AV system, London N12, installer needed

N19

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I'm hopefully moving into a new build home in N12 quite soon.

I'm looking for advice on installers, and any thoughts comments on the proposal I've written below

If anyone wants to contact me my e-mail is mail...at...cherubcampus...dot...com though I've subscribed to this thread, so I should get anything you post here anyway.

Budget:

c. £30,000
Budget can be raised to 50k, but I'd hope 30k would enable decent quality components, cables and installation costs.

Property
4 Storey new build house (construction complete)
Concrete floors with underfloor heating
Mainly concrete wall construction.
75mm cavity between ceiling and structral beams (I'm told!)

Timescale
Early June move into property.
Consultation and plan required ASAP
I'd aim to have any wiring and fitted components installed quickly
Purchase of complete system would depend upon final budget, but would be by October 2009 at the latest.

Housewide
A Sonos or similar wireless music system, capable of streaming uncompressed audio files from a NAS device.
The system will initially serve rooms on the ground, 1st and 2nd floors, but must be scalable to eventually serve the entire house.

I would also like to investigate the cost of having my entire 1,500 disc CD collection put on a hard disk, in both uncompressed format and high quality MP3 suitable for iPod (this is not included in my budget)

Ground Floor
Aim – To provide a high quality AV experience and music over the entire open plan space.

The ground floor is an open plan space comprising a living area of 5360x4750mm, which joins onto a dining room and kitchen.

Living Area
A high quality home cinema/hifi system, centered on a large wall mounted plasma screen.
A projector would be considered, but the interior is white and the room has 4m floor to ceiling windows along one wall, so I suspect a big LCD/Plasma would be best.
A good quality AV amp, but consideration must be given to strong musical performance (Arcam/Denon?)
Front speakers can be freestanding.
Components (except speakers) to be mounted in an enclosed contemporary cabinet so that only the screen is visible when the system is not in use.
Freestanding rear speakers can be considered, but would like to investigate options for a discrete option.

Rest of ground floor
It would be nice to have music in this area, when entertaining, cooking etc.
Investigate the cost of discreet or wall mounted speakers in living/dining area, either linked to main amplifier
Or a simpler/cheaper solution may be considered (eg a shelving unit with small speakers and an all in one, such as an Arcam solo mini and Sonos box)

RESTOF HOUSE
Aim – To watch movies in bed and have some music going on while I'm in the gym.

Gym 1st floor
A stereo music system with small speakers linked into the music streaming system.
Optionally a small wall mounted LCD TV set.

Master Bedroom 2nd floor
A plasma screen or similar, with blu-ray, Sky HD, an AV amp and some small but high quality loudspeakers.
 
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I think you could do a lot better than Sonos for your budget. You could probably just about stretch to a Crestron Adagio system, possibly even with a Kaleidescape system handling movie & music storage.

You could go with a Crestron AMS in phase 1 which would give you top quality surround sound in the living area and another 4 rooms of music too. Adding rooms on to that is then very straightforward. If you went with the AMS-AIP you could even pipe HD video up to the master bedroom too.

With it being Crestron you then open up a whole host of possibilities which you may not have considered like blinds, lights etc. Even if you didn't want them now you have the option to add them in at a later date.

I'll drop you an email and see if you have any plans of the property.

There should be plenty of product information and case studies on our website - feel free to take a look around (link below).

Cheers

Dave
 
Thanks, I've sent you an e-mail.

TBH, I want the budget focused on top notch components and loudspeakers rather than too much s****y 'Home Automation' gubbins.
 
The new Request IMA system would also work well, although you challenge is getting the cables in first given the time line and type of construction, then worry about the actual system you would like.

Happy look at this further if you would like.

V.
 
The new Request IMA system would also work well, although you challenge is getting the cables in first given the time line and type of construction, then worry about the actual system you would like.

Happy look at this further if you would like.

V.

Yes, another plus for a wireless Sonos type system is that the only cabling needed would be for hiding speaker and plasma cables in the living room and bedroom.

Unfortunately I can't find your e-mail address anywhere on your website, so I can't send any attachements through with more details.
 
