The Best Way to WIre the House (for sound & video)

[rwc]

So we are moving (horray)...but now there's an opportunity to really get things "wired" in our house.

We're looking for using sage on the 3 tv's (bedroom, "movie room", and family room), and we'd like sound in these rooms along with the kitchen, foyer, living room, and dining room.

In an ideal world, we'd liek to be able to control each room separately (or have them all playing the same thing)...

Currently we've got iTunes, a Squeeze box, and sage (of course).

Any recommendations on the "right" way to do things?

I was thinking either squeezeboxes in each room (but it woudl get costly but offer good flexibility)

Or, I've got a friend that has some sort of "splitter" in the basement that sends audio powered speakers throughout the house (saves money, but less modular and all rooms get teh same audio).

Any suggestions?
Any other options?

Thanks!

rwc

[stanger89]

Well it's possible (but expensive) to run audio and video (at least analog/S-PDIF and Component) from a central A/V distribution hub to each room, with keypads and everything to control it all. Niles and Russound make systems that do that.

It could be argued that that's the "right" way to do it, but IMO, that's the "old" way. Today, with extenders, I think all you really need is to run Ethernet (I'd got Cat 6) and coax (Quad-Shield RG6) from a central distribution box to each room. Then in each room you place the appropriate extenders (eg and HD100 for video and/or a Squeezebox for audio).

I'd say today, that's the "better" way to go, gives you full, independant control in each zone, is much cheaper to wire, and overall cost, probably still quite a bit cheaper.

[Brent]

I agree with Stanger. Unless you have the cash to burn, just run ethernet and Cable to each room. Possibly a home-run style CATV cabling might make sense.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I'd say today, that's the "better" way to go, gives you full, independant control in each zone, is much cheaper to wire, and overall cost, probably still quite a bit cheaper.

"Independent" is the key word there. To allow each room to do its own thing, what Stanger describes is a good option.

However if you want to be able to play the same music source in all rooms simultaneously, in perfect sync as you move from room to room, that's going to be hard to achieve with independent Ethernet devices. A good old-fashioned AV distro switch is probably still the best way to do that.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

However if you want to be able to play the same music source in all rooms simultaneously, in perfect sync as you move from room to room, that's going to be hard to achieve with independent Ethernet devices. A good old-fashioned AV distro switch is probably still the best way to do that.

Squeezebox supports that

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

"Independent" is the key word there. To allow each room to do its own thing, what Stanger describes is a good option.

However if you want to be able to play the same music source in all rooms simultaneously, in perfect sync as you move from room to room, that's going to be hard to achieve with independent Ethernet devices. A good old-fashioned AV distro switch is probably still the best way to do that.

I came up with a "creative" way to do this awhile back and it has worked well for me. I will do my best to explain....

In my basement I have a stack of stereo amplifiers (they were cheaper than going with a whole house audio amplifier). I have a pc that has 5 sound cards. 4 for each "zone" for independent audio and 1 for the "whole house". Each of the 4 "zoned" audio cards are hooked to each of the 4 amplifers directly. The fifth is then hooked to a 7 way powered composite video distribution amp (although I obviously don't use the video part). Then 4 of the audio outs on the video distribution amp is also hooked back into those 4 stereo amplifiers and then wired throughout the house.

I then VNC into my server and control which ever soundcard I want to use (one of the 4 zones or the whole house) and play music that way. I used Xlobby for a long time to do this, but when it went (or started to, haven't looked at it in a long time) I became annoyed and moved away from it.

This is the only way I could get perfectly synced audio for my whole house.

Edit: The only annoying thing is that I can't do independent audio to one place and the other 3 playing the same thing. Luckily this is not an issue for my wife and I as we would only do whole house audio for parties and otherwise it woud be zoned.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Edit: The only annoying thing is that I can't do independent audio to one place and the other 3 playing the same thing. Luckily this is not an issue for my wife and I as we would only do whole house audio for parties and otherwise it woud be zoned.

Actually that was only because of your sound card choice. If you get a multi channel sound card that is designed to output different zones at the same time, then it is possible to play different things on different zones. Most 5.1 and 7.1 sound cards do NOT have this option. But something like the Delta 410 or 1010 cards DO have this option.

I currently have a Delta 410 installed in my PC and have 3 separate and concurrent music streams outputted. The sound card actually has more capacity than this, but I don't need more than 3 streams at any one time.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Actually that was only because of your sound card choice. If you get a multi channel sound card that is designed to output different zones at the same time, then it is possible to play different things on different zones. Most 5.1 and 7.1 sound cards do NOT have this option. But something like the Delta 410 or 1010 cards DO have this option.

I currently have a Delta 410 installed in my PC and have 3 separate and concurrent music streams outputted. The sound card actually has more capacity than this, but I don't need more than 3 streams at any one time.

Yeah, I thought about going with the Delta 410, but I had a bunch of sound cards and an old Athlon 1.1Ghz that was collecting dust (that just happened to have enough PCI slots). I also designed this so that if I use the KXProject drivers, I can actually run upto 9 independent zones and 1 whole house zone (since all my audio cards are SB Live!).

[perf]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Squeezebox supports that

And Sonos does it even better.

/Per

[Folkboat]

Something I've pondered!!
Audio "baluns" running on Cat5 cabling. The big question I have is can you run an audio signal and standard 100mbs networking at the same time??

Aren't you only using 2-twisted pair in a Cat5 cable for networking?? If so could you use the remaining twisted pair for audio??

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Folkboat

Something I've pondered!!
Audio "baluns" running on Cat5 cabling. The big question I have is can you run an audio signal and standard 100mbs networking at the same time??

Aren't you only using 2-twisted pair in a Cat5 cable for networking?? If so could you use the remaining twisted pair for audio??

For 100Mbps I believe so, but I believe Gig-E uses all pairs. In practice all these "X over Ethernet" devices aren't really "over Ethernet", they're over Cat-5 cabling, you can't use the same cable for Ethernet and something else.

[Folkboat]

Thanks for the feedback!!!