Dan,
I'm guessing that I may not fully understand your application correctly. Are you using CAT5E for speaker wire? I believe CAT5e has eight 24 gauge wires. Does the system use multiple wires for a single RCA jack? Are you using the RCA jack for audio? The reason I ask is due to gauge of the wire. I am under the impression that using such thin gauge wire would give you inferior sound quality.
This website covers why I am concerned. The smallest gauge wire covered in the article is 22 gauge. At 8 ohms the maximum recommended distance for 22 gauge wire is 12 feet.
Best Regards,
Rod
Basically, I want to use CAT5 wire to transmit RCA signals, audio signals (line level), ethernet packets (10/100/1000), telephone, potentially security camera feeds (depending on where they end up I might need them, however I plan for those runs to be separate runs).
Audio wise, it is line level. The feeds come from my server and custom whole house audio system. This allows the WHOLE house to enjoy announcements from HS, as well as basic MP3 playback (i.e. you do not need to turn on your PC to stream audio into your room). The quality is not of any HUGE concern, as the only system where quality is important has the HTPC attached to it. This is just to get good enough sound out to the speakers, which for the most part are amplified and produce (to my wife and myself) the same sounding audio as you would get out of a PC without $1000 speakers. So we are good (especially for the cost).
RCA wise...again, maybe security cameras. Most likely it will be the one time that my wife wants to watch something on the TV in the upstairs loft area...however it needs to feed from somewhere else.
What I REALLY wanted to find out, is...AMP used to make a 110-type of punch down. It had the typical punch down "look" on the backside. ON the front, was a gaping hole where it looked like you could slide in a PCB. In fact that IS what you did. You purchased little modules, which were just PCBs that had different connectors on it. This way, if you wanted phone and ethernet, you bought that module. If you wanted 4 phone lines, you bought that module. If you wanted video, you bought that module. If you wanted RCA, it had 3 connectors on there. I think they even had one that had headphone jacks.
This way, you punch the entire house once. Put blanks in everywhere. Then, as you need to add ethernet, you just put the right modules in. If later on you needed to add a phone, or whatever, you just CHANGED to that module.
If I can't find it, I'll probably just get ethernet jacks...punch for gigabit...and make "split" boxes or something to allow me to double up the ethernet ports...or split to phone / ethernet...
Thanks!
--Dan
