Prewire Home for Surround - Advice Please

TechnoFreek

Hi,

I am buying a new house. The house is built as such but the inside is yet to be wired and plastered etc. This presents me with the opportunity to prewire the sitting room for my surround sound setup.

Unfortunately I dont know anything about prewiring e.g. cables types, proximity to AC cabling etc

What I am trying to achieve (for the moment) is as follows:

Speaker plates at rear of room to manage rear audio and subwoofer
Possibly another speaker plate to the left front as a fireplace may be occupying the natural placement for the front left speaker. Might also include extra subwoofer connection here to allow for options.
I presume I need a master speaker plate at the amp to allow the running of cable to the other plates.

I'd also like to run a pair of ceiling speakers from the amp (just the front left and right) into the kitchen. Include a volume control in the kitchen then so I can cut sound when not in use (more often than not I'd reckon)

Anyway, all advice is greatly appreciated. I'm just starting out so; cabling, speaker plates, where to buy etc is all welcome infomation.

Mark#1

For some cables, I've used Mainscourt Electrical in Swords, Dublin.

Better prices than the www, and Tommy tells the truth: he'll sell you expensive "speaker" cable if you insist, but he'll tell you you don't need it, and recommend a perfectly suitable alternative.

I got my speaker & coax cable & fittings there.

For speaker wall plates, I chose to drill holes in blank one-gang plates, though I did like the look of Nexxia speaker plates:

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Wall_plate_Connectors/Dolby_Speaker_wall_plates.htm

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Wall_plate_Connectors/Binding_post_wall_plates.htm

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Wall_plate_Connectors/speaker_connector_wall_plates.htm


I used brush plates from Home Cinema User:

http://www.homecinemauser.co.uk/products.aspx?s=3102128116_0

http://www.homecinemauser.co.uk/products.aspx?s=3102128118_0


For HDMI, optical, coaxial, VGA, SCART, phono & component cables, I've used/am using TVCables:

http://www.tvcables.co.uk/


The "Home Cinema DIY" & "Cables & Interconnects" forums of AVForums (and boards.ie) could yield some useful info & reference material:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-cinema-construction-configuration/

http://www.avforums.com/forums/interconnects-speaker-cables-switches/


HTH,

Mark

1922

i'm in a similar situation....regarding chasing tv wires

i understand the sky digital hdmi cable is different, can i get one and chase it into the walls along with the power cable...or will a standard hdmi cable do the job

Idleater

I don't know much about the sky box but hdmi is hdmi i think. They can't do much propriatory with the wiring other than a different shape connector. Worst case that'd be an adapter but i haven't heard anything about them...
Better to make sure though.

1922

nereid wrote: »

I don't know much about the sky box but hdmi is hdmi i think. They can't do much propriatory with the wiring other than a different shape connector. Worst case that'd be an adapter but i haven't heard anything about them...
Better to make sure though.

i shall call to the girlfriends house 2m and check, they have sky hd!!

but her dad had bough a hdmi cable and was told they'd to use the one that came with it...might ring my tv man 2m actually

conbon

the sky hd boxes use a standard HDMI
if you are running it with powercable dont get the very cheapest HDMI.
Ideally get one that says V1.3 on it. there will be no probs then.