Home Speaker System Patch Board

[sddt]

I was wondering if anybody could recommend a decent patch board for connecting up to 20 zones (stereo - about 40 speakers total)

 

[bpape]

What are you going to run these with? How many channels of amp? How many speakers will be running at the same time?

Bryan

 

[sddt]

Potentially all will be running at the same time. Each zone will have a wall switch that will enable toggling between "global audio" and local audio. To pull this off I will have a separate amp for each zone (maybe one amp for every 2-3 zones depending on the amp's capability) that is run to the patch board. From there the power will be dispersed to speakers for global playback. Each room will also have a source feed routed to each respective amp to allow for "local playback". So, each amp will be always supplying power to their respective speakers but the wall switch in each zone will toggle from the "global sound source" to their "local source (most likely HTPC)".

Does this sound like it could work?

 

[sddt]

Any takers??

 

[bpape]

Anything can be done given enough time and money. Sounds like a disaster to me quite honestly. I think you'd be MUCH better off to put the amp for each room IN the room and just switch sources around

Usually when you do something like this it's a high impedance type setup but if you want quality (and I assume if you're doing HTPC as sources) then that isn't likely going to work.

Bryan

 

[sddt]

What exactly isn't going to work? Thanks for the input...

 

[bpape]

Most multi-room high impedance setups like that are hardly of high quality. They're background at best. As I said, as long as you're having dedicated amp channels anyway, I'd just switch sources to each room instead of trying to switch speaker level.

Bryan

 

[sddt]

I guess I'm just not understanding what you mean by swtching speaker level. Is high impedance bad? I always thought 8ohm was stanard for home audio and 2-8ohm for car audio...

 

[sddt]

Do you know of some sort of patch board that I could use as a hub to connect wiring for speakers?

 

[bpape]

What I'm trying to tell you is that you're trying to get a speaker switch, I'm saying don't do that, get a source switch so you can feed the output of any source to it's proper amplifier and that amplifier has dedicated speaker leads to one and only one set of speakers.

By high impedance I'm talking upwards of 100 ohms. This is the kind of system they use for sound in department stores, etc. It's designed to drive a bunch of speakers from a single source like you want - but it's not good sounding - just background.

Bryan

 

[sddt]

I think I may be a bit confusing...lol

I will have an amp for each room, and the switch in the room will be for source input to amp. Hope that clears it up.

So, in regards to my original question, does some type of patchboard for sound exist to keep all of my wiring nice/neat/easily modifiable?

 

[bandphan]

Niles aiudio makes(as well as others) several types of switchers, some of which have amplification, including voltage, and line-source. Daisy chaining(master-slaves) can be done to achieve this. Crestron makes units as well but can be$$$$$$$$$$.




ht
57 mitsu diamond 1080p,pioneer 82tsx, mac mc2255, fostex d-5, yama dvds2500, ml mosaics lr, BA micro 100x c-sr, velo hgsx10, ml abyss,ps3, mit interconnects

br
sharp 37 1080p lcd,yama 995, tosh hd2 dvd,sony d10 pro, BW 601 s3, monster m1000

 

[sddt]

What do you mean by master-slaves?

 

[adk highlander]

I also feel there may be some issues with the way you have described your planned system.

First most multi-room systems that have source control in each zone will be sending control signals (can be IR or code like crestron or AMX) from a key pad to a control device (could be a receiver with multiple zones or true multizone receiver like this Niles http://www.nilesaudio.com/product.php?prodID=ZR-8630AV&recordID=Multizone Receiver&categoryID=Multizone Products&catcdID=2&prdcdID=FG00934).

Now with these you plug all of your souces (DVD, CD, tape, HTPC, XM, etc.) into you multizone control receiver. These will all be analog connections as I am yet not familiar with any that will do digital switching or HD. This is a general statement to my knowledge and I am sure it is possible to find or create multizone HDMI with a switch and things like rapid run from impact acoustics.

Each keypad can control the volume to that room and the source it is using and can use the same source as the other rooms or a different one.

What is your budget for this? I have to type this quick as I need to get the kid ready for bed so if you want me to explain in more detail please let me know.

 

[bandphan]

What do you mean by master-slaves?

http://nilesaudio.com/images/PDF/ZR-4630-manual.pdf

manual for example

 

[sddt]

Thanks for the info adk!

Ok, let me try to lay this down again so I can understand it.

I'll start by describing each zone and see how it goes. Each zone will host its own HTPC for local playback abilities (DVD, streaming video/music via media server, etc..). Each sone has a volume control on the wall connected to in-ceiling speakers. Each zone's HTPC will have an audio out running to a central closet which will host all amps, media server, networking, etc. The amp for each zone will be connected to the speaker leads which are also running to this central closet.

Since I am bad with wording this here is my theoretical schematic for this application. How to implement it in the real world is a completely different beast!

 

[sddt]

http://nilesaudio.com/images/PDF/ZR-4630-manual.pdf

manual for example

That was the most informative material I have seen on this thus far, Thanks man! I think you are right, I am going to need to split that global source with one of those distribution amplifiers so I can run it to the amps...good call!

I guess another option is to go with the keypads and a couple of the Niles 6-zone amps but that seems like it could get costly... Thanks for all you input fellas!!!

 

[bandphan]

That was the most informative material I have seen on this thus far, Thanks man! I think you are right, I am going to need to split that global source with one of those distribution amplifiers so I can run it to the amps...good call!

I guess another option is to go with the keypads and a couple of the Niles 6-zone amps but that seems like it could get costly... Thanks for all you input fellas!!!

your welcome, there are several companies that have the equipment depending on your needs, including more from niles audio. I like to use cat5e for distribution(hd,ir, dig audio, ect) for ease of pull.(i run 4 pairs to each zone for any future needs(with speaker) cause its cheap!) Good Luck

ht
57 mitsu diamond 1080p,pioneer 82tsx, mac mc2255, fostex d-5, yama dvds2500, ml mosaics lr, BA micro 100x c-sr, velo hgsx10, ml abyss,ps3, mit interconnects

br
sharp 37 1080p lcd,yama 995, tosh hd2 dvd,sony d10 pro, BW 601 s3, monster m1000