New build house - with Home Hub Installation updated with pics

[Zigourney]

Hi all - My new house is currently being built, the roof is going up this weekend!
I am having AV cabling built into the house as part of the build through an AV installer called Home Hub Installations, who will be doing the physical installation/wiring and Richer Sounds for the equipment.

Anyway, I am going with a 5.1.2 atmos set up and this is the plan submitted from my meeting with the richer sounds installer. I am told the first fit electrics are being wired on Monday and the AV wiring will commence a week later. So basically I’ve got a few days to make any final adjustments if needed.

The red squares are media faceplates with double cat6 points and double coax.
The big green squares indicate the positions of ceiling speaker wiring positions.

The little green squares in the 4 corners of the lounge are for the 5.1 speaker wiring - the speaker wiring will be run from ceiling height to floor level and will meet at a speaker faceplate on the wall. All wires concealed inside the walls. The tv will be wall mounted directly opposite the sofa.

I wanted to get a second opinion on the layout, as I’ve never had Atmos before and I am essentially doing this from off plan as the house hasn’t been built yet, however I have spent a lot of time in the show home for this house and have taken my measurements from the show home which is the same size.

Any thoughts?

 

[Cherrywood]

Plans look pretty straight forward - only thing i would add would be to run more cable ! its alot easier at this stage and means upgrades will be straight forward also.

I would wire for 5.2.4 minimum - although height speakers above sofa are not ideal personally i find the compromises more than acceptable.

Also try wire for multiple sub woofer positions (one in each corner if possible) this will give you more flexibility and help with bass correction.

the additonal cables can be left behiend plaster board (just remember the locations) or alternatively wall plates like below are a clean option.

Quality UK Binding post speaker wall plates and faceplates from Nexxia

Regarding ATMOS - the ole rule of thumb was Rear Speakers above ear height, with ATMOS rears are dropped inline with ear height to give more separation.

Final point - will you be looking to go down projector route? If Yes, then i would get 2X HDMI & Power in place above sofa, again making it alot easier to upgrade in future.


What equipment have Richersounds suggested?
Please share final room with lots of pics also

 

[Zigourney]

Thanks cherrywood for taking the time out to read my post.

I was going to wire the ceiling with a 4 speaker Atmos set up, however the ceiling is already quite busy, as I am having two rows of spotlights fitted. If I have 4 ceiling speakers, this will mean having two speakers directly above my head and two speakers in the middle top. That will end up with minimal sound separation in the ceiling, so I scrapped that idea... do you think it will still work with 4 ceiling speakers?

Also mounting another pair of speakers to the wall behind the sofa wouldn’t look great aesthetically and the wife wouldn’t probably like it too. I will probably get another subwoofer faceplate fitted to the other end of the sofa so that it gives me the possibility of having two small subs in the rear corners.

I’m not planning for a projector in the lounge, just a simple discrete wife friendly set up. However I big plans down the road for the garage, which I am planning to convert later down the road, and have already done a little forward planning by ordering extra double sockets to be fitted now, including a media faceplate which has 2 cat6 points and 2 coax points.

Thanks for that link, what do you think of this one in the link below...doesn’t need soldering. For the rear of the faceplate where the speaker cables connect to, should I get a screw in type connection or solder type? Is one better than the other or does it really make any difference?

Buy Speaker Wall Plate Binding Post Dolby 7.1 NX-WP-037BSTR

For the equipment, only the tv has been decided for sure, for the speaker package, they need to be discrete and wife friendly for the lounge, the suggestions are below...

LG65”C8 OLED
Q Acoustics 7000i package or
Cambridge Audio minx22 package
Monitor audio c165 ceiling speakers
Denon x3400h amp

 

[SparkerB]

Hi . I agee with cherry however i would wire for rear surrounds either side of the sofa. This gives you options for 7.2 and if the rears are too far you can relocate.

Also you LR seem pretty wide apart which is not a big deal but when you want to listen at low levels this may be an issue for dialog depending on speaker and processor so you may want to wire some options in or try it out at in the show home!

Also think about locations for subs up front as an option. If you have a null at your sofa you will not be happy. Took me a while to sort mine out..took me 3 subs and one positioned in a spot just infront of my system. Anyway food for thought. Post pics and enjoy the ride. Ps whats the first film?

 

[Zigourney]

The problem with wiring the rear surrounds on either side walls is that there is plumbing pipes coming down the side wall corners for the radiators, and I was told this option will probably be a no no. However I will double check again with the installer on Monday, as this was my initial preference.

