New house fully wired up - where to next?

[davidhar]

Just bought a new house which is fully cabled for "multi room audio". I'm a bit of an amateur but judging by the amount of cable oozing out of the wall in the utility room I can safely say shortage of wire will not be a problem. Each room has cabling for TV (cables are coax, power, 3 core AV?), a control panel and speakers in different wall and ceiling locations

The developer is pushing me towards a particular installer but before I go to them I want to get an idea on what I should be looking for.

The things I think I will need are

- ceiling mounted speakers? (cables are hidden inside of ceiling and joists in each room)
- some sort of a rack in the utility room to tidy up and hold the hardware
- control panels in each room (the showhouses had Opus, Elan and Living Control Panels)

What needs to go into the rack? CD, Tuner, DVD, Sky, Hard Drive unit? Could I buy these goodies and get an electrician mate to fit them or is there a secret sauce recipe which means I go with developers installers and pay the toll? Any idea what this should cost me? Could I save by sourcing the components?

Thanks in advance for any help.....

[ntslik]

Originally Posted by davidhar

Just bought a new house which is fully cabled for "multi room audio". I'm a bit of an amateur but judging by the amount of cable oozing out of the wall in the utility room I can safely say shortage of wire will not be a problem. Each room has cabling for TV (cables are coax, power, 3 core AV?), a control panel and speakers in different wall and ceiling locations

The developer is pushing me towards a particular installer but before I go to them I want to get an idea on what I should be looking for.

The things I think I will need are

- ceiling mounted speakers? (cables are hidden inside of ceiling and joists in each room)
- some sort of a rack in the utility room to tidy up and hold the hardware
- control panels in each room (the showhouses had Opus, Elan and Living Control Panels)

What needs to go into the rack? CD, Tuner, DVD, Sky, Hard Drive unit? Could I buy these goodies and get an electrician mate to fit them or is there a secret sauce recipe which means I go with developers installers and pay the toll? Any idea what this should cost me? Could I save by sourcing the components?

Thanks in advance for any help.....

Do you have abudget you want to spend, the Opus we find the cost effective, while the Livingcontrol although more expensive has touch panel control, all depends on cost

[vex]

I'd be interested to know the developer and site you have bought on.

I guess you where lucky to find an enlightend one at least pre-wiring for it!

[davidhar]

Hi Neil

I don't really mind the budget but I'm a pragmatist about sound not a perfectionist. What I would really like is to connect Sky Multiroom, access to about 10000 tracks currently stored in MP3 format, Tuner, DVD and CD Audio - all controlled from about four different rooms.

I've seen the different control panels - are they independent of whatever central unit in the rack or they come as a package?

Cheers

D