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Whole-House Audio Tutorial - Installation

Section 3: Installing a Whole-House Audio System

This section describes, in minute detail, the installation of a Xantech whole-house audio system. More than any other section, this one is very vendor dependent. So, if you're installing some other kind of equipment...you're on your own!

NOTE:Most of the major components described in this section are discontined and/or are no longer available.


Introduction to Pre-Wiring

The wires are in, the walls are up, the dust has settled (isn't that an unbelievable mess?), and you're ready to install the whole-house audio equipment. This document will take you through the installation of all pieces of your whole-house audio system.

I present these installation steps in the order that works for me; Your tastes may vary, but watch out for unforseen "gotcha's." I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to dressing and labeling cables. The headend hasso manywires that it can get out of hand if you aren't careful. That's why I like to start off with the bigger cables, like speaker wires because they are the hardest to dress, and thus easier to dress first. The wire "nest" always degenerates as you go along, so start it out as clean as possible or it will be completely unmanageable towards the end.

One more general comment about clean wiring. I like having a little "slack" in cables so that they can be moved from one connection to another without problems. But slack cables don't dress cleanly. My compromise is to find a place, a little ways away from the headend equipment, for the slack to sit. Often this means pushing a little cable (6 to 12") back down or up the hole in the floor or ceiling. This way the wires can dress cleanly, but I can pull a little more wire through if I need to move a connection.

Before beginning the installation, we recommend that you wait for most of the painting to be complete; the painters will just mess up the wall-plates and speakers.


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Gather Everything Together

There are four kinds of "stuff" we take to a job-site, you'll want to gather together a similar assortment before beginning.
  1. Major components for the install: Switchers, amps, speakers, keypads, volume controls, etc.
  2. Smaller components: IR pickups, IR emitters, wall-plates, jacks, patch cables, etc.
  3. Tools & test equipment
  4. Consumables (tie-wraps, screws, etc.)

Major Components

There's nothing worse than getting part-way through a job and finding out that you're missing a critical component, and then finding out that the component is out of stock. At HomeTech, we try to maintain an adequate supply of parts, but we never know when there will be a run on something and, of course that's when the factory will be out as well! Nothing slows down a job more, and wastes more time, than "working around" missing parts, then stuffing them in later. Try to have all the major pieces with you when you begin the installation.

Before you begin the installation, it's a good idea to change the group codes for any duplicate Xantech devices in your design. The ZPR68, RAT-1, and many other devices have an infrared "prefix" that you can change in case you're installing two or more of the same device. This change is easy on the bench. It's a little harder once the item is installed since you have to temporarily reconfigure the IR cabling so that you're only talking tothatdevice. So go ahead and change the duplicate devices to an unused number and label the devices with their new code. The change is stored in EEPROM and will thus stick unless manually changed again.

Smaller Components

We always end up using more of these items than we expect. That's a good thing...the job often grows a little when things start working and all the possibilities and functionality are finally manifest! Have on hand what your plans say you need for the job, plus some extras.

Tools & Test Equipment

See our page on Tools & Test Equipment for Home Automation.

Miscellaneous Consumables

No, I'm not talking about potato chips and Coke. I mean the little non-inventoried things that get used during an install. You'll go through a lot more of these things than you expect! Here are the things I find useful, all available at your local home or hardware store.




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Prelude to Installation

Make sure you're zones are numbered on your plans, and stick to this numbering system throughout the installation. Also number the audio sources, from one through eight (or less) and write this down. These will be your "master" numbers and you will refer to them often during installation and programming. (These numbers won't matter to the end-user.)

Numbers are cheap, so go ahead and designate all cable destinations (other than the headend) with a number. You can use suffixes to denote sub-zones or different wall-plates within one room. Write all these down on your plans and later, back at the headend, you'll always know which wire is which.


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Mount and Interconnect the Headend Equipment

I prefer to start at the headend and work my way out to the wallplates and speakers. This way seems a bit more logical to me, plus, you can get the first zone up and working quicker.

Plan the Physical Installation

If space is tight, you'd better work out the equipment mounting on paper first. Once you start connecting wires to the equipment, it is exceedingly difficult to move!

Because of the location of the jacks on the ZPR68 and PA640, I like to mount the ZPR68 highest, then the PA640 amplifier(s) in a row directly beneath, with any RAT1s, ABS1s, or other speaker level audio controls beneath the amps.

I route the IR cables and line-level audio cables in from the top to the ZPR68, then patch from the ZPR68 to the amps, then from the amps to any speaker level audio switches/controls, and on out to the speakers. This seems to result in a relatively clean layout for cabling.