Now for the front L/R, I have been thinking that they may just slightly too far apart, and if that does happen to be the case, I was thinking of placing the front L/R on top of of the tv cabinet on each end. I am thinking of going for the BDI Avion 8929, which is 196cm wide. That would mean the fronts would be roughly 2m wide apart, with the centre speaker placed either on top of the tv cabinet or inside the speaker shelf of the cabinet pointed slightly angled upwards. Would this option be better for the fronts?

In terms of the sub, i will ask for an additional point to be installed on the left hand side of the sofa, that way I have the option of placing the sofa in either of the two sofa corners, or I can place it in front next to the tv cabinet where my amp will be anyway, that’s 3 options open.

Think the first movie will be mad max fury...will see.

 

[SparkerB]

Re fronts.. the ideal is to keep them the same speaker and all on the same axis at ear level but I appreciate its a living room so compromise is required although my mate has a very simlar cabinet and overall layout and his system sounds detailed and intense.

He has boston audio thx ultra i think with an anthem processor.

Perhaps in the future when the home cinema bug really hits..you may consider a dedicated room in the garage.

 

[Zigourney]

only thing i would add would be to run more cable ! its alot easier at this stage and means upgrades will be straight forward also.

I would wire for 5.2.4 minimum - although height speakers above sofa are not ideal personally i find the compromises more than acceptable.

Re fronts.. the ideal is to keep them the same speaker and all on the same axis at ear level but I appreciate its a living room so compromise is required although my mate has a very simlar cabinet and overall layout and his system sounds detailed and intense.

Thanks guys for the advice. Today I submitted a new drawing to the AV fitter, I basically said the drawing represents all the possible wall mounted speaker options I need (green boxes).
What do you think?

As per my first post, I'm also having two ceiling speakers wired for Atmos. I can't wire the ceiling with 4 speakers due to being restricted with spotlights.

I can't have speakers on the middle of the back sofa wall, aesthetically it doesn't look right there, and the wife wont agree to that, so I have asked for additional wires to be run down either of the side walls.

Lets see what the AV fitter says, hopefully I get a response within the next couple of days.

Edit: drawings were accepted. So I’m having two subwoofer faceplates in two opposite corners of the lounge and wiring for the speakers as per the two attachments as well as two ceiling speakers for Dolby Atmos and general in lounge music use.

 

[Zigourney]

Quick update to the thread.


The roof of the house has gone up, scaffolding has been removed. First fix electrics and plumbing done as well as the wiring for the burglar alarm system.

The AV installer came yesterday and started on the First stage wiring for my home hub platform. This includes the network wiring from all the rooms leading back to a data cabinet upstairs with cat6, coax for routing freeeview, sky, and virgin media and ceiling speaker cabling. The surround sound cabling will be put in on Monday.

Its finally moving forward slowly and I’m really pleased with the work that’s progressed so far. The green cables are cat6, the pink cable is speaker wire and black is coax.



That’s looking into the kitchen from the dining room. I’m having two ceiling speakers in kitchen and two in the dining room. The wiring for two rows of spotlights are in as well.



That’s looking into the lounge from the dining room. I’m having two rows of spots and two ceiling speakers for Atmos top middle and general music.



You can see how they have kept the black coax, green cat6 and pink speaker wiring all separate to minimise electrical noise and interference. The home hub platform is being installed to HDBaseT specification.



Lounge front wall where the tv will be wall mounted. High level double socket for powering the tv and a light strip and a media faceplate. Then low level double socket, a media faceplate with double cat6 and double coax and a single gang box for another double cat6 point. You can never have enough network points!!

 

[Zigourney]

Double cat6 and double coax at the front entry of the house. This enables the BT line to go straight up to the data cabinet upstairs so the master BT socket can be installed next to the data cabinet. Also allows cable and broadband from virgin media to wire straight to the data cabinet. Ultimately this means no tradesmen from BT, Sky or virgin media need to come inside my house and put unsightly wires over skirting boards or have the need to drill any holes to lay wiring. As there is cabling to route all those services from the entry point of the house to the cabinet upstairs.



Cabling comes into the house and goes upstairs to the cabinet.



Cabling for the BT socket comes back down to the Hallway from where the data cabinet will be upstairs, as well as a double cat 6 points for any possible voip phones or whatever as well a double socket for power.

 

[Zigourney]

On to upstairs now, more cat6, coax and speaker wiring for all bedrooms...



That’s the master bed, shelf for a wall mounted tv





That’s what will become the ensuite in the master bed..



