New House

If you can afford it cat7 is the way to go.

1.  Yes.  And 2 ethernet ports per room.

2.  Cisco Gigabit ethernet switch with as many ports as you need

3.  Don't know, I only have vintage B&O

4.  Don't know this either.

I went through this decision process a month back... I went into it thinking I could get away with wireless.

Unfortunately my house is finished - except the basement (which is being finished right now).

I am simultaneously in the midst of an install and B&O installers have run mostly cat 7 everywhere with cat 5 for IR. All the cables run to a rack I have in a conditioned closet under my stairs. We are connecting 8 rooms (including a HT) with 4 TV's, three systems - all B&O.

They intend to run the following over cat 7:

- BeoLink (speakers)

- MasterLink music in the same sound zone)

- NetworkLink (connecting Vision 11 - but there's a 5sec delay cf MasterLink)

- HDMI

- Ethernet/Internet

- Unprotected Internet/MOCA

I.e. all connections - except for IR are run over cat 7.

By running everything to the central closet, it has the benefit that I can move things around. Most of my cable, DVD and video sources are in a rack. If I need to reconfigure anything, I can just repurpose the cable - e.g. BeoLink to Network link or HDMI. In fact, in the midst of the install we changed the configuration - best part, we did not have to run new cables. The other nice thing is that all my MasterLink converter boxes are in the rack - making service/repair easier - no need to find a place to bury the box and run afoul of building code.

If I were building a new house, I'd run at least 4 cat7's (Internet, master/network link, 2 for HDMI or spare) and a cat5(ir) to each major room and use a patch panel. Much, much cheaper to run this now with no walls up. If you need an extra cable in a room - repurpose the Internet cable and run Wifi.

That's the plan anyway. I'm sure many on this site would disagree - I just don't want to be tearing up and repainting my rooms again.

Rather than chose a specific cable type, why not consider installing ducting so that you can pull new cables through to the rooms enabling you to change the wiring in the future - I assume that the house will last longer than Cat 7!

The house I currently live in is rented and has ducting from the attic space down to each room, making it very easy to insert (in my case) ML and MCL cabling.  Being a single storey helps, but in most new houses it should be possible to put ducting in at least some key locations, perhaps to/from TVs or the main AV sources.  If speaker locations are firm, then permanent cabling (PL or Cat7) may be appropriate but just for these.

(Edit: Just noticed date of original post - may be too late!)

Guy:

(Edit: Just noticed date of original post - may be too late!)

Ditto that ! Having access to cable runs in all your rooms is the way to go. Unless you are very good/lucky its hard to plan every rooms eventual use as life is just like that. if you must run more than you need as in the long term its cheaper and easier to be looking at it than for it.

Its a fantastic advantage to have all your cables going to one point as opposed to daisy chains running in all directions.

Will move to my new house in a few months and have the same questions, although with different equipment: 3 BV 7-xx, 1 BeoPlay v1, BM5/BS5, BS3000, BL3500, BL5 & various speakers + STB decoders & BRD players.

So you strongly recommend CAT7 to link everything together and for both audio and video. Was thinking to use wireless for some of the 'audio only' rooms, but my dealer argued against it claiming that it is very unstable. Can anyone confirm?

Is there a possibility and/or an interest in using an optical fiber cable instead of CAT7 with B&O equipment? Was thinking about the future.

Thanks for your input.

 

if you can afford it cat7 is the way to go.

That's what I have done. I should have all my cat 7 installed to all rooms and future locations done by the end of this week. Wireless was randomly unreliable... And was was just making me unhappy. So I just bit the bullet and bought a huge spool of cat 7,and had it run from my AV closet to all locations. Some of the ones I'm not using right now - those cables are buried behind Sheetrock and I have photographs showing where they are so they can fished out at a future date.

Pretty clever. Well, it seems clear that wireless rhymes with useless...

Is anyone using CAT7 instead of coax to connect to link TVs?

Just wondering if you can use CAT7 for everything?

Here's what I'm doing- may answer a few questions regarding cat 7

- HDMI run over cat 7 where distances are over 40' or so and/or its near a set of B&O speakers or system (where I need Cat7 - see below)

- PowerLink run over Cat7 for all speakers

- MasterLink run over Cat7 (most converters in my av rack - except for BeoLab 3500)

- NetworkLink run over Cat7

- IR - 4 IR links for PUCs over one Cat7 could use Cat6 - (but I had Cat7 on premises)

- GigE over Cat7

- Beosystem3 - remote eye - Cat7 (we had to drywall and cable of the length we needed was not available.

- RS232 for Lutron repeater - Cat7

The only things not run over Cat7 are some components (only have short runs), a couple of Nintendo cables.

A

There seems to be a consensus for Cat7. OK I got it.

This requires converters (HDMI, ML, coax etc).

Are there easy to find?

Installers used a lot of Tyco stuff for interconnects from Cat7 etc...

For hdmi - I opted to use distribution amps vs a matrix (still up in the air if I should have gone Matrix) - all Atlona since they have a relationship with B&O - and its one throat to choke :)

I deviated a couple of times from Cat7 and used hdmi cables from bluejeans cables for the shorter runs esp. in my HT (to projector).

Griebel - these days wireless is extermely stable and the latest access points coming out are 1gb 802.11ac. My experience is that many dealers are unfamiliar with it, and at least here in the US, they have a poor setup in their stores using older consumer grade solutions (Linksys or equivalent). if you invest in a business grade access point (Cisco, Aruba as opposed to Apple), you may be able to save pulling CAT cables into rooms where it is not needed. Besides, you will need to set up a wireless network in any case to support your IPADs, laptops, etc. Might as well piggyback everything that needs connectivity onto the same network.

 

That's a good point: you need wireless anyway for your smartphones etc. But still, compared wireless with cable (cat7) using two v1 TVs and the latest Cisco wireless router. Cable is more stable. However, the latest v1 update significantly improved stability when on wireless.

In my case I finally went for cables, hidden in the wall. I had to run them anyway since I have multi room TVs connected to HD sat decoders, BRD player, Apple TV via the Atlona matrix using cat7. There was room left to run a ML cable :-)