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Two wiring questions - help needed please

608 views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  JT Babin 
#1 ·
Folks,

First, thanks for all the excellent info in the forums. It's been a tremendous help in getting my head around an upcoming "new house" project.

We're building a new place - and while I've done some "house wide" audio in the past, this time I'm going to take on a much larger scope that will include video, audio, network, cameras, motorized shades, home control, etc.

I've been looking at wiring options and was hoping to get input/clarity on a couple of questions.

1) I'm planning to run 3-4 CAT6 cables into each room that will have video. I'll use one for HDBaseT to drive video from server room (from a matrix switch), one for TV connection to network and one for general network access in that room.

As I've looked at raw cable, I came across this product, which is (4) CAT6 cables in a jacket. Seems like that would work really well, allowing me to run a single "cable" to each room and then stripping the jacket and running cables where they need to go in room (all on the same wall). Here's a link to the product: http://www.3starinc.com/structured_home_network_cable_4_x_cat6.html

I'm curious if any of you have experience with that approach, or with that particularly company?

2) As I'll locate the AVR for my main living room in the wiring closet, I'll need to run a cable to drive my subwoofer. Today I have it running via a simple RCA cable (5' run) from the AVR to sub, but now we're talking about probably 40'. I've heard some discussion of using coax for that - but wasn't sure if you could terminate coax with RCA ends or if I'm missing something there.

Thanks in advance for your help and opinions!
Jeff
 
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#2 ·
One big thick cable is usually harder to run than multiple thinner cables. And that cable is more than 4x the price I would expect to pay for individual Cat-5 cables. Personally I wouldn't do it.

Run coax and a speaker wire pair to the sub location. You can put RCA connectors directly on the RG-6 (might take a special compression tool) or you can put F connectors on and an F-to-RCA adapter.
 
#3 ·
Thanks. I hadn't really focused as heavily on the price - but also get your point about pulling the cable.

With respect to the coax for the sub, does that solution tend to work better than speaker cable? It was a pro-installer that mentioned it in passing - which lead me to believe it was a better approach. Any opinion there?

Hadn't thought of the F-to-RCA option either - that makes a lot of sense! Thanks again.
 
#4 ·
There are powered and non-powered subwoofers, with powered ones utilizing coaxial cable. Might as well pull in cable for both types. Personally, I would never go back to a non-powered subwoofer.

Definitely agree on the individual cables. Sooo much easier to pull in 4 CAT5e cables than 1 large cable that doesn't bend and is just a PITA to work with.

Don't forget to pull in at least 2 RG6 to each location. Could do 1, but preferably 2.
 
#5 ·
Thanks Ed. I'm sold on the individual cables given the replies (including yours). It's a powered sub - so I'll pull the coax for it.

I'm actually not planning to pull RG6 - and here's why - so would appreciate your opinion.... I'm centralizing the set top boxes (we have a choice between DirecTV and Uverse - likely will go Uverse to avoid the dish...) and am planning to have (2) STB's that will drive the TV's in the house - located in the wiring closet. Long story, but it's our "retirement" house, where only my wife and I will be primary occupants so rare that we'll have a need for anything more than 2 different sources live at one time. Other sources will include BluRay, Videos stored on a Sinology, AppleTV, maybe some other sort of video device, etc.

My plan is to run a matrix switch to send any of "N" sources out to the TV's - and will use HDBaseT for that distribution over CAT6. Rather than run RG6, which I really don't think I'll use, I'm going to run empty Carlon flexible conduit so that I can fish anything I want behind the TV's for the future. I don't know today what that could be - but since it's a new build, the Carlon is a simple "future proof" solution.

Am I missing a reason to need the RG6?

Thanks!
jeff
 
#9 ·
Jeff, I'm a fan of bundled cable. I pull SCP's HNC8 cable to all of my flat panels. It's 2 RG-6, and 2 CAT6. It makes it easier for my guys on the jobsite to organize and pull the wire. It's a touch more expensive, but not really. I usually utilize both cat6, one for network, one for video, and the one that does video also does control if I'm not using Sony displays. More Cat6 doesn't hurt though. Considerations would be to determine the matrix that you're going to use now, if it will have hard HDMI out HDBT outputs, and this will help you with the wiring a ltitle.

I often times use the RG-6 to send audio from the optical outputs of the TV's through DAC's and then into the WHA system. Totally optional, but this is usually a great choice when taking lip sync into consideration, and it will also save you from getting a matrix that does audio de-embedding. Take care into designing your system so that audio from the TV's can play through the WHA system with proper lip sync.
 
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