That’s the ensuite for the bedroom 2 and the cupboard for the hot water tank.



That’s bedroom 3, what will become my office.



That’s from inside bedroom 4, looking into the bathroom.



That’s the small storeroom where all the cabling meets back to. A 15U rack will be going in there. There’s a dedicated power line being fed in there with a double socket.






More speaker wire, coax and cat6 routed to the loft for the bedroom media faceplates, in ceiling speakers and for Power Over Ethernet security cameras.

 

[Zigourney]

Hallway and lounge have been wired for a thermostat, will be changing the standard thermostat that comes with the house over to a smart one before winter.



Had some extra double sockets and a media faceplate with double cat 6 and double coax installed into the garage too, so that when I do a garage conversion in the future, the wiring is already installed.



That’s it for now....Will post some more pics next week once the wiring for the surround sound goes in.

 

[BillyHunt]

You’ve got an understanding site manager! I’ve had friends knocked back in allowing “external” trades in or being quoted silly prices for extras being requested during build. Congrats for having the power of persuasion and look forward to further updates and pictures

 

[Zigourney]

The surround sound wiring went in today as planned. I initially wanted a 5.1.2 wiring to be installed, but I got the installer to future proof it for me and got wiring done for 9 main speakers, 3 subwoofer sockets in 3 corners of the room where I could possibly place a subwoofer and got wiring done for 2 ceiling speakers for the Atmos.

I also got installed an additional 4 cat6 wires in 4 different locations to be used for internal POE security cameras, all cat6 wired back to the data cabinet upstairs. I am over the moon with the results!

It’s been a long day but I’ll post pics over the next couple of days.

Here’s the sketch of the wiring for the 9 main speakers that got installed. The 2 ceiling speakers are not in the drawing though.

 

[Zigourney]

Some pics of the surround sound wiring being installed.....pink wire is the speaker cables.



speaker wire going across the lounge wall horizontally at 120cm high, from the centre point of where the wall mounted tv will be. This is to accommodate speakers at either side of the tv.



Once the cables were fixed at the desired measurements they have been capped with thin plastic covering to protect it once the plaster boards go on top.

 

[Zigourney]

Coax face plates in 3 corners of the room. The installer didn’t have any single coax, all of it was the double jointed wire type. Not sure what I will do with the extra cable, I guess it’s just there for back up just in case...

 

[Zigourney]

Pics of the two rear corners of the lounge....

 

[jock1]

Double cat6 and double coax at the front entry of the house. This enables the BT line to go straight up to the data cabinet upstairs so the master BT socket can be installed next to the data cabinet. Also allows cable and broadband from virgin media to wire straight to the data cabinet. Ultimately this means no tradesmen from BT, Sky or virgin media need to come inside my house and put unsightly wires over skirting boards or have the need to drill any holes to lay wiring. As there is cabling to route all those services from the entry point of the house to the cabinet upstairs.

Sorry to point something out but some information ,you may find BT are not happy about your own cable attached to BT U/G feed teed before BT NTE as that is there safety socket. Possible way of overcoming is to see site office and see if they have BT 5 pair cable to run from your cabinet to BT surface box in street " pavement".

 

[Zigourney]

Sorry to point something out but some information ,you may find BT are not happy about your own cable attached to BT U/G feed teed before BT NTE as that is there safety socket. Possible way of overcoming is to see site office and see if they have BT 5 pair cable to run from your cabinet to BT surface box in street " pavement".

This install I am having is in junction with the developer, all work has been approved and the same install has gone into several houses already on the site, and I did question about the BT socket already before and they said it is part of the install, so I am not worried about it to be honest. But it is a valid point and thanks for pointing it out.

EDIT: this is the link to the AV company who is doing the install, they work in conjunction with Richer Sounds and do installs for housing developers.

h-h-I

Here's some pics of the installs they have done before...

h-h-i

 

[Zigourney]

The wiring is all done now and the plasterboards are going up. The AV fitter will be back on the second fit stage to install the data rack...once they have got the go ahead from the site manager to come back. I suppose after all boards have gone up and the skimming is finished.

Anyway, I have noticed something that's starting to worry me a little. As you can see in the below pics, all the speaker wiring comes out of one standard double gang back box and my original intention was to have the speaker wires soldered to a 5.1.2 speaker faceplate. However now that I have had more speaker wires put in than originally intended, along with more subwoofer coax cables which also happen to be the double coax type. I now have a lot of cable coming out of this one double gang box.

