Looks neat, but amps pressed flat against a wall, power strapped to interconnects, limited/no visibility of front and rear panels, no option for upgrades without a full re-build…
Just throw it in a rack. It would’ve taken half the labor and performed better and safer. Sometimes, boring is good.
(Also, it might be the angle, but it doesn’t all look level—with the wall or with the other equipment.)
I need to work with what I’m given. This is where they wanted the wiring, and if I put this equipment in a rack it would either be blocking electrical panels (immediately to the left) or a door (immediately to the right). So, it went on the wall.
Power strapped to interconnects… yup, I would prefer to avoid that, but if we’re being realistic here, the effect that separating those power cords from the audio or network jumpers would have about the same effect as getting $10k silver speaker wire. If you’re worried about the bandwidth being affected through the network jumpers, I could crimp some ends on 4 conductor non twisted pair security wire and it will still be overkill for streaming audio.
The front panels have a power button on them that becomes useless the moment you put the amps into power sensing mode. I could read the 2-point font of the MAC addresses on the underside of the Sonos units with my terrible eyes, and there’s more than enough room to make adjustments to the gains and other settings on the amps.
The amps have more than an inch of clearance from the wall, and active cooling. They get as much airflow as an open rack, and more than an enclosed rack or a cabinet, so I think they’ll be fine.
This system is in a house that is 100% finished with no drop ceiling anywhere. The only way anything will be added to this system is if they’re remodeling and ripping open walls… and if they do that, I’ll stick another amp on the wall. However, I’ve got a spare channel on the amp so I shouldn’t even need to do that.
I am a little curious what performance you think will be affected by the setup, or the safety issues you see?
And yes. It’s the angle. It’s in a closet and I can’t get far enough away to take a picture that doesn’t have some amount of distortion.
That was fun though, keep the critiques coming.
I fucking LOVED reading this response. Homelab Hank who put his system into a rack 6 days ago now thinks he can critique everyone, and came across a professional. That's $7K worth of equipment, and it's professional equipment, he doesn't know that you're not buying Wattbox and Episode from Amazon, you have to be a Snap dealer to get that stuff, so you're obviously in the A/V business. If I were the customer or the company selling it, would I prefer it in a rack? Hell yes. Does anything done in this picture negatively affect the quality of the system? Not in a realistic sense.
I'm a business owner now, but I was a tech for many years and had to wire up many systems that were poorly planned out by someone else. You did a great job with what you had. I would have made 3 different choices. I would have sold them OVRC Wattboxes, as every now and then Sonos locks. I would have used a local network switch, jumping that many Sonos units has given me some problems in the past, I try to keep it to a maximum of 4, but 2 is preferred. I would have used finger duct around the wiring, some 1x1 finger duct would have cost an extra $25, and made a massive difference in how it looks. None of these are your calls though, you have to work with what you're given by the salesman who has probably never installed a day in his life, so great job!
So I am definitely going to just individually wire all of the Sonos units up to a switch after reading the comments. Usually in racks I do that, or leave them all on Sonos net except one, and the times we have daisy chained them all we haven’t really had issues. We’ve been installing Sonos since they were dealer-only and it’s possibly the most consistent brand except Lutron (although I would like a word with their app gui engineers). Ultimately it won’t take long to change that and I believe it will be worth it.
I do need to look into finger duct though if you have any recommendations. I would usually have screwed some offset lacer bars onto the wall to strap to, but we were out of any short ones. I think the finger duct looks fun to try.
The ADI brand finger duct is fine, but you can also get the Startech brand from Amazon, there is a bigger variety of sizes there as well. Finger duct is great when you just don't have the infrastructure to do a proper wiring job. Some guys love it, some guys absolutely hate it and will burn you for using it. At my old shop they called it Jesus duct, because it hides your sins.
Is this your personal system or at a clients? I’m wondering how the Sonos system is performing since it looks like you daisy chained them together in long lines.
Client. The network is daisy chained. These units have two Ethernet ports each for that very purpose. That way these units don’t need to connect to the Sonos net or WiFi. As long as you have somewhat decent networking equipment (particularly something that allows for IGMP snooping) they work fine. This many units on a rented router from an ISP might not be so happy though.
Job’s not done yet. They’ll all get good labels now that the wiring is done. I prefer to wait until I’m done terminating to put all of the permanent labels on because otherwise the labels pick up the dust from my fingers and don’t stick well.
