As some of you know I am doing some remodeling of the Plex (Version 3), do to a sump pump failure earlier this year. Had to rip out most of our carpeting/padding. I put Dri-core subflooring down this time to get things up off the concrete.

I am also enclosing the theater portion off from the rest of the recroom/bar section. It will make the room a bit smaller, but I think I will like the isolation more and hope to improve on acoustics in the room.

One of the mistakes I made the first go around was not putting in enough jacks for subwoofer placement. All this talk about multiple subwoofers was not discussed much back then. I have been frustrated with running long lengths of cable from one sub to the other daisy chaining them around the baseboards.

So, now that I have the framing done, I need advice on how to set this all up.

I went to Home Depot today, they have a lot of Leviton products that offer modular Quickattach jacks/wall plates for speaker wire, F-Connector, etc. I was unable to find a freaking RCA jack, what is up with that? so at this poing I am planning on using Coax within the walls to each location, using two Leviton F-type connectors. Then I will have to buy some shorter length cables to go to the sub in that location with an adapter to go from the RCA back to the F-Connector to hook to the wall plate. Seems cobbled, but don't seen another option.

Also, the reason I am planning on putting to jacks at each plate, then I can run a second shorter cable from my line-out on the Sub A, back to the same plate, and have another coax run within the wall running over to the next wall plate. Basically, daisy chaining within the walls, if that makes sense.

The alternative is to run seperate runs to each location, but that is going to involve purchasing a lot more cable.

Unless this Home Depot didn't have much for supplies, I can't believe they don't make a modular jack with RCA on the outside, and F-Type on the back side to hook to the coax within the wall.

thanks for listening....ps: I would prefer to get stuff locally this time to rush the project, versus ordering online.

Randy

One thing I forgot to mention..The reason I'm considering wiring things as described above, is because my Denon 3808ci only has 1 subwoofer LFE out jack. I'm starting to see some newer receivers offer two or possibly three seperate sub out jacks, which would be better for fine tuning/calibration. So that is another reason why I'm considering running seperate coax runs to each jack.

partsexpress.com.

Can you use a Y-splitter at the receiver?

yes, you can split the signal at the receiver or at the subs, but it still is just one signal with my current receiver. Running seperate lines would help setup me up for if I ever get a receiver with seperate lfe-out jacks for seperate calibration of each sub. The newer versions of Audyssey will actually do an independent calibration of each sub, but that is only if the receiver is setup for that.

I guess I'm just looking for best practices for wiring a room for multiple sub locations.

Oh. I didn't know that the new receivers had two(or more?) separate subwoofer channels. I always thought that the avr's with two jacks were running from the same output within the receiver.

You are correct, most of the receivers with two jacks are no different than using a y adapter as it is the same signal. Some of the higher end receivers coming out with the latest setup calibration offerings, are now incorporating 2 or more seperate subwoofer channels.

They do make RCA ones, buthey're really hard to find in store. I have the kind that are cat5 on the back, but they also had double sided RCA.

Yes my AV7005 has two subs outputs but it is still the same signal, so not much different than a y-jack.

I would think that you are going to be running the subs on opposite walls etc., so you should still only need runs to all 4 walls at either the midpoints or corners and then use Y connectors of the avr output to feed all 4 outlets a signal, at least until you upgrade to the latest and greatest avr. I would still order from Monoprice, you would get the parts in a couple of days. You should be able to use Keystone jacks in any configuration you want for coax.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=109&cp_id=10426

Randy, unless there's a point that I missed, I don't see what's "cobbled" about using F to RCA adaptors with the F type wall plates that you saw at HD. MonoPrice and others do have RCA wall plates, but I don't see where you should bother.

On the question about receivers with two sub outputs, most don't allow for separately calibrating the outputs for different sub level and distance. Even the few that do provide for separately calibrating the two outputs still are working with just the same .1 channel carrying the same source material, not a totally separate sub channel.

My Onkyo 3007 I got in Oct 2009 has two separately calibrate-able subwoofer outputs and I don’t consider it high end. I believe the 1007 does also and can be had for under $1K. I have even seen the 3007 occasionally under that price.

How many subs do you have now?
Plus an Ep800?

I want to come watch star wars at your place when it hits bluray!

I only have one EP500. My other sub is a Buttkicker which goes way lower than the EP800, 5Hz, with authority. One of my Buttkicker demo scenes is the opening to Star Wars III and your right I can’t wait till it comes out on Blu-ray. Already preordered mine.

I tried multiple subwoofers I borrowed from Sean but found that in my oddly shaped room that I couldn’t find any multi-sub configuration that didn’t perform worse than a single sub in the best location. So now I EQ instead thanks to Charles.

Randy,

Yea, I would definitely run separate sub cables all around just to "future proof" your room.

When you upgrade your avr, just make sure you get the newest "Sub HT EQ" described here

The newest "Sub HT EQ" by audyssey is only available with the latest MultiXT 32, which indeed calibrates 2 subs and as of now are only available from Denon, Onkyo, and Integra.

If I had another sub for my Onkyo 3008, I could give you more info about the newest Sub HT EQ.

There are many over at avs that are using the new Sub ht eq with "4 subs" and just rave about the results. Most have already sold their separate discrete SVS AS-EQ1 sub eq as MULTIXT32 and SUBHTEQ are giving them the same/better results. Seems to be pretty impressive.

I personally have never been happier than I am with my Onkyo 3008. MultiXT 32 is really something to behold.


