Disclaimer: I am absolutely ignorant when it comes to audio infrastructure (especially wiring) so thank you in advance for necessary patience with my boobishness.
Situation: I’m having a home built. The exterior is up and the inside is framed, pending drywall. In the VERY near future, the electrician will be arriving to do what electricians do. I’m hoping to get this right. In addition to some Bluesound equipment (Vault2, PowerNode 2i, Pulse Flex 2i, I will be purchasing some KEF speakers (LS50 Wireless II, as well as a couple pairs of LSX Il). I want Ethernet connectivity to all my equipment. In order to mitigate any electrical interference, I plan to run 6, 6e, or possibly 7 generation shielded Ethernet cable. I’m hoping to be as technologically current as possible while also trying to retain an aesthetically pleasing environment.
Question: Is it possible to place both ethernet and power into a singular hybrid box that includes both an Ethernet jack as well as electric socket, or will this violate distance guidelines? Also, I’d appreciate any recommendations with regard to Ethernet cable.
Any guidance, pointers, or possible research sources would be greatly appreciated.
Personally, I would run cat 6 from my router/switch location to every room. I don’t see any reason to mix these cables with electrical cables. When I built my current house 23 years ago, I ran coax to every room and two to a couple rooms on opposite walls. I also ran speaker wires for rear surround sound.
Of course, you might want to include a few switch locations as “intersections” to various locations.
Like @Jim_F said, just run separate cat 6 to every location where you could possibly want LAN gear (or 6a if you are planning to run a datacenter, but it’s more expensive, bulkier, and more restrictive re termination What is the difference between Cat6 and Cat6a?). If your house is on the larger side, consider also installing WiFi APs on a few critical location with Ethernet to the main router.
I’ve not built a house from scratch, but the 5-year old house I own was well set up as described above by an excellent network/AV engineer, so it was really easy for me to connect all my networking and audio gear where I needed it.
For extra cost but future-proofing, run the cables in conduit that has room for cable addition/replacement, and no sharp corners. Fiber future
Run Cat6 UTP. No ground loops/earth continuity between equipment and ethernet can do what it’s supposed to - transfer data and maintain galvanic isolation. Unless you live in a mansion, Cat6 will do 10Gbit, so is future-proof.
A dedicated mains circuit for hi-fi isn’t guaranteed to bring any audible improvements, but the cost is insignificant at this stage, so it can’t hurt.
Congratulations on your new home. Exciting time. You may want to get it right in 1 go.
I have had several houses and often installed electricity and network myself.
My advice is to choose a quality cable for your network and that does not have to be the most expensive, with double shielding. (foil and braided wire).
Always follow local, legal guidelines for electricity carefully.
Which is why I said Cat6 would be fine unless he lives in a mansion.
Sure, he could go 6A, however, if the shield is grounded at patch panel and faceplate, all of the patch cables between panel and switch and between faceplate and device would need to be Cat6 UTP to avoid the risk of ground loops.
I am in house renovation process and bought two roles of 100 meter double CAT6 in a sleeve.
Easy to work with and not that expansive and gets the job done.
Do not use shielded Catx cables, regular Cat 6 is fine - use real Belden or Commscope and not the “equivalent”. Get a large 32" enclosure at head end and ensure a real Leviton or Hubbell patch panel in this box - you want space for a switch & misc router/modem from your Carrier. Get a dedicated electrical service (10a is plenty) and get a real surge protector (such as Surgex) to provide for switch/router etc. Make sure that the installers are capable of providing actual measured jack to jack test results after install that meets Cat 6 spec - you want a written report. I have seen many casual installs fail miserably. Many unqualified for low voltage Electricians will not want to play any more. Pull torque for Catx cable is much less than 14/2 so it needs to be handled differently. You will need separate wallboxes but they can be joined w electrical with a divider.
+1 for CAT6 or better to one or more places in each room.
+1 for conduit or wire carrying plastic piping. Leave room for optical link cable for later.
+1 for dedicated power & dedicated breaker for each room you will have a sound source (amp).
-1 for wireless speakers. Go ahead and wire 'em up. You’ll need an amp /preamp /DAC (or combo) for each room.
Anecdotally I wired up my house with speaker wires (unfinished basement, so easy) and found the wires cause too much loss of fidelity and also phase delay (time delay). Couldn’t listen to it, even with large gage wires. Now using a sonic endpoint per room as described above.