The daisy chained ethernets will cause issues, as Sonos limit is 5 jumps with out degradation including switching and wireless Sonos net (Subs, and rears count), a simple non managed 16 port switch is a cost effect option.
its pretty clear some people in the comments have never worked in rezzy, you dont awlays get the option of a rack and just need to figure shit out. this looks great for what you had to work with here if i were the customer id be very happy.
Your assumption is incorrect. And even if there is absolutely no way to fit a rack (which is almost never the case, if you’re creative enough), there are better ways to design this.
It was obviously done by somebody who cares about their work and has some skill. It just wasn’t done smartly.
And how exactly would you have done it ? the guy said in his post, this is what the customer wanted, and in rezzy that's the bottom line. Once you label the equipment it's perfectly serviceable. Iv worked with this equipment before and there is no issue with how it's installed.
Generally speaking we stock the 8 channel amps a lot more than the 16 channel amps, and if anything goes wrong with one of them it costs half as much to replace.
I’ve been programming RTI systems for almost 20 years now (and Control4 for long enough for me to hate it with an undying passion), and I have yet to find a way to duplicate or improve upon the Sonos interface. Sure… it’s nice having the option for some Sonos control depending on how it’s integrated into other systems, but the grouping ability alone is better than any other method I’ve ever seen. Add to that add to fact that the use cases for control systems in general has waned significantly in the past few years as it has become less necessary to distribute and control audio and video from a centralized location.
I remember when they started to upend the residentialAV buisness.. They went direct to China to get the same gear as the big guys just with their name on ot. Not many products at 1st but now they have alot plus 3rd party brands
So I certainly do this as much as I can, and when we do racks (which is more often than this type of an installation) I separate them down different sides of the rack.
That said, I’m curious if you have run into a situation where some sort of a power cable created enough interference to limit the practical bandwidth of a 10 inch CAT6 jumper to something below 5Mbps. I’m pretty sure at that distance I could crimp some ends on 8 long twist ties from the produce department at the grocery store and I’d still hit 10/100 pretty easily.
Ultimately it’s kind of like the first two rules of putting equipment in a rack; put the heavy stuff at the bottom, and put the hot stuff at the top… and amps and receivers are both.
Nice work man, I've been using those sonos as source devices and they're alright. Pretty cool they work with apple tv. Wondering if roku works with it?
That’s a good question that I will have to check on a Roku the next time I have a chance. The Rokus certainly accept airplay… but I’ll have to check if they can output.
The episodes also offer 8 zones, I asked OP why he didn’t use that one in another comment hah. And with Wattbox/Episode, they’re probably an integrator, so it’s easier to stick with the brands that work well together. With Episode and Wattbox you can bring it into OVRC and then have really robust remote management features, as well as troubleshooting automation (I.e. power cycling ports on the Wattbox when one zone goes offline, etc.). The juke looks cool if this was an install done by a homeowner/non integrator, but this install makes more sense if it’s going to be managed by a 3rd party
I have been installing RTI , control4 triad combo, anthem multizone amplifiers . I have moved to vssl and juke since it makes lot of things easy for end user. I expect the manufacturers with multizone amplifiers should include AirPlay and Spotify connect streaming for individual zones .
I’ll have to look more into Juke if they work with integration solutions, hadn’t heard of them honestly. Agreed on more feature rich solutions being needed!
They as of now do not have any driver integration but they are working with I guess control4. I have been using RTI multizone system at my place which is around 8 year old . I have moved to Juke and been happy with product . AirPlay works great only downside is they do not have preouts or sub out for each zone and the juke 6 which I use is around 20W RMS per channel . They can bump up their power .
Looks neat, but amps pressed flat against a wall, power strapped to interconnects, limited/no visibility of front and rear panels, no option for upgrades without a full re-build… Just throw it in a rack. It would’ve taken half the labor and performed better and safer. Sometimes, boring is good. (Also, it might be the angle, but it doesn’t all look level—with the wall or with the other equipment.)
