If you were (or are) building a house today, would you run COAX or speaker wire?

No coax and maybe 1 phone line so if you decide you want a home phone you have it there and the rest would be cat six

10 gbps capable cat for wireless mesh backhaul. Catxx for Poe cameras. I’d also build in areas for said access points and small things like DVR or SmartThings hub.
Sonos is a great idea but the app is awful. No point even giving opinion on audio because everyone likes something different.
Coax only from service area to IT area. MoCA(from fiber) may disappear soon due to 5+ Gbps being pretty standard but maybe fiber service gets sold to trash company and you need to go back to coax for awhile. It happened to half of DFW several years ago.

We ran coax and cat 6 and I would do it again. Coax is cheap to run. You have local channels if internet goes down. We honestly use it frequently. They are all linked to a splitter on an attic mount antenna. It also carries great picture quality for sports on local channels.

Just to add. It looks like cat7 may or may not be better than cat8 for runs over 150ft, kinda like cat5e outperformed cat6 for long 1gbps runs. Either should be fine for 15-20 years but I’d go cat8 for any run under that length which should be all of them for a house under 10k sqft. Cat6 is already outdated for latest home fiber and wifi7 as it can just barely keep up even over short distances.

Yes to both, but I'd pair the coax with Cat6 everywhere. Plenty of people have satellite. It is cheap enough to run so might as well just do it. After my house was built, the internet provider dragged their feet so long that I ended up getting satellite. I definitely could never have foreseen that.

I ran speaker wire before my sheetrock went in and am very thankful I did. I have surround sound in the living room and an additional zone on the back patio. I didn't have to worry about where outlets where to plug in wireless speakers which allowed me to put the speakers exactly where I wanted.

My 2nd biggest regret in building my house (behind not putting in a propane tank and running gas lines) was not running conduit in the wall from my attic to my entertainment center. At this point I have filled up the small holes I drilled so much that it is a PITA to run anything else. I'd love the freedom to run Cat6 everywhere like I want.

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We ran coax and cat 6 and I would do it again. Coax is cheap to run. You have local channels if internet goes down. We honestly use it frequently. They are all linked to a splitter on an attic mount antenna. It also carries great picture quality for sports on local channels

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Did the same thing because we use locals all the time especially outside when the games are on locally. The picture quality is awesome as well.

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They are all linked to a splitter on an attic mount antenna. It also carries great picture quality for sports on local channels



Did the same thing because we use locals all the time especially outside when the games are on locally. The picture quality is awesome as well.

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you know you can just run a coax line from the antenna to a cheap HD-homerun tuner box (they sell 2 and 4 tuner versions) and then ethernet from that to your router and you can watch local TV on virtually any Roku, phone, etc. you own wirelessly right?

there's zero reason to fish coax into individual rooms. not only is the hd-homerun a WAY better ATSC tuner than the random 'get what you get' with various HDTV sets, but being able to manage multiple tuners makes it "THE" device to have...and bonus if you happen to run a plex server, it will simply recognize there's an HD-homerun and pull full program guides and you can do full DVR recordings, not to mention being able to watch all your local TV channels in China, if you happen to be away.

tl;dr if you're going to run an antenna for locals, you're insane not to also pick up a HD-homerun box at the same time.

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maybe 1 phone line

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Cat 5 is just four pairs of “phone” wire. You also realize that AT&T is scheduled to eliminate POTS lines in the US by 2029, and anyone you manage to get service from will be far more expensive than you expect, right?

this is the way

None.

WiFi has gotten really good.