Opinions on wall jacks vs. straight hook ups

[Blu-Benny]

I'm looking to see what people think of using wall jacks/plates vs. hooking everything up from source to source???

I've seen some HT galleries that have utilized wall plates and ran all wiring within the walls, the obvious advantage....fewer wires exposed.

Do you loose any quality in picture or sound when you do this?? I've contemplated doing this for speaker wire but didn't know how it would work, or if it's even an option for HDMI or anything else.

I'm looking to start framing my HT by the end of the year so I'm in the planning stages right now.

Any help/advice/info would be appreciated, or a link to another thread if this has been discussed already...

[Steve]

I have a couple of wall plates in my system. I think as long as you make a good connection between the wire and plate, and make sure the connections are good and tight, you're not going to lose any sound quality.

[Johk]

You should take a look at this article in Audioholics Home Theater Prewire Basics. This should give you good information on in wall wiring and planning.

As for audio/video quality, purists will probably say that short direct runs are better than longer runs with termination points. But I think that the losses are not significant if you are using proper wire gauge and good solid connections. I'm using termination plates with binding posts and wires with banana plugs (check my gallery) and everything is working (and looking) great. You could also use pass through plates to remove the additional connections.

All in all, I think that it's definetely worth it to pass all the wires in the walls (for me I wouldn't go any other way!).

[DavidAg02]

Wall plates work fine and really help clean things up.

Coming from someone who has recently gone from using direct connects to in-wall runs with wall plates, I can honestly say that if done correctly there should be no noticeable loss in audio/video quality.

[Blu-Benny]

Originally Posted by DavidAg02

Wall plates work fine and really help clean things up.

Coming from someone who has recently gone from using direct connects to in-wall runs with wall plates, I can honestly say that if done correctly there should be no noticeable loss in audio/video quality.

where can you get the plates for things like HDMI?? monocables or do places like menards/home depot carry them???

on the inside of the wall, is it just a simple connection or something special???

[Cisco in HD]

I've seen plenty on monoprice's site. I'm sure others have more sites to share.

[Y3k Bug]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

where can you get the plates for things like HDMI??

Here's a one HDMI wall plate/plug from Monoprice:

HDMI Wall Plate

They also have dual plug ones. I'm definitely getting some of these eventually. I just need to figure out why I need them.

[DavidAg02]

Monoprice is a good source for HDMI wall plates. Another site that I have used, and been very happy with is www.firefold.com

[rthune101]

Menards carries OnQ - Legrand, they have some sweet wall plates and snap in modules. I did a HDMI wall plate that had 2 open slots to fill under it, did one cat5e and one coax. Also did their banana clip wall plates for all my speakers, easy and pretty clean.

http://www.onqlegrand.com/products/n...00000005d0yAAA

[guitarist155]

why not do both? if you ran the wires in wall you could use bulk plates or plates without jacks and have the excess hanging out to connect to the devices. that way it's in wall but still only one connection point. also I would really recommend installing conduit as opposed to just running wire in wall. then you can pull through what you want when you want, and replace things if they go bad.

like this http://www.amazon.com/Vanco-Dual-Gan...4231100&sr=8-1

they also have single gang http://www.21stcenturyent.com/catalo...ll%20plate.jpg. if you didn't want that big an opening for speaker wire you could just drill a small hole in a blank wall plate or get a coax plate without the connector. like this http://www.fourpair.com/ccp51/media/...l/102060WH.jpg

[AlabamaBoy]

I agree with guitarist. I installed bulk plates, scales better for inevitable future changes.

[Deadset]

For the projector HDMI cable I ran, I used the feed through plate, so I could just connect directly to the device. I just thought it was easier to do it this way at the time. I had enough slack in the cable as well, so instead of coiling it up in the wall and buying wall connections, I just got a feed through plate from monoprice.

For my speaker connections, I did terminals and I picked those up at the local supply store, I did a 12 port, several 6 port and a few 2 and 4 port for cable, phone, net and speakers.

If you don't make the decision now, when you run the wires in the walls, just leave enough slack so you can directly connect to the device if desired.

My personal advice is to terminate them at the wall plate, esp for speakers and network. HDMI.....for me it wasn't a big deal, so opted for a feed through.

Good luck!

[swilliams]

I tried both connections .there is no difference in sound pic quility. wall jack just looks good. i bought mine from part express and home depot they on sale(close out)

[sandman6662]

I ran straight to connections, used wall plates with holes in them so it looks good with wire's coming out of the wall, In my feelings I save more mony too, don't have to spend mony on wall plates with hook ups plus more conectors, just my 2 cents.

[xneox]

I use pass-thru plates & drilled holes in the floor to run various cables to other parts of the room. I avoid adding extra termination points & cables for the possibility of better signal transfer & to follow the KISS rule. Even if there is no difference in quality (arguable), there's SO MUCH less to go wrong when you're dealing with ONE cable.

But that's just me.

[dvdwatcher]

I was thinking about using wall plates at the head end and direct connect for the surrounds, mostly because they will be mounted directly to the wall no mounts. Then wall plates for the two fronts.

[DougMac]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

I'm looking to start framing my HT by the end of the year so I'm in the planning stages right now.

Be sure to run conduit to the wall plates. My HT is on the inside of a daylight basement, so all wiring drops from the ceiling down the wall. I used conduit for all drops. I wired for 7.2, with bi-wire and double binding post plates for L/C/R in case I ever go that way. There's over 250 feet of monoprice 12awg inwall speaker wire in the installation.

I put two subwoofer jacks up front, although I'm using only one sub right now. If I were you, I'd consider doing at least four sub drops. Even if you start with or stay with one sub, you'll have placement flexibility. You don't need to wire all the drops, you can do that as needed.

One thing I did that has really worked out great was mounting an equipment rack in the wall. There's a storage room adjacent to the HT. I built a platform in the storage room, made an opening in the wall, then placed a 36" rack through the wall. It has a smoked glass door that can be closed to isolate the fan noise. The remotes have no problem with the door. Hookup and swapping out equipment is a breeze. I also installed wall plates next to one side of the equipment rack. I terminate to the back of the plates, then have short runs to the equipment.