Home multi room AV stuff
Discussion
I had the option on my new house to have it wired in every room using cat5 and ceiling speakers for a "systemline" modular AV network, the cost of this was circa £5K and after some fairly extensive off line correspondence with Messers Plotloss I've decided it didn't offer enough fexibility and performance to justify the expense. However for a fraction of the cost I'm considering a full wireless AV network using either the Sonos or Phillips Streamium products anyone got any opinions on these?
Out of interest, if I was building my own home what AV would you pre-wire into the house. I always thought you would run cat5 everywhere and then decide what servers and speakers to run. No?
Obviously when I come to do this I'll employ an AV consultant/installer to plan it out but just interested why OP was told not to bother with Cat5!
Obviously when I come to do this I'll employ an AV consultant/installer to plan it out but just interested why OP was told not to bother with Cat5!
He wasnt told not to bother with Cat5e, the developer chosen system wasnt the most competitive in the marketplace and Mel has decided against that system.
Generally, Cat5e to network points, control points and ceilings.
Speaker to ceilings from a central hub
Is about the most flexible scheme.
Generally, Cat5e to network points, control points and ceilings.
Speaker to ceilings from a central hub
Is about the most flexible scheme.
Yes the developer wouldn't do a wire only for cat5 system, alas it was take their chosen full system or nothing and it was in excess of £5K for a fairly basic system, ideally i wanted wiring only done during first fix and sort out the rest at my pace but that was no deal. Hence looking a wireless now.
Plotloss said:
garyhun said:
WHat a bugger of a developer. In this situation I would have asked the sparky to run the cable for cash!!!!
Sparky doesnt run comms cable usually, the developer will have hooked up with an integrator who have their own fitters and run their own cable.
I understand that - I guess I was meaning paying someone else just to do the cabling. Seems so petty of a developer not to allow this. I'm assuming it was a national company as they seem to be the ones who are so inflexible.
In fairness this is the second time I've bought a new house off plan, the first was from a fairly big national developer and they would not budge on anything at all, even when I asked for skirting boards to be left un painted so I could stain them to match the hardwood flooring i wanted it was a flat NO, you got the house to plan no deviation at all. At least this time they are semi flexible as long as I don't take the piss and it's reasonable so far things like additional BT points in the cupboard under the stairs for alarm/server have been no problem neither has moving things like TV points from the corners of a room to 1.5m up the wall for plasma tele, they basically have a huge catalogue of "approved extras" these all obviously cost £££££ but cover most things you could think of and there is a wire the house for AV option in there it's just not very flexible, and at £5k+ leaves a kind of nasty taste in the pallet as I'll never be able to take it with me or get the money back at sell time. Hence I either do some basic cat5 wiring after build or go wireless, I do like the look of the Squeezebox though, and whats more it's got a kind of Podie giggle name 
hehe miss miss mel said Squeezebox giggle giggle
hehe miss miss mel said Squeezebox giggle giggle Block with dot and dab on all exterior walls with shit loads of insulation and sound absorbing stuff in the cavities so no chance of passing anything up them after build, however none of the interior walls are load bearing and I beleive (although we haven't that far in build yet) that ground floor will be blockwork with dot and dab and floors 1 & 2 will be stud work with plasterboard.
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