Dana

Randy whenever I ran the coax for the six subwoofer locations in our room I ran a separate run of coax from the component wall plate out to each subwoofer location and terminated the wall plates with female F connectors and then had a local A/V store make me some cables that were terminated with male F connectors on one end and male RCA connectors on the other.

I opted to go with individual runs of coax for each subwoofer location because it kept the in-wall connections down to a minimum in the event that a connection or a cable somehow goes bad in the future and thus saving my old ass from trying to trace a bad connection that only god knows where it may be. With individual runs you'll know exactly where to look in case a connection decides to turn south on you. Whenever I built our room, I bought a 1000' spool of quad shielded RG6 coax through the same A/V store and although I can't remember the exact cost I do remember that it didn't break the bank.

Here's the cables I had made up from the same spool...


And an individual wall plate...

Thanks guys! Yeah Rick, I will most likely do what you said, just run seperate runs to each location and only have one jack per plate, versus trying to daisy chain plates. The reason I was considering this is because 2 of the walls you can't run cableing. We have Ice Block form/concrete/foam foundation on the exterior walls. Benefit is you don't have to frame the interior basement walls, bad thing is you can't run cableing. So, I was just going to do an onwall solution.

down to work, talk to you later.

That is some pretty nice looking cable rick.

Dean, for some reason I thought you had an ep800... not sure why. Now that you metion it I'd love to see a movie with good LFE with some butt kickers in action.

Works for me if you’re ever in the area.

I’ve tried to use the JedI Mind Trick to get Charles to give me one of his but the force is strong with him.

Not the Force so much, but being a super fat slug has its advantages.

Well I can't seem to find anyone on line that makes cables with an F-connector on one and and a RCA on the other. Appears I would have to buy a small adapter F/RCA to put on my outlets and then use an RCA/RCA cable to the sub. I have the tools to make my own cables and add F Connectors, but not RCA, and I really don't want to buy cables, just to cutoff one of the RCA ends.

Blue Jeans can do RCA/F. You can order them from the Digital Audio Cable page: http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/digital-audio/index.htm

wow, I looked Bluejeans last night and overlooked this page, thanks.

You also might want to contact them directly, to see if they'll custom build an RCA/F cable from their normal subwoofer cable stock.

Randy are you buying coax in bulk to do your in-wall runs? If so, use some of that cable and either do the terminal connections yourself or take it to a local AV store and have them make the cables up for you. Sometimes whenever you start adding adapters on the wall plates or cables they can become quite obtrusive into the room.

I was just going to suggest building the cables yourself, HomeDepot has the tool and connectors, I make my own cables all the time.
Compression tool:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stor...amp;R=100625411

I guarantee your crimps don't look like Blue Jeans. I have access to some pretty good crimp tools here at work, but after pulling a boot off a BJ cable, there's no point in trying to compete with their work.

Check their About Us page: http://www.bluejeanscable.com/aboutus.htm

guys, as I mentioned above, I make my own coax and fconnectors, just never mad a RCA connector.

Randy, if I was doing this I'd want to do it with the least amount of effort and expense. I'd probably get a short F/F cable such as this to plug into the wall plate and then connect an F/RCA adaptor such as this to the other end to plug into the sub.

Since you apparently already have the coax and F connectors, you can make up the cables yourself and just buy some of the adaptors.

Then why haven't you made your own RCA cables? You can get compression or crimp type ends and then you can make them in any configuration you like

Not sure, I guess in the past I never really had a need to other than setting up outlets for cable/dish. Thanks John, I will probably do like your saying. I also see Parts Express has a more expensive gold adapter with F Male/RCA Female which would thread onto the wall plates and then I could use standard RCA/RCA cables. I will way the pros/cons and hopefully will be enjoying the new setup asap. Drywall install in the next week, fun fun.

When you are done the drywall, want to come to my house and do some more in my basement?

Did you sayyyy.....

"DRYWALL!!"

....I still have a housefull of dust from my last job, cough...cough!!

update - I did find some regular wall plates with f/RCA insert, so should be good to go... Yeah, not looking forward to the mudding/texturing. Will have to really try to plastic things off in the rest of the basement, yuck. Why can't you buy sheets that are already textured, just apply paint.

Randy, could you please provide me with a link. If I'm not mistaken, I'm looking for the same thing.

Thanks

I actually found some at a local home improvement store called Menards (similar to Home Depot or Lowes). They basically are a modular plug-in type setup where you get a wall plate with 1,2,4 or 6 square ports, then just plug in the keystone connector you want. I think Leviton or Legrand are brands to look for...

Thanks, dude! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Cheers

Yeah, I used them for my surround speakers as well, they offer Gold Banana/Screw connectors as well.

Hey Cam, I have used those as well - my local Home Depot carries them. I would guess yours will as well since we're in the same province, stock items should be quite similar.

They actually make a nice neat way of providing network access points for your Cat5/6 network cabling.

For some reason at our Home Depot I could not find the F/RCA connectors, but Menards had a similar brand from Pass Legrand that was the same thing.

Can't say I have ever seen F to RCA keystones at Home Depot in my neck of the woods.

Randy check out Ideal's Omniseal Pro XL compression tool. I have one and it's supper easy to use and the Ideal compression connectors are excellent. You can change the tool's push down insert for several different types of connectors. There are a slew of them available. I would also get the Ideal Omnistrip tool as it makes cutting the sheathing child's play.

Those are the coax tools I have as well, they work very well and Ideal also has the RCA ends you want, just not sure where you would find them, Home Depot has them up here but I do not see them online at HomeDepot.com.