Home Automation Question

[ctribble]

I am getting ready to build a house and I have a few questions!
I want to have a 6.1 Surround Sound in my great room. Deck speakers hooked up to a volume control, bedroom #2 speakers hooked up to a volume control, dining room speakers hooked up to a volume control, and my master bath and walk-in closet hooked up to a volume control. All the volume controls will be ran to a speaker selector in which I want to have on all the time so all you have to do is turn up the volume control to hear music. I have a Denon 3805 receiver with multiple zones that I can hook up the speaker selector to, but I want to leave it on all the time and I am affraid my receiver will over heat. Should I hook up my Speakers to Zone 2 on the Denon and turn it off all the time when I am not using it, or should I buy a cheap radio/cd player and hook up the speaker selector to that seperately? Also, what speaker selector should I buy, and why? I will have a total of 4 sets of speakers hooked up to the speaker selector. Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated!!
C.T.

 

[BMXTRIX]

How serious are you about audio and distributed audio in your home? How serious do you WANT to be?

There is a nice read about pre-wiring a home during construction that you should really take a look at and you should put some serious consideration into all the areas where you might want access to distributed audio and some decent in-ceiling speakers... or maybe some really cheap in-ceiling speakers (eBay anyone?).

PREWIRE, PREWIRE, PREWIRE!

I would suggest you take a good long look at CAT-5. You can get volume controls with IR receivers in them that are hooked up via cat-5. This way, you can have several universal remotes that you can use in different areas of your home that can turn on/off the zone 2 of the receiver (definitely use zone 2!!!) as well as control the components you want to use, like FM radio, cd player, or cable/dss music.

The cat-5 also is there should you decide to upgrade to a more serious distributed audio system like something from Sonance that allows each zone to be completely separate and independent. You can listen to something you like in the study, while your wife listens to something she likes in the bathroom. No conflicts.

www.sonance.com has some product & info you can read.

Similar distributed systems can be found at www.smarthome.com and at least one person on these forums has installed a NuVo system: http://www.smarthome.com/NUVO.HTML

I'm using Crestron (www.crestron.com) in my home with about 14 separate zones, controlled locally from each room.

I would NOT use the amplifier inside your 3805, but would at the very least look on eBay for a good amp from the likes of Sonance (like the 2120, or 260 amp) as their amps are really bulletproof in quality. Niles also has a very good reputation with bulletproof amps.

If you do get a speaker selector (pretty much required) then get one that is impedence matching, which you can find from Sonance, and these can be had new and used from eBay very inexpensively. Good deals!

As I started with, and will end with: PREWIRE, PREWIRE, PREWIRE! You have a gold mine opportunity to put some conduit and lots of networking and audio/video wiring in place. It may end up costing 2-3 thousand dollars to get your home wired, but then you will have the wires and access and most of all, peace of mind that it is there, so any future ideas are realistic possibilities for you to achieve.

 

[JohnA]

As BMX has said, "PREWIRE, PREWIRE, PREWIRE" and then PREWIRE, PREWIRE, PREWIRE some more. There are a lot of cat5 audio systems out there (AKA: ABus). Channel Vision www.channelvision.com has some ABus and other distributed audio and video. NuVo www.nuvotechnologies.com is a great system, very simple to use and set up; it will set you back a few grand depending on what system you get. There are also some simple audio distribution systems from Open House www.openhousesystems.com, Wired Home www.wiredhome.com, and others. If you are short on cash, a simple distribution hub like this:

http://wiredhome.com/audio.html

will work fine, all you need to do is add IMPEDANCE MATCHING volume controls, and you're done. However, you are limited to one source input, but if you are using the zone 2 from the receiver it won't be an issue. I'm in the process of wiring my home and setting up for whole house audio as well, because my home is small (1000 sq ft.) I don't need all the bells and whistles from a system like NuVo, so I'm going to go with an ABus system.

When all is said and done, only you will know what you have, what you need, and what you want!

We can never say it enough: "PREWIRE, PREWIRE, PREWIRE"

Good Luck