Have you ruled out a wireless security system? It's something worth considering. You could easily install it yourself after the house is complete, and save yourself a nice chunk of money. Our current house was pre-wired by the previous owner. After we bought it, we "upgraded" the system to wireless by ourselves. It's not any less secure than the wired system we had in our previous house. Both of the wired and wireless systems we've had use 3G (vs. land line). Here is a link that might be useful: Wireless Home Surveillance Systems Review This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Wed, May 7, 14 at 11:36

I looked into control 4 for my house, because I liked the idea of the system and that they purport it's cheaper than some of the other integrated system. For me, it didn't work that way, and my quote was around 30k for the stuff I wanted. Another thing I really didn't like about control4 was that you needed a service call from a reseller technician every time you want to change something about the system. I ended up going with a Legrand Unity system which does very similar stuff, albeit the touchscreen remote stuff isn't as cool, but I still have an LCD screen that integrates cameras, thermostat, intercom, and whole house audio. Speaker wise, I would say 2 speakers is what I would do for that size room, but speakers don't have to be expensive. I bought a variety of types, and settled on Polk 620RT, which look and sound very nice. That being said I bought some cheap Micca speakers off amazon and I think they sound really good; excellent for the price. I'm very happy with my Netgear Nighthawk AC router for $200 (or less on sale). Have them run one of those many cat 6's to two distributed places in the house and you'll be good. If you have to go w/more than 1 router and want it more integrated, I'd suggest Ubiquiti UniFi AC Enterprise WiFi System (on amazon). Cheaper than Luxul and I've heard very good things. -adam

You'll need to get power to the cameras and also be concerned about whether it will be convenient to place the receiver where it will pick up a good signal from all cameras. Why not go with a hard wired system while you're still in construction. JM$.02W

7.1 was interesting when Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio came out as they were the first seemingly lossless audio codecs that came out for movies. Practically speaking only about 3-5% of a typical movie soundtrack uses these surround back speakers as they are called so you won't miss much if you don't put them in. Those were back in the days before video streaming really took off. Once it did, high end multi-channel audio has taken a back seat to the convenience of downloading video ever since. 5.1 surround sound is all we put in the majority of spec homes we wire up, and honestly it is more than enough for most folks. There are new audio Codecs out there like Dolby Atmos, DTS X and Aura 3D that are most commonly found on 4k discs. They add a few more height and/or overhead channels to the surround sound experience, immersing you in sound. If you did want to be completely current on your home theater setup and use it all the time, these new codecs would be worth exploring. Otherwise stick with 5.1. It's a good idea to wire back your audio, surveillance, structure wire, network wire and whatever other low voltage wiring you have in your home to one central location regardless of the system you ultimately chose to hook up. That gives you the ability to repurpose wiring as your needs change. Beware of ABUS audio systems-- they are tempting as they are cheaper than traditional audio systems. However the speaker wire is run to and powered by the keypad instead of an amplifier so once you install one, you can only go with other ABUS systems in the future. That will severely limit your equipment choices. Don't spend much on speakers for distributed audio zones (a.k.a. , zones where you are listening to music while doing something else) as you will be distracted when you are listening most of the time. Additionally, unless you are the type of person that will sit down and absorb an entire album of high-res multi-channel audio, you won't notice the difference. On the cameras you do have to define what you mean by "better." For example, both analog and HD cameras have 1080p offerings for an HD picture-- is that what you mean? For all locations between equipment location and TV location, run conduit for Low voltage cabling-- 1"-1.5" in size. AV cable types and standards do change so running the conduit will allow you to easily fish in new cables when they are needed. It is tough to bury a cable bundle between equipment and TV that will last awhile. 16AWG is fine for most contractor grade distro audio speakers unless you have a huge house. I would run 14AWG just for the theater as it will give you more options for speakers when it comes time to install them. Given this, running a bigger gauge wire is not going to hurt anything and will likely marginally improve performance. The main downside is that it costs more. However, a $600 increase based on what you described is excessive-- the labor is the same to install either. Also I would also spend a bit more on your home theater speakers than you do on your distro audio speakers if you are into the surround sound thing. If not then +1 on the Sonos Playbar and Wireless sub. Sounds great, easy to setup and easy to control.