New Home Construction Project

[upstatemike]

The key thing with Sonos is whether you want a PDA-ike remote with built-in display or a more conventional remote and your info displayed on the component.

I prefer a conventional remote and a large display in a fixed location in the room, but I am also part of the older generation who doesn't use PDAs and such. The Sonos architecture is cool, I just can't picture myself squinting at a little hand-held screen to access my music library.

 

[royalj7]

Two things on the whole house audio. If you can get it down to 8 zones, you can use the Xantech MRC88. I like the CAV6.6 better, but the Xantech is not bad and has some fairly easy programing (DragonDrop). However, if you want to stick with the 9 zones, I'm pretty sure you can daisy chain the CAV together for 12 zones...I haven't tried this myself, but I beleive I read about it somewhere...I think

On the wiring, I'd recommend the following:

To every non media intensive room (ie, second bedrooms, patio, etc):
2 CAT5, 2 RG6
To every HD location:
5 Coax (mini or RG59, or solid copper RG6 but that's harder to run), 2 CAT5.

If you want IR control I would add an extra CAT5 to the bundle. Sounds like you will have a couple hardwired/wireless touchpads, but for the secondary locations, a simple remote would work with an IR distrubution system. Also helps on those components that do not have serial connections.

--Jamie

 

[upstatemike]

Of course if you ever plan to re-arrange the furniture you will need to duplicat the runs on additional walls within the same room.

 

[royalj7]

Upstatemike is right. In big rooms, I'd put drops on opposite walls, or places where the wife would want the funiture. Something I hope you're getting from all this "advice" is don't skim on the wiring...just because it's in there doesn't mean you have to use it right away, but you're going to wish it was there if down the line you have to open some walls up to run cable. I just remolded my home, and working on finished construction sucks. How is it coming finding someone to do the pre-wire?

--Jamie

 

[Mike]

Of course if you ever plan to re-arrange the furniture you will need to duplicat the runs on additional walls within the same room.

I ran drops to likely locations in each room (typically on two walls in each room). However, for HD (which I did not account for) I was considering running the 5 runs of coax and leaving a coil above the room (there is an attic above my bedrooms) so that when the TV's are installed I can move the bundle and drop it down behind the tv (assumption is flat screens mounted on the wall in all future additions).

Putting those bundles up there now (using whatever HD approach you are planning) might be a good option (unless you plan on 'traditional tv/tube' placement and just do jacks.

 

[pkoslow]

Ncrypt - Thanks for the plug and welcome to CocoonTech... lots of good information and talented individuals here!

Here's some info about zoned audio that have come up in the thread:

Sonos - www.sonos.com Sonos is a neat system and has it's advantages... easy to install, nice portable interface, easily expandable, etc. Sonos doesn't provide an in-wall keypad/controller option which some people may not like. I don't really feel that Sonos is a good fit for anyone that is working with home automation. At this time there is no way to integrate a Sonos system with anything else.

Sonos is located right here in Santa Barbara and I know a couple engineers there... they are aware of "guys like us" who would like to see some integration with their product, but have no current plans to accomodate this.

Russound The CAV6.6 is easily expandable to 36 zones (6-CAV), but remains limited to the 6 sources connected to the first unit. More importantly you can add additional amps to each zone for powering more speakers in a large room or in an area with an open floor plan. You can also add additional keypads to the same zone which is a nice feature. For an example, you could have a single zone that consists of an open kitchen/great room. Run the kitchen speakers from the CAV, the great room speakers from an external amp and then be able to control from a keypad in either room alll on one zone.

The CAV6.6 also has A-Bus sub-zones available for the first 4 zones which will allow you to expand the zone with A-Bus as well! This works well to get sound into a master bath using the A-Bus sub-zone tied to the main zone in the master bedroom.

Lots of funtionality with the system and I'm really impressed with the product design & quality as well as the people behind the company. I looked at over a dozen different distributed audio solutions before deciding to sell and install Russound. My opinion is that it's the best value out there!

Cheers,
Paul

 

[IVB]

As far as 9 zones of audio, the Sonos can have upto 32 zones, all capable of different music and independent volume controls.

32 zones?

Man, how many people even have 32 rooms or areas of their house?

Something tells me I don't want the link as I can't remotely afford this product.

 

[damage]

As far as 9 zones of audio, the Sonos can have upto 32 zones, all capable of different music and independent volume controls.

32 zones?

Man, how many people even have 32 rooms or areas of their house?

Something tells me I don't want the link as I can't remotely afford this product.

the 32 zones probably has to do w/ some bandwidth limitation as each zone requires a networked sonos player. i do something similar with 5 rio receivers using medianet server software ( http://www.myhap.org.uk ). of course, they're not as pretty, probably don't sound as good and i don't have a fancy remote (although i can use my pocketpc instead or the rio's tiny lcd screen). and i can send TTS messages to them all or individually using xpl. all this for only $70/zone

 

[ph0n33z]

Wow..........so many replies over night!

I am sorry if I do not reply right away this morning. We met with our framer last night, and so there are some crucial things we have to decide today before the afternoon! (columns, trim, windows, doors, etc....) So I have a big day ahead of me. However, I will reply to all of your thoughts later on today, or if I get some time this morning.

Thanks guys!

 

[TCassio]

The Sonos system can be found here