New House Build, Can I Get Some Av Advice?

[jampola]

Hey all,

I'm in the process of building a house. Foundations are up, roof in the process of being tiled as we speak so now is the time to decide on all the fun stuff!

The house itself is large. 2 story but the house itself is 4 stories high. So we're talking high roofs. I want in ceiling speakers for each of the bed rooms (6) plus the guest rooms (2) as well is in the entrance and common areas of the house and lastly the indoor pool room. For where the pool is, in-ceiling isn't possible as the roof won't be suitable so I would be looking at in-wall speakers or even something that attaches to the wall via a bracket.

Each room will have a raspberry pi to handle switching between sources (Music,XBMC,TV via tv input dongle) and output via an external USB audio interface.

At the moment I am stuck as to what speakers I should be considering? Do active speakers exist that can live in the roof? I would like something that still sounds quite decent! Also, for speakers where there is high humidity (pool) should I be looking at marine speakers?

I know it's a difficult question but I would love to hear from anyone who has gone through a similar build with their house. Would love to know any gotchas that can occur!

[astral]

Your first priority is to make sure that good quality cables are installed

whilst the building takes place.

A small hole with the cable poking out at each speaker location, say min 50cm should suffice at this stage,..

Make sure there is sufficient cable at the other end for what ever you choose as the source.

Then wait until you are finished before having the rest installed

Others will recommend suitable speakers.

Have you thought about the feeds from the satellite dish, they

need to go in at this stage too.

Also internet cable feeds, unless you want to rely in slower wireless connections?

[jampola]

Your first priority is to make sure that good quality cables are installed

whilst the building takes place.

A small hole with the cable poking out at each speaker location, say min 50cm should suffice at this stage,..

Make sure there is sufficient cable at the other end for what ever you choose as the source.

Then wait until you are finished before having the rest installed

Others will recommend suitable speakers.

Have you thought about the feeds from the satellite dish, they

need to go in at this stage too.

Also internet cable feeds, unless you want to rely in slower wireless connections?

Won't be installing until EVERYTHING is done but that's a good call on the cabling. Hadn't even thought of it yet!

As for the other cabling, Cat6 and RJ6 to each room is already completed.

[eeeya]

.. And dont forget subwoofer cable.

I ran audio cable but didn't run a shielded subwoofer cable.

So now it sticks out like dogs balls in the corner

....sent from my new fangdangled walkie talkie

[craigt3365]

.. And dont forget subwoofer cable.

I ran audio cable but didn't run a shielded subwoofer cable.

So now it sticks out like dogs balls in the corner

....sent from my new fangdangled walkie talkie

I was lucky the guys at the shop told me about this, so I ran 2 types of wires to my subwoofer.

I found it very hard here to get supplies for high end stereo setups. In wall plates, quality outdoor speakers, remote volume control boxes, etc. All hard to find or dang expensive. I eventually brought some back from the US at literally 1/3rd of the price here. Plus, some parts I needed are just not available here.

I put ceiling speakers in at my parents house. This was 8 years ago and a pair cost some $600. They were fantastic. 2 in the ceiling above the sitting area, 3 in the front behind the TV, one sub woofer. Amazing system.

[Benjie]

If it were me I would seriously consider using an Android device for XBMC, Pi is just too slow in my experience and the XBMC seems to be forking towards Android anyhow. Not sure how a TV dongle will work here as there is no digital broadcast etc...

For in-ceiling speakers you should run speaker cable back from the general area of the speakers back to amplifier location (or closeby) make sure to use a speaker plate at the wall and conduit exclusively for the speaker cable, this should stop the cable getting cut, eaten or damaged. It sounds like you will be amplifying locally (in each room) rather than from a central location. I'd use outdoor speakers for the pool area as you don't have ceiling there anyway, these generally have a bracket.

The amplifier should be one that senses for a signal and turns itself on when it has an input, it will likely be a fixed volume so that you can control the volume from within XBMC.

Additionally it sounds like you should wire in a LAN with a socket in every room to the TV location, then you can store all of your music, movies, pictures etc... on a single server. Don't rely on wifi as it simply won't be good enough to stream HD etc...