Don't forget to plan space for power supplies and AC powerstrips. They take up more room than you think! And keep that AC away from the other wiring. I locate the powerstrip(s) and power supplies off to the left or right of the ZPR68 and PA640s, and run all the other wiring vertically on the opposite side.

Leave around 4 to 6" between the components for dressing wires. Any less and you end up with wires running over the top of components. Any more and you end up needing longer patch cables than you would otherwise.

If you're not working with a wood-covered wall, cut a piece of 3/8" or thicker plywood and nail it to the wall. Cut the plywood a little larger than required for the components so that you can dress cables around the perimiter. If you use screws to attach the plywood to the wall, use flat-head screws and counter-sink them. Otherwise they might get in the way of attaching the equipment.

If you have any other devices to mount, such as an AM/FM tuner, that don't readily mount to a wall, but want to sit on a flat surface, build a shelf up high. Leave a 2" gap between the back edge of the shelf and the wall for wires to route through. Make the shelf just as deep as the equipment. When the equipment sits on the shelf, the front can be flush with the front of the shelf, and the back will be 2" from the wall, allowing for connections in the rear. Make the shelfwiderthan the equipment! In order to work on the connections in the rear, you will have to turn the equipment sideways on the shelf.

Lastly, if you're working in a "dungeon," install some flourescent lights above and/or to the side of the equipment wall. The lights should be above or behind you when standing facing the wall so that they are not in your eyes while working. Flourescent because they cast less of a shadow when working in their light, and more than one for the same reason. A little bit of work on the lighting will make the rest of the task easier and much more pleseant.

Install the Wall-Mounted Equipment

First make sure all the cables comming into the headend area are out of the way. Take a few minutes to tie them off to the side. I like to use a couple of long tie-wraps to make a "sling" off to the side for the bundle to loosely lay in, with the ends dangling far from the center of action. When I'm ready for a wire, I rummage through the wires until I find the one I want, then work just that one wire out of the sling. This keeps the work-area clear, while keeping the majority of the cabling off the floor and relatively un-jostled.

Carefully position the wall-mounted equipment and attach with screws. An electric screwdriver with a long, magnetic, phillips bit and screw guide sleave makes this job a real pleasure.

Go ahead and attach all the equipment to the wall. To attach rather "flat" components to the wall that don't have mounting holes, such as the ABS1, use screws and c-clips on each side, then run a large tie-wrap around the whole unit and through the c-clips. Or build a little shelf with angle-brackets and use Velcro to hold the devices in place on the shelf.

Attach the AC power-strip(s) and dress their cords to the nearest AC outlet. Leave the power-strip(s) turned off for now.

Connect AC Power to Headend Equipment

For the "in-line" style of power adapters, such as the one for the ZPR68, I mount them, in the AC area, with screws, 1/4" C-clips, and tie-wraps around the cords coming out of each end. Dress the AC cord to the power strip, and the low-voltage cord to the proper device.

For the "wall-wart" style of power adapters, you can plug them into a power-strip and dress the low-voltage lead to the proper equipment. But I don't like the way they take up several outlets so I sometimes use a short extension cord to make the wall-wart supply more like the in-line supply. Then I mount it as above.

Lastly, dress the direct AC cords from the power-strip to the devices that take AC directly, such as the PA640 power supplies. I always worry about these since they bring AC near the low-voltage. So I try to route them as directly as possible and in a manner that allows any low-voltage that will have to cross them do it at right angles.

Install Other Audio Source Equipment

Now you can set any remaining equipment on the shelf above. Set it on the shelf sideways at first. You will be making all the connections with the unit sideways (so you can see what you are connecting). The idea is to make all the connections, tie-wrap the cables going up to the shelf at the bottom-rear of the shelf, then turn the equipment face-out. Hopefully, you will then have all the cables dressed properly, yet still be able to turn the device around to get at the rear connections.

Dress the AC cords off to one side or the other of the shelf, then down to the power-strip.

Interconnect Audio Sources and Headend

Starting at the audio sources, use audio interconnect cables to connect from the audio sources to the ZPR68. Dress these cables across the bottom of the ZPR68, then up to the input jacks.

Also use interconnect cables to jumper from the ZPR68 to the amplifier inputs.

Interconnect Control and DC Power at Headend

Connect the cables coming from the remote infrared keypads and IR pickups to the appropriate ports on the ZPR68. Dress these cables across the top of the ZPR68. You did to a "power budget" on the ZPR68's output vs. the remote keypads and IR pickups you're using, didn't you? Some, or all, of your remote keypads and IR pickups may be powered from a separate power supply. Connect the


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