Maybe this is a loaded subject question but....

A friend is curreently building a house and has asked me to help him wire a simple audio/video system throughout his house. I've wired my house, and a few others, with a SIMPLE system so I was volunteered to "help". I am most familiar with the Xantech product line as this is what I have mostly used.

I am writing to see if I am missing anything or if there is something that I should consider adding to the wiring.

This is what he is trying to do:

Speakers with volume control in various rooms. We are just going to run the wire to a volume box an then run the wires to the future location of the speakers. I figure a 760-00 volume controllers. Is impedance matching a good way to go on volume controllers? What is the advantage of being to be able to drive up to 12 pairs of speakers from one amplifier? Do you still need a speaker switcher box with this set-up?

Satellite in various rooms. He has RG6 coax into every room and he had a phone line wired into the room that the sat box will be located. He intends to put a TV in the garage and wants the ability to hear the sound through the speakers that will be there.

Wants the ability to control stereo with a remote control from anywhere in the house. This is where I have a couple of questions:

1. When I did my house, using the J-box receiver was "cutting edge" I now see that there are many other products that can do the same thing. I can see the advantage of using the 480-00 dinky link as it is quite small. I can also see how this could be placed near/on the TV somewhere to control your equipment (which will be behind a solid door) but can't see where else you would install this tiny receiver in other rooms without TV's but just music. Xantech mentions placing the eye behind speaker grills but it seems as though this particular placement could cause some difficulties if the grill had some fabric.
in it somewhere.

I can also see that these eyes come with ribbon wire. If you bring this through a wall somewhere, how do you do this and make it look good? This make any sense?

I also see that Xantech now has volume controllers with an IR eye (VCIR). This, to me, looks like it is the best way to go. If I were redoing my house, this is what I would use just to save wall boxes. Any problems with this product?

CATV 5 has been run everywhere by the electrician as I do not know about home networks etc...

Anything else we should be considering. Anything I am missing in this simple system?

As always, thanks for the help.

Mark W

Switchbox is Optional at that point, but a Good quality switchbox with standard volume controls can be much more convienient. Being able to diable rooms from the home run is something many of my clients like.



Look at the Sonance ASAP-1 and the Niles audio TVA-20. These are small amps that have built in A/B switches. Turn the TV on, and the sound is automatically routed to the speakers. Mute the TV or turn it off and you get house music.



Grills (Metal or Fabric) generally wont hurt the IR reception. Many, if not most, In-wall Speakers have knock outs for a Xantech MicroLink for totally stealth installation. You didnt mention what kind of speakers were going in, but I would definatly recomend In-wall or In Ceiling in a New construction application.



No, not really. Since the Dinky link is designed to be mounted on a TV or behind a speaker grill, you just run the 3 wire ribbon with other wires attached to the device....


No Problems... work well.


I dont know many electricians who are quite up to speed on properly running Cat-5 wire. generally, you cant mess it up so bad that IR wont pass through, but once you get into 100 base T netowrks, its pretty critical that there are no Staples in the wire, and NO 90 degreen sharp bends.... Too many of those and you'll be lucky to run 10base.

xantech makes volume controls with ir built in --run a cat5 to the vc along with the speaker wire--imp matching is a good way to go --also with this setup it'll be easy to add keypads later if he chooses. get a nice stereo amp and it'll work well --however even with imp matching you can only put 8 pairs---if he wants more than 8 maybe two twelve channel amps would be the way to go with regular vc's.

Problems w/ VCIR & the like: Any time you mount an infrared receiver in a wall, especially at the low mounting level volume controls tend to be placed, check to see if you are going to be in direct sunlight (this changes depending on the time of year). Ir repeating generally means the system will be too complicated for "normal human beings" to have "muti-zone" capability (there are exceptions) and you have to find the damn remote. There are a number of low priced keypad driven systems out there, IMO they are worth a look.


BTW, just because the wire is rated to Category 5, doesn't mean the install is. I just recently looked at correcting a home thet was "future" wired by an electrician (there are some good ones, this one wasn't), it had CAT5...one run daisy chained to every screw down jack. Best case, have the network cabling "Certified" (tested for speed and quality) before the paintwork is done. At least have it installed according to the current EIA/TIA residential standard (details available on the web), print it out for your contractor.

jcmitch

I hear you o the "finding the remote" message. I talked to him regarding keypads vs. a remote and he liked the idea of not having to get up to change something.

Is there such a thing as an inexpensive combination keypad/IR port device available?

Mark W

my company deals mostly with new construction, I like to over wire a house if it needs it or not. Here is how i usually wire a room:

CAT5 and 16/4 from audio to volume control location, the CAT5 can be used to power a keypad if ever upgradged to one and will also pass ir back to the audio(commscope makes a great combo cable.)

From the volume control location to the speakers i wire 16/2 and CAT5 to one speaker and 16/2 to the other, the CAT5 usage is placing an ir receiver in the speaker like you mentioned

In a room with a TV, from the volume control to the TV location i wire a 16/4 and CAT5, the purpose here is to use the CAT5 for more IR control over the TV or placing an IR receiver on the TV

and if a client makes mention to wanting to have the audio from the TV play through the speakers in the room, i will wire 16/4 speaker wire from the TV location to the speaker locations and then use the niles TVA20 like Impaqt mentioned in his post

This may seem like alot of extra wiring, but it really isn't that much, i typically use an additional 25 feet of wiring per room compared to a typical wiring job