This page is retained to avoid broken links, but Cat 6(e) is the way to go for almost everything. This is just so last century. Take this for historic interest or whatever. Just pull oodles of Cat6 or Cat6e and see my note on the broadcast engineering page. I no longer live in Glendale, California (I live in Aurora, Ontario Canada now). As I said, this is just old and outmoded. If anyone wants a connectorized 25-pair telco cable, let me know and if you pay shipping, it's yours. I think it's about 50 feet. Never used. The new house came with less than adequate phone wiring and no network wiring. The basement is now heavily wired with Cat5 and we use wireless internet elsewhere.

This page will NEVER BE UPDATED as it takes a lot of time to prepare this! Take these as guidelines. All information is provided as-is, so you can't blame me if you're unhappy after the walls are plastered! It's important to think through what you want and discuss it with your contractor--but be warned, many electrical contractors do not understand this. If you're involved with a high-end installation, there are special contractors who are starting to pop up to do this in a residential environment. There are many ways to solve these problems. These are my quick thoughts on the issues. Good luck!

I have recently re-thought what is needed to properly wire a house for high-end entertainment distribution. This design is always subject to change, but the ideas presented here are current and what I would do if I were re-wiring or re-modeling my home today.

Terminal Closet

Select a central location (preferably one) that will have access to a floor-to-ceiling by 4-foot wide 3/4-inch plywood backboard. That is probably overkill, but it can't hurt. You can always put a false front on it. Make sure there is at least a quad receptacle there with its own dedicated 20Amp 120V circuit. If you put a cover over it, allow a foot clearance and have vents top and bottom. A light is also a good idea. This can be achieved in a normal closet during construction if you design it to be a foot deeper.

Data

Ahhh-the easy one first. From the terminal closet run one 4-pair Cat-5 (category 5, 100mb/s) to each possible location you'll ever have a computer. Include the kitchen, all the bedrooms, the den, the home office, a dressing room. Terminate this on RJ-45 (8-pin) telco-type jacks at each end. You can then mount your Ethernet hub in the terminal closet. I just found a 10BaseT hub for $40 and it works. If you can find at affordable prices Belden DataTwist 350 or MediaTwist, use that as it is better cable and has wider bandwidth than Cat-5.

There are other alternatives starting to become available in the year 2000. If you have the opportunity to install this correctly, you won't be sorry.

Phones

I would run one Cat-5 cable from each location that you expect to have a phone to the terminal closet. This includes both sides of each bed, each desk in every room. In a room that might become a home office, double this to each location. At each location install two 6-position RJ-11-type jacks, but wire pairs one and two of each, using one 4-pair Cat-5 cable for each two jacks. Bring these back to a 66-type punch block and cross-connect as you wish. From there you can go to a small phone switch or use ISDN or whatever. For the home office I'd have no fewer than a total of EIGHT 4-pair Cat-5's running to the terminal closet. More would be better. I'm suggesting Cat-5 cable for the phones so you can use it later for higher-speed data and so you only have one cable type.

RF (Television)

All of your antennas and hopefully your cable feed should come into the terminal closet. From there we need at least three (3) good-quality 75-ohm coaxial cables (with multiple foil and braid shields) running to each room. Pick the entertainment center location in each room and home-run the three coaxial cables. These are used for:

1. Main Antenna or Cable feed (don't violate cable company rules)
2. FM Antenna or Cable feed
3. Home "Main" VCR feed

Yes, you can modulate all of this onto one cable, but you'll thank me for these three cables when you don't have any hassles with the levels. The "Main" VCR feed allows multiple rooms to watch the same movie.

I found in Glendale, California, that I needed an omnidirecitonal "turnstile" FM antenna while a highly-directional TV antenna was best. Your situation might be different.

Use good amplifiers and splitters. The parts from Radio Shack sometimes work, but many of them can be improved upon.

Baseband video distribution (either S- or regular) is problematic as it requires equalization past 75-100 feet and consumer-grade cable-equalizing video distribution amplifiers are not easy to find.

If you have plans for installing DSS, I'd run a fourth cable to the terminal closet. At that location, you can install multiswitches. Run four coaxes from the closet to the DSS antenna to permit both polarizations on two satellites.

Stereo Analog Audio

This is perhaps the most controversial, but I've found the following to work real well. If you have one point where you want to distribute audio to the whole house it is easy. If you have two points, follow the same plan, but bring both distribution amplifiers to one point and install a switch for feed A or feed B.

You need an audio distribution amplifier. A good power amplifier will work so if you have one that is quiet enough (-80dBu noise floor or better would be preferred with no input) you've got it made. Just run a star configuration of Cat-5 cable to a central distribution point and feed that star off the speaker outputs of a separate amplifier. You won't be able to use the speaker switch as this loop is high impedance. Then, at each location, install in a plastic (isolated) wall plate two RCA jacks. Wire the hot of the amplifier output to the tip and the shield to the shield. You'll have two pairs left over in each cable, but what the heck.

Ground the amplifier at the main distribution location. If you install a switch, make sure you switch all four conductors (both grounds and hots). In the feed from the amplifier to the switch (if you use one) double up pairs on the Cat-5 cable.

Now here is the real trick. Do NOT just use an RCA-to-RCA patch cord to connect this to your stereo system. You'll get a lot of hum. Jumper from the wall to the CD/AUX input of the local receiver with an isolation transformer. I've been using some that I scrounged 20 years ago, but if you have a low impedance drive (and you'll get that from a power amp) the Radio Shack/Archer 270-054 Audio System Ground Loop Isolator measured surprisingly well. If that is no longer available, check with SesCom in Henderson, Nevada.

Please note: this system requires that you have a normal stereo system (amplifier or receiver plus speakers) in each room. You can distribute the audio at line level using the described method up to about ten rooms or so. This will not drive speakers directly through a volume control. Driving speakers directly is generally limited to two locations. In-line speaker volume controls are generally poor performers.

This scheme is intended for people wanting quality sound in each room. If you are interested in background music in each room, that is a different story. I am not making any suggestions for commercial-grade ("elevator music") type background music systems as these are generally installed as 70V distribution systems and there are in-room level controls that will work reliably with these systems.

Speaker audio is high-powered audio and must be run over heavy-gauge wires. I won't begin to get into the discussion of esoteric speaker wires (which I don't believe are necessary) but for any runs in a house other than a few feet, I would suggest using #12 conductors for speakers. Now this can be #12 building wire in conduit (the electrical inspectors may get antsy if it's not in conduit) or purpose-made CL2X or CL3X rated jacketed 2-conductor cable. Do not try and run speakers over Cat-5 cable. You'll lose too much!

If you have any questions about this, please contact me prior to installing anything as it seems that it is possible to have misunderstandings and those are much easier to correct if you ask first. I can try to answer simple questions by email (click here). If you do not receive a reply, I may be too busy helping my paying clients with their work. Please do not attempt to contact me by phone with any questions regarding this.

Conclusions

This is a brief outline and if you have any questions, please drop me an email. I'll try to answer them unless the volume gets too high.

I have not addressed home control. The X-10 system I have has been sort of OK, but it has not been quite as reliable as I'd like. I don't know what else I'd do, but I do suggest still using islands of automation and not trying to tie everything together into one master system. For example, my digital lawn sprinkler timer has proven very reliable and has required little maintenance. Think about using basic tools like this and if you need to remotely trigger some sprinkler zones adding an X-10 (or if you're really wealthy an AMX or Crestron) overlay which performs the additional functions. The same concept applies for the heating/cooling system--a good computerized thermostat can do wonders and operating separately is very reliable.

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