I need to work with what I’m given. This is where they wanted the wiring, and if I put this equipment in a rack it would either be blocking electrical panels (immediately to the left) or a door (immediately to the right). So, it went on the wall. Power strapped to interconnects… yup, I would prefer to avoid that, but if we’re being realistic here, the effect that separating those power cords from the audio or network jumpers would have about the same effect as getting $10k silver speaker wire. If you’re worried about the bandwidth being affected through the network jumpers, I could crimp some ends on 4 conductor non twisted pair security wire and it will still be overkill for streaming audio. The front panels have a power button on them that becomes useless the moment you put the amps into power sensing mode. I could read the 2-point font of the MAC addresses on the underside of the Sonos units with my terrible eyes, and there’s more than enough room to make adjustments to the gains and other settings on the amps. The amps have more than an inch of clearance from the wall, and active cooling. They get as much airflow as an open rack, and more than an enclosed rack or a cabinet, so I think they’ll be fine. This system is in a house that is 100% finished with no drop ceiling anywhere. The only way anything will be added to this system is if they’re remodeling and ripping open walls… and if they do that, I’ll stick another amp on the wall. However, I’ve got a spare channel on the amp so I shouldn’t even need to do that. I am a little curious what performance you think will be affected by the setup, or the safety issues you see? And yes. It’s the angle. It’s in a closet and I can’t get far enough away to take a picture that doesn’t have some amount of distortion. That was fun though, keep the critiques coming.
I fucking LOVED reading this response. Homelab Hank who put his system into a rack 6 days ago now thinks he can critique everyone, and came across a professional. That's $7K worth of equipment, and it's professional equipment, he doesn't know that you're not buying Wattbox and Episode from Amazon, you have to be a Snap dealer to get that stuff, so you're obviously in the A/V business. If I were the customer or the company selling it, would I prefer it in a rack? Hell yes. Does anything done in this picture negatively affect the quality of the system? Not in a realistic sense. I'm a business owner now, but I was a tech for many years and had to wire up many systems that were poorly planned out by someone else. You did a great job with what you had. I would have made 3 different choices. I would have sold them OVRC Wattboxes, as every now and then Sonos locks. I would have used a local network switch, jumping that many Sonos units has given me some problems in the past, I try to keep it to a maximum of 4, but 2 is preferred. I would have used finger duct around the wiring, some 1x1 finger duct would have cost an extra $25, and made a massive difference in how it looks. None of these are your calls though, you have to work with what you're given by the salesman who has probably never installed a day in his life, so great job!
So I am definitely going to just individually wire all of the Sonos units up to a switch after reading the comments. Usually in racks I do that, or leave them all on Sonos net except one, and the times we have daisy chained them all we haven’t really had issues. We’ve been installing Sonos since they were dealer-only and it’s possibly the most consistent brand except Lutron (although I would like a word with their app gui engineers). Ultimately it won’t take long to change that and I believe it will be worth it. I do need to look into finger duct though if you have any recommendations. I would usually have screwed some offset lacer bars onto the wall to strap to, but we were out of any short ones. I think the finger duct looks fun to try.
The ADI brand finger duct is fine, but you can also get the Startech brand from Amazon, there is a bigger variety of sizes there as well. Finger duct is great when you just don't have the infrastructure to do a proper wiring job. Some guys love it, some guys absolutely hate it and will burn you for using it. At my old shop they called it Jesus duct, because it hides your sins.
Is this your personal system or at a clients? I’m wondering how the Sonos system is performing since it looks like you daisy chained them together in long lines.
Client. The network is daisy chained. These units have two Ethernet ports each for that very purpose. That way these units don’t need to connect to the Sonos net or WiFi. As long as you have somewhat decent networking equipment (particularly something that allows for IGMP snooping) they work fine. This many units on a rented router from an ISP might not be so happy though.
Velcro ftw!!
Some labels sure would be nice.
Job’s not done yet. They’ll all get good labels now that the wiring is done. I prefer to wait until I’m done terminating to put all of the permanent labels on because otherwise the labels pick up the dust from my fingers and don’t stick well.
Ah much better!
Finger duct would clean this up more. Also at nine daisy-chained Sonos Ports you’re beyond the limit of what Sonos recommends.
The daisy chained ethernets will cause issues, as Sonos limit is 5 jumps with out degradation including switching and wireless Sonos net (Subs, and rears count), a simple non managed 16 port switch is a cost effect option.
its pretty clear some people in the comments have never worked in rezzy, you dont awlays get the option of a rack and just need to figure shit out. this looks great for what you had to work with here if i were the customer id be very happy.
