DEALER AWAY FOR 7 WEEKS NEED HELP BEFORE IT S TOO LATE

[Froggy1976]

Hi all,

I am a very recently new comer to control4.

I purchased a hc200 and sr250 from my dealer of 12 years ( hifi and ht, never automation) and a second hand from hc300 and sr250 from ebay to see if I like the control4 hardware/software and usability of the system.

What can I say, I am a convert and can see the potential of it all. We are building a new house and will now have it wired and set up to accommodate a c4 system.

Being an electrician, running cables is not an issue for me, so I will do most of the labour myself, this saving time and money.

Issue is, the dealer is away for 7weeks and left the shop to his assistant whom, does not know much about c4 at all. He can look up prices of c4 gear on the computer, but that s about it.

The builder is now moving at a pretty frantic pace as need to have us settled in the new house by this Christmas. The poles are up, sub floor laid and next is frame and roof, before the external cladding and internal walls are fitted, thus I only have a very small window of opportunity to run my cables and the dealer won t be back before, so I can t decide what to buy or install.

I am not after anything special, nor a full home automation but more of a universal remote control and a few extra for different rooms.

I will try to outline what I need/want from the system.

All my AV gear is in a av rack apart from the TV and projector of course.

Hifi is important to me, but so is distributed audio. I want to be able to integrate my hifi with a distribution audi set up. I want to be able to listen to my music in the living room but when needed be able to turn on the kitchen, patio and under the house at the same time. How on earth do I do that? Do I split the cable from my pre to a a multi channel amp, get a audio matrix, get a multi channel matrix amp?

Another big question that s been at the back of my head for a while, is how good are the c4 amps, amp/matrix.? Are they a far cry from what people call hifi.

My system is not what I d call hi end by any means but still way better than what I d get at the local av superstore.

Also, do I need to get a hc250 for the family room.

I will most likely move the hc200 to the theatre room and 300 to the master bedroom or vice versa.

For the ht room, I will want not only remote capabilities, but something simple like dimming the lights when play is pressed and half lit when movie is paused, drop the projector mount down and up when movie is finished.

Well that sums it up. I think the ht and bedroom are fairly straight forward but the family room with added extra audio zones are causing me a bit of grief...

Any advice would be great ful and really appreciated.

Regards

[msgreenf]

I would recommend home running audio cable for each zone back to your rack.  In addition I would run 3-4 CAT 6 to each TV location.  if you plan to do any in wall touch screens, again run cat6 where you need it.  

[texas3622]

Run a cat6/5 to your fireplaces. You can use relay on the controller to control them.

[Tokead]

Personably I've been happy with the C4 amp/matrix

[csmpez]

I'll second what msgreenf said.  Run Cat6 anywhere you think you'll have a TV, touch screen, security cameras, etc.  Also, run them in pairs... you can never have too much.  If you don't, atleast put in conduit for future runs as needed.  Also, run a conduit from the basement to the attic for future runs if you have a basement and second story floor.

 

Good luck with the house.

 

Scott

[dc15]

Also a Cat6 to any garage door opener locations

[thecodeman]

Also a Cat6 to any garage door opener locations

Cat6, must be those gigabit garage doors. Some 22/2 alarm wire would suffice to the opener and down to the sensor locations (for a contact).

[CFUG]

I don't use wires at all on garage doors.  Wires are for systems other than Control4

[mstafford388]

If you're building the house you may as well run wires to the garage motors/doors.  It's cheaper than buying the card access stuff.  And yes,  22/2 is sufficient.  

[Froggy1976]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies and advice.

My intention was always to run audio cable to each room even if not needed yet but also a pair or cat6 plus some 12 core cable to control the blinds via the relays or dry contacts of the hc.

I always use conduit, not only as more convenient for future run/upgrades, but also think it looks more professional and neater. I fancy myself as a bit of a "boutique" electrician. I charge a bit more, I am a bit slower, but after almost 25 years of installs, I only had one client winge a bit in regards to my work ( very hard and difficult client that kept changing his mind and never thought he was in the wrong ).

I am sure that every installer here on this forum as encountered a difficult client at some stage, impossible to please everybody .

As for the fire place, well I knew c4 was an intelligent system, but did not know it was able to open the fire place, place the wood and lit it up, plus keep adding fuel to it.. at this stage I still prefer the feel, heat and ambient of a wood fire place...

Though I am a sparky, I do not usually do much cat6/5 cable installs as I am more of a commercial sparky and when I was doing domestic, I did not do phones as it was covered by another trade, so please excuse my ignorance, but what is the difference between the two, any better ones...

Rack distance to the family tv is about 20m, so I guess it excludes a hdmi cable from source to TV. Alternative is a balun I suspect, but are they better ones that work best with C4 or do c4 have their own, again, what cat should I run. There s a big difference in price between some but unsure why, so any advice and recommendation would be great.

Let s assume that for the sake of convenience, I decide to sell my stereo amp in favour of the c4 four or eight zone matrix amp, what would be the appropriate price level of speakers for the family room where I still enjoy quality sound. I don t really care for the other zones as it s distributed audio but for the family room I still want so e good speakers and set up. I don t even care about volume for each zones but a master volume will be fine, so that wheni turn the family room either up or down the rest of the zones follow. Actually, I definitely don t want individual volume control or source selection, but simply what is being played in the living room.

Can really find any reviews about the c4 amp/matrix let alone try to demo one in a dealer shop.

If I don t use the c4 amp/matrix, how do I get my hifi system integrated into distributed audio?

Use a splitter cable, one to 3? I don t want to use all the zones at the same time, so may be use a simple light switch in series withe speaker cable, so that when I am in the kitchen I just turn it on when needed, same applies to other zones...

I am a little afraid that using a one to three splitter will degrade the sound.

Like I said previously, I really appreciate all of your help. I know it s usually way better to deal with the dealer directly, but my hands are tied and things are moving so fast. After 3 years of delays, nobody thought that it would happen literally over night.

I may try to attach the plan if I find a way around it just to understand my requirements.

Sincerely, thank you to everyone.

Regards

Jean m saint Pierre

[CFUG]

^Hands are never "tied". 

[DWRobinson]

There are many ways to accomplish what you are trying to do.  For me, I chose to split the audio and video running throughout my house which is very common.  I have many more audio zones (4 outside zones, master bath, dining, sitting, etc.) than video, so it made sense.  Most rooms (kitchen, patio, master, etc.) will only be stereo and thus a matrix switch and amps will do the trick.  I have the C4 16 zone audio matrix for the audio.  I have Truaudio amps and low end Klipsch in ceiling speakers for all the stereo zones, except the outside.  They are more than good enough for what I typically do, which is use them for background music.

 

For the theater, I have a much more powerful and quality system on all fronts, the preamp, amp and speakers.  To get the sound in the theater room send a second, upgraded signal (digital, optical, etc.) to the preamp for the theater room. For example, from the cable box run stereo to the matrix and optical to the preamp for the theater.  This gets you that audio source to anywhere in the house.  It will be stereo in all rooms other than the theater, which will be whatever format (5.1, 7.2, 9.2, 11.2, 22.2, etc.) you send. 

 

I would say the key to everything (audio, video, climate, security, etc.) down the road is just having the wires available.  Wire is cheap, relatively speaking, and easy to run when the walls are open.  Run wire everywhere and run extra.  Personally, I would run a bundle to some point outside as well, or a conduit so it can be run later.  Just my $0.02. 

[SMHarman]

Cat5e is more than adequate to 90% of locations now and forsweable future. Exception one cat6 to the tvs for HDMI baluns.