AV recommendations

dellboy78 · Nov 28, 2014

After years of rewiring other people's houses I finally have my own one to do! Not really done much AV stuff and am thinking that I should at least get some cables in place whilst I am 1st fixing. I was hoping for a few recommendations as to what to put in and what goes where exactly. I plan on getting a sonos system for music so mainly tv/sky/HD I'm interested in and maybe surround sound for the tv in the lounge. I currently have a sky+ hd box in the lounge and a coax. Any help greatly appreciated!

JamieK · Dec 11, 2014

Hi mate

Are you looking to put your sky box, dvd, sonos etc in a single cupboard and then distribute out to your TVs and speakers?

if so you need to star wire all cables back to this central point, speaker cable to wherever your speakers are going, coax to distribute freeview and sky, cat5 or 6 to distribute data.

I'd then get a tv aerial and satellite feed into your cupboard, along with your router if possible. If you get that basic infrastructure in place you get loads of options then to have an amazing av experience in your home.

happy to give any additional advice and links to products, etc.

dellboy78 · Dec 12, 2014

Hi,
Thanks for your response. I would certainly like to leave my options open! What you suggest sounds good although I don't have a cupboard that is suitable for the moment at least. I guess I could keep everything in the lounge? I already have ariel, sky box, ps3, router etc in one place there. Might be too many cables to hide though if everything goes back to this position. I was originally thinking along the lines of running my cables from each room back to the loft but I haven't pulled any in yet so I could change that and build a cupboard somewhere! I would certainly be interested in your opinion.

JamieK · Dec 13, 2014

That's pretty much the same setup i had with sky box, xbox and stuff in the lounge but my living room wasn't that big so I wanted to free up the space all the av kit was taking and then stick the tv on the wall, it did free up a lot of space and looked a bit more impressive!

I also wanted to see the sky box and stuff on other TVs in my house, that's when I realised it can be all be located in one place and controlled from each tv location, I confess I've ended up playing Xbox from my bedroom just because I can lol!

ive only got one sonos connect amp (all I can afford at minute) and that is in my cupboard wired up to two ceiling speakers in my kitchen/diner, works a treat and sounds amazing. If you add something called NAS (network attached storage) you can store all your music, pictures and video on it and you can get that streaming to all the TVs in your home too, I bought a western digital mybook live for £100 two years ago and it's never let me down once.

as you can see it all become a bit of a hobby, I've probably still got the wiring diagrams I did if you want me to send them to you, I was operating on a budget but I was really surprised how simple it all was in the end and with the cable and everything I needed (excluding TVs) I think I spent about 600 quid overall in stages.

glad to help mate drop me a line if you need anything Inwish I did more of this stuff, was looking at becoming Cedia accredited and they estimate that smart homes are worth a billion quid annually in UK, I'd love to do a system which had the high end kit!

dellboy78 · Dec 13, 2014

I would be very interested to have a look at your wiring diagrams if you wouldn't mind mate. Sounds like a good set up! Shall I PM you my email address or something? Thanks again.