Ok, so I just moved into a new house. The home was built in 1985. It is 2 stories with a finished basement that has a drop ceiling. There is a cable drop in the basement next to the furnace. They ran cable to 2 of the bedrooms by running cables on the outside the house and punching a hole in the wall which I think is pretty ugly. The other 2 bedrooms have no cable access. 1 of the bedrooms doesn't have phone either.
So I want to get cable to the 2 other bedrooms. And while I'm at it, I'd like to rewire the first 2 bedrooms so the wire isn't running along the outside of the house. And I'd like to get phone to the 4th bedroom. And I figure while I'm doing that, I might as well just rewire the whole damn house.
So that's how I ended up here. I want to do a major retrofit and rewire of this house. At a minimum I want to get cable to all the bedrooms. At the other end of the spectrum, I am looking at doing multi zone audio with each zone being able to independently select the source. So where do I go from here?
I've done a fair amount of research, but I must be honest, it is pretty overwhelming.
I'm thinking at least 1 RG6 to get cable to each bedroom, 1 cat5e for internet, 1 cat5e for phone, 1 cat5e for multi zone audio, and 1 cat5e unused spare for something later. I've seen recommendations to running up to 7 cat5e but I can't realistically see ever using that much. I have no intentions of ever doing distributed video, only audio.
Right now, I'm investigating a-bus (russound?) or htd.com. Are there advantages or disadvantages for each? I kinda like a-bus because it doesn't require me to do a home run for the speaker wire. I can just run cat5e out to the panel, and then speaker wire from there. The setup from htd.com requires me to go all the way back to the amp for the speaker wire. Any reason I would want to go with one or the other? Or regardless, if I'm rewiring, should I just do a home run of speaker wire anyway?
So I want to get cable to the 2 other bedrooms. And while I'm at it, I'd like to rewire the first 2 bedrooms so the wire isn't running along the outside of the house. And I'd like to get phone to the 4th bedroom. And I figure while I'm doing that, I might as well just rewire the whole damn house.
So that's how I ended up here. I want to do a major retrofit and rewire of this house. At a minimum I want to get cable to all the bedrooms. At the other end of the spectrum, I am looking at doing multi zone audio with each zone being able to independently select the source. So where do I go from here?
I've done a fair amount of research, but I must be honest, it is pretty overwhelming.
I'm thinking at least 1 RG6 to get cable to each bedroom, 1 cat5e for internet, 1 cat5e for phone, 1 cat5e for multi zone audio, and 1 cat5e unused spare for something later. I've seen recommendations to running up to 7 cat5e but I can't realistically see ever using that much. I have no intentions of ever doing distributed video, only audio.
Right now, I'm investigating a-bus (russound?) or htd.com. Are there advantages or disadvantages for each? I kinda like a-bus because it doesn't require me to do a home run for the speaker wire. I can just run cat5e out to the panel, and then speaker wire from there. The setup from htd.com requires me to go all the way back to the amp for the speaker wire. Any reason I would want to go with one or the other? Or regardless, if I'm rewiring, should I just do a home run of speaker wire anyway?