Although Sonos can be used without wires connecting them this is not recommended, especially in heavily populated areas. Sonos uses a lot of WiFi bandwidth and eats into your normal coverage for laptops etc. Use one or two zones without wires, but cable the rest.

I'm sure other CIs will back this up?

If you fill in the contact page on the site Vex will call you and supply his direct e-mail address etc.

Dupe...
 
I'm hopefully moving into a new build home in N12 quite soon.

.


Hi PM me we would be happy to look at this.
 
Although Sonos can be used without wires connecting them this is not recommended, especially in heavily populated areas. Sonos uses a lot of WiFi bandwidth and eats into your normal coverage for laptops etc. Use one or two zones without wires, but cable the rest.

I'm sure other CIs will back this up?

If you fill in the contact page on the site Vex will call you and supply his direct e-mail address etc.

Dupe...



stay away from anything wifi in central london. I was working in eaton square last week and you could pick up over 78 wifi hotspots all on different channels playing merry hell with each other.

its even got to the point as a company that we have stopped using wifi touchpanels and gone back to RF based ones and thats even after using cisco access points . Even if you did set the access point up correctly on a none clashing channel there's nothing to stop your neighbour putting his ap on a channel that will clash with yours

if you have the chance make sure you wire the sono's system
 
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stay away from anything wifi in central london. I was working in eaton square last week and you could pick up over 78 wifi hotspots all on different channels playing merry hell with each other.

its even got to the point as a company that we have stopped using wifi touchpanels and gone back to RF based ones and thats even after using cisco access points . Even if you did set the access point up correctly on a none clashing channel there's nothing to stop your neighbour putting his ap on a channel that will clash with yours

if you have the chance make sure you wire the sono's system

How funny we have recently done a job in Eaton Square, tread in any of those pink nappy sacks dumped in the street ??? Worse than the wi-fi...
 
OK, thanks for the responses.

I've sent further details through to DaveChester at Custom Controls, and one other installer who e-mailed me.

I tried sending details through to Vex, but there's no e-mail address on the website, so I can't send the attachement with property plans.

I think the next step is to see what they come back with in terms of basic suggestions and proposals.

I'm quite happy to up my budget for the music streaming element if I really have to, but I'm not convinced that I want to spend £££1,000s for a wired system just so I can listen to music while cooking dinner or running on the treadmill.

Finally, one question
If I did have a bandwidth problem with Sonos, or a similar system, rather than wiring the Sonos through the walls, can you not just plug a £200 2TB NAS with all your music on into the back of each zone player?
 
I'm quite happy to up my budget for the music streaming element if I really have to, but I'm not convinced that I want to spend £££1,000s for a wired system just so I can listen to music while cooking dinner or running on the treadmill.

Finally, one question
If I did have a bandwidth problem with Sonos, or a similar system, rather than wiring the Sonos through the walls, can you not just plug a £200 2TB NAS with all your music on into the back of each zone player?

If you are happy to load all of your music onto each NAS independantly and remeber which is which you could (but there are much better ways to install Sonos if you decide it must be sonos.

The Home Cinema Installation Specialists | Wired Life has recently undergone an upgrade I'll check intot he email address not being visible any more but in the meantime please send details to [email protected] if you have any problems you can email me personally at [email protected]
 
If you are happy to load all of your music onto each NAS independantly and remeber which is which you could (but there are much better ways to install Sonos if you decide it must be sonos.

The Home Cinema Installation Specialists | Wired Life has recently undergone an upgrade I'll check intot he email address not being visible any more but in the meantime please send details to [email protected] if you have any problems you can email me personally at [email protected]

OK, I've now send full details through to the four people who've asked.

I don't think it's going to be productive to involve any more than that. So I'll wait for them to come back with some basic ideas by e-mail, call a few people up for chat (hopefully some time next week) and then hopefully I'll be in a position to select a single company to move forwards with.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and contact me!
 
I know a couple of good guys that did work for me, they're local to you and know there stuff. SAVAVS is the name of the company and you can contact them directly on 07877174543 or 07782105344, or google them

good luck, Hans
 

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