• I cant seem to find a speaker faceplate to accommodate all the extra cables that have been installed now?
• Will anyone even manage to solder so many wires to one speaker faceplate in such a tight space?
• All of the speaker wires are quite long so I was thinking alternatively I could just connect the wires directly to the amp. But I have noticed a couple of the speaker cables have been cut short out of the back box, so a direct fit to the amp wont be possible for the shorter cables..

Really hope someone get give me some practical ideas please that I can discuss with the AV fitter when they are back.

 

[x1nick]

Keep the updates coming, loving this

Could you put another box to the left/underneath to have the speaker terminals soldered onto it or has the plasterer started?

I think the best solution would have been a brush plate and connect directly to the receiver, but if the cables are too short then need to find some solution for increasing the area for speaker terminals.

 

[Cherrywood]

You can get double plates that have up to 7.2.4, soldering it is fiddly but can be done.

Dolby Speaker Wall Plates Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Nexxia Audio Solutions

Alternatively if you still wanted to terminate at A/V then you could extend the cables.


I would recommend using banana plugs where possible. Makes upgrades etc a lot simpler.

 

[Zigourney]

Keep the updates coming, loving this

Could you put another box to the left/underneath to have the speaker terminals soldered onto it or has the plasterer started?

I think the best solution would have been a brush plate and connect directly to the receiver, but if the cables are too short then need to find some solution for increasing the area for speaker terminals.

You can get double plates that have up to 7.2.4, soldering it is fiddly but can be done.

Dolby Speaker Wall Plates Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Nexxia Audio Solutions

Alternatively if you still wanted to terminate at A/V then you could extend the cables.

I would recommend using banana plugs where possible. Makes upgrades etc a lot simpler.

The plasterboards have gone up. But there is space to install another back box next to or below the current one.

The cleanest thing to do would be to put a speaker faceplate on it like the the one you linked Cherrywood, but I am afraid its going to get really tight in there, its only a 25mm deep back box.

I could ask the AV fitter to fix a dry wall back box directly below the current one, by cutting into the board and breaking through the cables through the bottom breakout of the back box and then split the cables across two back boxes and fit speaker faceplates. Or I could keep the cables as they are, and just put a brush plate on it, ask the AV guy to extend the couple of short cables and put some banana plugs on the end of the wires and connect direct to the AMP....not sure what to do yet, need to have a think...

What's the best way to extend speaker cables for this type of use case?
I've read you shouldn't extend using those plastic screw in blocks because they get warm from the power being delivered from the AMP.

 

[mattblue1]

I am having a new home built by charles church at the moment, can I get anyone in to fit audio, can I bugger....all because of insurance policies.

 

[Zigourney]

I am having a new home built by charles church at the moment, can I get anyone in to fit audio, can I bugger....all because of insurance policies.

That’s really unfortunate, I was lucky with mine, I initially asked the builder if I could just have some cat6 wired for my nas and they said no, however they said they would allow a full home hub installation to be put in to the house by the AV installer called HOme Hub Installations in conjunction with Richer Sounds, which I have linked above in an earlier post above, as they are one of their approved AV installers for home AV equipment..and that’s how I really came across this. As soon as they suggested that, I snapped the opportunity and went with the full install that was on offer by the AV installer as I knew house developers don’t really allow this sort of stuff to be put in during the build stage of new houses.

 

[Cherrywood]

The plasterboards have gone up. But there is space to install another back box next to or below the current one.

The cleanest thing to do would be to put a speaker faceplate on it like the the one you linked Cherrywood, but I am afraid its going to get really tight in there, its only a 25mm deep back box.

I could ask the AV fitter to fix a dry wall back box directly below the current one, by cutting into the board and breaking through the cables through the bottom breakout of the back box and then split the cables across two back boxes and fit speaker faceplates. Or I could keep the cables as they are, and just put a brush plate on it, ask the AV guy to extend the couple of short cables and put some banana plugs on the end of the wires and connect direct to the AMP....not sure what to do yet, need to have a think...

What's the best way to extend speaker cables for this type of use case?
I've read you shouldn't extend using those plastic screw in blocks because they get warm from the power being delivered from the AMP.

Soldering the cables should be fine with some heat shrink over top. However as you are paying for a professional install, i would push for the plates.
What was the original plan?
Where possible i would recommend trying to get face places (one or two), this will save the cables being damaged over time along with it being a cleaner install.

If you are planning external speakers rather than inwall, i would just plates for these also. Should you decide not to have full surround in future means you wont have cables hanging out wall/skirting etc.