Re: Structured Wiring Questions

["RM" <trash@xxxxxxxxx>]

"packetblast" <bcarter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1110586919.065187.319850@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


2)       Sound.  Please see pg 2 at www.packetblast.com/structured.pdf
.  I have purchased Monster cable for 2 locations in my house and plan
on running 7.1 to these locations.  However, I want to run some cheaper
wire to other rooms that most likely wont get used much as far as audio
but I still want it there as the wire is cheap, so most likely I will
run 14/2 ( Is that good enough wire for this?)  I saw in another post
that you said to run 14/2 to speakers and 14/4 and Cat 5 to each Volume
Control in the other rooms.  Is this correct and if so does that Cat5
run from the receiver to the Volume Control or Receiver to First
speaker in the room?    I also plan on doing some to be terminated
outside.

<SNIP>

14 awg is plenty fine, just make sure it is CL2/3 rated for inwall use.
Shorter runs you'd be fine with even 16/2.

As for method of running, pick your head end for your audio rack (multizone
amplifier, discrete amps, whatever).  Many will make the mistake of pulling
their speaker wire back to their home automation panel, and then realize
that the sound comes from somewhere else.

Pick your keypad/volume control locations in each room.

Pick the location of your speakers.

You can go one of two ways for the speaker wires:

A) From your speakers, run 14/2 to your keypad location.  From your keypads,
run 14/4 to your audio rack headend.

OR

B) From your speakers, run 14/2 through the keypad location and all the way
back to your audio rack headend.

The advantage of A, is that if you use impedance matching volume controls
instead of keypads, you can attach your 14/4 to the input side, and the 14/2
to the speakers on the output side.  The volume control makes a nice
termination point and of course it saves you the headache of only pulling
one cable (14/4) from the rack to the volume control.  The disadvantage of A
is that if you end up using keypads that are Cat5 controlled, then you have
to make up a junction in the box, tieing the 14/4 to the two 14/2's.

The advantage of B, is no junction in the keypad, and if you still decide to
use the volume control, the hookup is just as easy as if you pulled a single
14/4.  The disadvantage of course is that you have to pull two cables, not
one from the keypad to the head end.

Finally, run a Cat5 (two if you want to maybe hookup a microphone later, or
something else...Nice to have another cat5 handy in the room) from the
keypad to the Audio rack.  The cat5 will connect any keypad to a multizone
controller like Kustom, Russound, Elan, Xantech, Channel Plus, et al.

BTW, Monster is mostly hype...You'll be running 'cheaper' wire by cost, but
not likely by quality.  And for ambient grade music in a whole house audio
system, you'll never know any difference.