seperate amps, which might be perceived as a pain for sourcing/cabling, or a benefit in being less proprietary/more flexible ?

 

[ChrisFrost]

Squeeze box wouldn't be a bad alternative except for one glaring massive dumb flaw.... The need for a PC running server software 24/7 before you can stream your own content!!!

For me and my type of customers this is a deal breaker. Who wants to switch on and boot up their PC just to be able to listen to a track or two? It adds unnecessary cost and complication to an otherwise good product.

Slimserver can be installed on specific Netgear NAS drives, but why when other products work fine with a much wider variety without any special conditions. It's a problem that Logitec (makers of Squeezebox products) know about and they really need to fix it... I'm just not holding my breath on this one.

If one has the time and patience to trawl the info, then get under the hood of the various solutions, then be on hand to keep it all running if something changes then there are workarounds and stuff... but they aren't endorsed so any tech problems won't be supported either. If you want to go down that route then have a look this thread as a starter LINKYPersonally I'd just rather use a solution that works and get on with enjoying my entertainment.

 

[StretchArmstrong]

valid points, and a decision route I took about two years ago.

for me, the catalyst for change was my fiance moving in, with her boxes of CDs, and her predilection for taking photos for facebook, etc.
I realised that a home server was the only secure way of managing all this av stuff.

So, for £400, I got a low energy, quiet home server PC, with 500GB storage.

atom chipset, easily enough grunt to run a couple of squeezeboxes.
added benefit of automated back-up of our laptops, etc.

I'm not as in love with squeezebox as I was previously, but I'd still put money on a whole house solution being cheaper than sonos - in adam's case, especially if he needs/wants a home server.


also, the latest squeezeserver is meant to run on the squeezebox itself, making the processing requirements a non-issue.

I'd agree, from what I've read, the sonos certainly looks the 'money no object' ideal.

 

[ChrisFrost]

If they've managed to make the server software run on a Squeezebox directly then I'll have to take another look at it.

Each and every multi-room music solution has it's pro's and con's, and none is perfect.

I dare say you're right about the costs, but that's not the whole story. You'd also have to figure in the costs of amps, the aesthetics and what might happen when your wireless network has more than 4 SB players to contend with. Sonos has it's own wireless network built in of course, and it's also equipped with it's own router system. That's part of why it's more expensive and ultimately more flexible.

I did chuckle when I read that you consider Sonos a "money no object" ideal. As far as I'm concerned it's one of my budget offerings. Most of the rest of my multi-room offerings fall in to the £5K+, £10K+ and £20K+ price categories.

 

[StretchArmstrong]

they were trying to make a cut down squeezeserver to run on the Touch - not sure if they've managed it.

Yeah, Sonos and Squeeze have taken different approachs to crack the same nut.

I have no doubt you have lots of much more expensive multi-room solutions - wouldn't necessarily mean you or I would buy them over the Sonos if it were our money being no object

Adam - sorry if I've taken your thread off track a bit -

to better identify the best advice, perhaps some questions -

are you able to easily run cable - ie, are you renovating walls in each room, and eager for diy?

Do you have a server for your home?

Are you keen to fiddle a bit, or want an out of the box solution?

are you an apple fan?

 

[adam03]

Its a new house i'm buying and so running the cables in within the next few weeks isnt a problem.

I do not have a server

My main concern at this point is getting all the necessary wiring in so im not having to start running cables after the plaser board goes on.
This goes for any remote sensors as well, what sort of wire do they use...?

I'm quite happy to tinker about a bit but like i said i have limited knowledge on this sort of thing.

I would like to keep costs low, but i am a sucker for some cool tech
Big apple fan, i have the iphone 4g

 

[ChrisFrost]

You're wiring plan depends on what you intend to install. So unless you plan to flood the house with cables for every possible eventuality then you have to start making some decisions about the type of kit you'll use.... and set a realistic budget.

 

[Donkmeister]

3 things, that may seem obvious but DO get overlooked:

1) Determine a central point for your equipment rack, much easier if all the cables come out at the same place
2) Label each cable at BOTH ends as you install it.
3) Make sure you have enough room for all your cables along your runs: 100 Cat-6 cables, a bunch of co-ax and some speakers takes up a hell of a lot of space when you're trying to run it through a notch or hole in a joist!!!

For labelling cables, professional installers and cable-monkeys often use expensive pre-printed plastic labels. For my home, I use some decent A4-sized label sheets, along with word processor software. I prefer the smallest size, about 20mm by 30mm - that way you can have a 20mm-wide bit with the cable number, and the 30mm side will wrap around any 6-7mm Cat6 cable or coax cable with a bit to overlap.

You can heatshrink over that for longevity, but in my view that makes the cable far too stiff and it's not like you go swapping wallplates all the time.

 

[ChrisFrost]

For labelling cables, professional installers and cable-monkeys often use expensive pre-printed plastic labels.

A cheap Dymo printer is a lot easier. They're less than £30. The labels can be printed on-site so any last minute changes can be done easily, and there's a choice of white black or clear labels so it's useful for a wide variety of applications.

I've been using a Dymo for a few years now and it works well.

 

[StretchArmstrong]

Hi Adam,

a big topic, probably explaining the unclear replies you've had.


Have you thought about TV feeds and data as well?

I'll give you my suggested approach, which will give you something to think about, and perhaps Chris and others might suggest alternatives.

I would expect you need to consider the distribution of audio, visual (TV) and data.

Whilst you can try over wifi, if you have the chance, proper data cables will always give you better quality/less headaches.

Therefore I'd suggest a cat 6 or two to each of your key rooms, runing back to a central equipment point in the house as DM suggests. These rooms are probably master bedroom, kitchen, lounge and study - the rooms you will likely want audio and telly.

The central place might be the corner of the lounge, loft or under stairs cupboard.

For future proofed audio, with the kind of functionality you describe, then I would rip your CDs to hard disc, connected to a cheap server you keep running 24/7.

the cat 6 gives you options for what you connect in each room in the future.

you might put an internet connected tv on there.
or, for audio, I use a squeezebox receiver (£99) which can either player internet radio or stream the music from your server in lossless quality, or use internet music services.
you'd need to have speakers and amp with them, but a cheaper/easier answer is a pair of powered speakers, for about £200, in each room.

if you have multiple squeezeboxs, in several rooms, you can synchronise the playback, or have different songs playing back, playback itunes, different volumes, playlists, etc.

i think the apple airplay is a similar type of box.

or you might put an xbox 360, which would also stream your music from your server, or allow you to watch tv from your sky account, or download videos from zune.

a challenge is the tv feed - you can run HD quality from a sky box over cat 6, but it needs to be a dedicated cat 6, and quite expensive boxes. alternatively a sat coax to your key locations might be better.

google squeezbox, and/or search on avforums,

cheers.

 

[StretchArmstrong]

http://avtalk.co.uk/showthread.php?t=23081

here's an overview of the apple version of a squeezebox.

of course, a bit more proprietary, and pricey no doubt, but if you think you'll stick with apple.

these airplay and squeezeboxs are designed to share audio wirelessly, so not much need for the cat 6, but... proper cable will overcome any potential wireless performance issues. not too much of an issue with mp3s, but if you're after cd quality you do need quite a good wireless network.

 

[thatbloke]

I dont see how a cat5 cable can give you better quality than wireless streaming? sonos can stream flac which is lossless, a 96khz flac sacd recording would sound the same streamed or sent via cable.
If it were me I would forget about cables and use a wireless system, and if i could afford to push the boat out,

http://www.olive.us/