Cables

With all the rain recently, it's been a good time to focus on some really nerdy details of the home. As mentioned in a previous post about our media closet, we're having various cables run within the walls. Our cable needs became very real over the last few days as our contractor and I have had to scrutinize the schematic and figure out what lengths of which cable I actually need to buy.

It turns out this took me a fair amount of research to get right, since even though I'm a techie I'm not an A/V or home networking expert. Here are the highlights of my research.

General Information

First, there is a great discussion board for A/V enthusiasts full of expert information, called avsforum. I've found so much helpful information there over the years.

For all in-wall wiring, I wanted cables rated CL2. Such cables are certified to retard fires and not give off toxic fumes on combustion, so they're appropriate to put within the walls, and in my opinion are worth the slight premium.

Also, in general, I went with medium-to-high quality on most of the cables. Paying extra for super-premium just doesn't make sense to me, but for long lines with lots of potential interference and degradation I'd like the peace of mind knowing I'm getting better than minimum performance. Thicker conductors (that's a lower gauge wire, such as 22 AWG for HDMI or 14 for speaker wire) are generally better.

Jacks

The cable itself is only part of the package; I still have to find wall plates with jacks for each of the cables we're running. It turns out that the vast majority of wall jacks have a built-in F/F component. That is, they present a female port to plug in to the face, and accept a male connection as well on the back side, which is ideal because cords are available mostly in M/M configurations.

Ethernet

I thought I knew most of what I needed to know about Ethernet cables, but I was wrong.

First, I had to choose between Cat5e and Cat6, which is significantly pricier. Most wires in use today are Cat5e, which theoretically can do 1Gb/s but is not officially rated for it. Cat6 is rated at that speed, so people make arguments that Cat6 is more "future-proof," but those claims are dubious since Cat6 will not actually support the next tier of network bandwidth (10Gb/s). Working with Cat6 is generally more expensive and annoying, enough so that it just doesn't seem worth it for some weak assurance of slightly more bandwidth way in the future. Right now, home networks still typically don't come close to using a gigabit per second.

Ethernet cables can be either "stranded" or "solid." Solid is definitely the way to go for in-wall; it's better shielded and easier to thread around. Stranded cable is more flexible and better for patch cables, like the myriad ones we'll have connecting components within our media closet.

Phone

It turns out we can use Ethernet for our phone jack. I learned this at my brother/sister-in-law's place when I was investigating their townhome's network setup. This is nice as for the few RJ11 connections we need, we can just use more of the bulk cable I'm already buying and it makes things simpler.

HDMI

Runs 40-50 feet and longer can be dicey, but if the quality of the components on either end are high then things might just work fine. The data over HDMI at full 1080p resolution actually approaches the bandwidth of the cable, so cable quality over long runs is really important.

Shopping List

After all this, I just finished putting in a second order for cables at monoprice.com. Monoprice is easily the best value in cables of all sorts. By paying attention to the cable specs, reading reviews and choosing carefully, it's possible to get cables of perfectly good quality for a fraction of the price of the next cheapest competitor.

Here's a breakdown of what I had to order:

• Ethernet (in-wall). Cat5e Solid UTP Riser-Rated - 1000ft.
• Ethernet (patch). Two dozen or so different lengths of patch cables for the media closet and connecting around the house.
• Speaker Wire. 2-conductor 14 AWG - 750ft.
• Cable. RG-6 coax - 250ft.
• HDMI. 22 AWG tin-plated - 12ft, 35ft, and 50ft.
• RGB+Audio. 5x 18 AWG RCA with component video and stereo audio - 12ft, 35ft and 50ft.
• RCA Stereo. 18 AWG - 35ft and 45ft.
  

Total cost: $543 including tax and shipping.