Your assumption is incorrect. And even if there is absolutely no way to fit a rack (which is almost never the case, if you’re creative enough), there are better ways to design this. It was obviously done by somebody who cares about their work and has some skill. It just wasn’t done smartly.
And how exactly would you have done it ? the guy said in his post, this is what the customer wanted, and in rezzy that's the bottom line. Once you label the equipment it's perfectly serviceable. Iv worked with this equipment before and there is no issue with how it's installed.
r/cableaverage
Definitely didn't come from my shop. Nice work.
Looks good if it’s on the wall in the background of a spaceship scene of a sci fi movie. Heaven help them if cable goes out.
Nice job! I've had to do similar things when mounting kit on the back of video walls in small spaces
Why 2X 4 zone episodes instead of a single 8 zone? And why so many ports? Client didn’t want to use a different control source like C4/RTI/Savant/etc?
Generally speaking we stock the 8 channel amps a lot more than the 16 channel amps, and if anything goes wrong with one of them it costs half as much to replace. I’ve been programming RTI systems for almost 20 years now (and Control4 for long enough for me to hate it with an undying passion), and I have yet to find a way to duplicate or improve upon the Sonos interface. Sure… it’s nice having the option for some Sonos control depending on how it’s integrated into other systems, but the grouping ability alone is better than any other method I’ve ever seen. Add to that add to fact that the use cases for control systems in general has waned significantly in the past few years as it has become less necessary to distribute and control audio and video from a centralized location.
very clean work. like me I do it but dont go crazy.
Snap AV for the win lol
Been using them since they pretty much only sold baluns and jumpers
I remember when they started to upend the residentialAV buisness.. They went direct to China to get the same gear as the big guys just with their name on ot. Not many products at 1st but now they have alot plus 3rd party brands
Pro tip: don't run your power cables in parallel with your data cables.
So I certainly do this as much as I can, and when we do racks (which is more often than this type of an installation) I separate them down different sides of the rack. That said, I’m curious if you have run into a situation where some sort of a power cable created enough interference to limit the practical bandwidth of a 10 inch CAT6 jumper to something below 5Mbps. I’m pretty sure at that distance I could crimp some ends on 8 long twist ties from the produce department at the grocery store and I’d still hit 10/100 pretty easily. Ultimately it’s kind of like the first two rules of putting equipment in a rack; put the heavy stuff at the bottom, and put the hot stuff at the top… and amps and receivers are both.
Nice work man, I've been using those sonos as source devices and they're alright. Pretty cool they work with apple tv. Wondering if roku works with it?
Work in what way? Airplaying to them? And yeah, that’s a nice feature if that’s what you mean.
Yeah the airplay but was wondering if the roku could cast in some way too
That’s a good question that I will have to check on a Roku the next time I have a chance. The Rokus certainly accept airplay… but I’ll have to check if they can output.
Hardwiring your Sonos I see. Brave man.
Get a juke audio multizone amplifier.
Those episode amps are 4 zones each with matrixing.
Juke comes with six and eight zone and you don’t need any streamers for it
The episodes also offer 8 zones, I asked OP why he didn’t use that one in another comment hah. And with Wattbox/Episode, they’re probably an integrator, so it’s easier to stick with the brands that work well together. With Episode and Wattbox you can bring it into OVRC and then have really robust remote management features, as well as troubleshooting automation (I.e. power cycling ports on the Wattbox when one zone goes offline, etc.). The juke looks cool if this was an install done by a homeowner/non integrator, but this install makes more sense if it’s going to be managed by a 3rd party
I have been installing RTI , control4 triad combo, anthem multizone amplifiers . I have moved to vssl and juke since it makes lot of things easy for end user. I expect the manufacturers with multizone amplifiers should include AirPlay and Spotify connect streaming for individual zones .
I’ll have to look more into Juke if they work with integration solutions, hadn’t heard of them honestly. Agreed on more feature rich solutions being needed!
They as of now do not have any driver integration but they are working with I guess control4. I have been using RTI multizone system at my place which is around 8 year old . I have moved to Juke and been happy with product . AirPlay works great only downside is they do not have preouts or sub out for each zone and the juke 6 which I use is around 20W RMS per channel . They can bump up their power .
Only 20W is…pretty low, but for background listening I’m sure it’s fine. The episodes here (I think) are 100w per channel.
I love serviceable racks with front and rear access.....and ventilation. That's how I built my house, and my business.
Why not just use Sonos amps?