A-BUS help..

[beam3]

Hi fellas, I'm trying to understand the functionality of A-BUS systems. I realize that it's a system where your audio gets plugged into and then distributed from there. So all this does is enable you to control the volume and the on/off status of each room? So would I need a 2 channel receiver I'm assumming?

Another thing I don't understand is that 1 hub gives 3 volume controls which totals 6 speakers.....how the the wattage distributed from the receiver? If I have a 600W receiver will each speaker get 100W?

I'm thinking of getting HK's 3480 for this. In total it would be used for 10 speakers. Would this be sufficient?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm new to this.

 

[Snap]

ABus is a distributed Audio system that gives you more control than other systems. If you wire it rght, you can have control of each room seperatly. Volume CD radio etc.

This is something that you typically have your local Custom AV shop do.

Also this is something that you do not want to try and retro fit. So New Construction would be the best for this project.

The ABus system uses ABus amps. So what ever you get for AV it does not matter. Let me see if I can get my wire diagrams to scan and then I will post them for you on this system. It is kind of hard to describe with out my diagrams.

 

[Snap]

Phase Tech and ABus

Here is the link to Phase Techs ABus. You save a lot of money getting the Phase Tech Abus system. The volume controls are amplified. I hope that this explains how the system works better. Post again if you need some clarification on this issue.

http://www.phasetech.com/Phase PT A-BUS literature.pdf

Blessed,
Snap

PS: There is LOTS of options on doing distributed audio. It totally depends on your needs! What is your bottom line? If you just are wanting some music in different rooms, then there are cheaper ways to do it. 2 in ceiling speakers with volume controls will run you 300 bucks installed at most custom AV stores. Xantech 4x4 audio system is super sweet! I have used that system several times and it is awesome! 4 zones and 4 sources. Key Pad on the wall, plus remote for the key pad. Pretty nice. around 1200 for that whole system. Need speakers though.

Good luck

 

[beam3]

Thanks SNAP. Sorry I didn't clarify myself in the earlier post, I'm not retrofitting this...my folks bought a new house and I found out 2 days ago it was A-BUS wired for 3 rooms. From what my parents told me, the house was just going to be "prewired". I'm unsure of what brand system is going in.

The confusion came into play when my mother told me she wants 2 speakers in each of the following rms: MBR, kitchen, dining, fr porch, r porch, and 5 in the great room for ht. Now the audio package that came with the house only allows for 1 hub...meaning 3 volume controls. The great rm speakers are not on the a-bus, it's independent of that system. So, from my reasoning (parents don't want to spend anymore additional $ on this) I told the builder to use the volume controls for the inside rms and leave the porches with none. I'll install a speaker selector box in the closet where the reack is so they can turn them off if needed.

So I'm the one in charge of selecting and installing A/V equipment. (I told them not to spring $1800 for the speakers the builder was going to install, I could get much better ones for the $)

One thing I still don't fully get, whatever receiver I get will be fine since the volume controls have their own amp?

ps. They are closing in 3 weeks so I'm just trying to get a frim grasp on how this works before I go put speakers in.

Thanks again.

 

[Snap]

no volume control on the porch is a BAD idea. Not sure how this place is wired but speaker selector is not needed. Give me a day and I will post you a good idea how to do this.

 

[Snap]

Ok Here you go

OK....
If it is wired for ABus go ahead and use the Abus System. It will serve you well. For the outdoor speakers see where the speaker wires are ran to? I hope that they are ran to the same place that the AV receiver is. If so hook the out door speakers to zone 2 on your receiver. Hook the Abus to Zone 3. Are you tracking with me????

See if you can tie in a volume control in line with the outdoor speakers. So it will be speaker wire from AV zone 2 to VC, and speaker wire from VC to speakers outside. That will give you the most flexability. You will need to get a AV receiver that has 3 zones. 1 for the 5.1 in the den, 1 for the deck, and 1 for the abus. DO NOT forget that! Otherwise it will not work. Go with the Yammy 1500. It is on sale right now, and chances are the house was pre-wired for component video any ways, and not HDMI. (I pre-wire for component unless the Home Owner asked for HDMI) So do not let every one push you toward something that you do not need. Niles weather proof volume controls are smooth and are very reliable. Get one of those.

hmmmm Let me know if you are tracking with that.

PS: See what kind of speakers that they contractor was going to put into the house. They might be well worth having him install them.

PPS: If the AV guys that did the house are smart. you are going to have a hard time hooking this up. The AV comany that has the contract for that builder wires the house to increase the value of the home, as well as provide more selling points from other builders. The AV company will hide the wires, not lable the wires, any thing that they can to force the home owner to make the call to have it installed. Otherwise they do not make that much money. They just get what ever the contracter paid them to do the pre-wire. if 1800 includes speakers and hooking everything up, you should seriously think about having them do it. 9 out of 10 GOOD pre-wire jobs like you are talking about the HO ends up getting frusterated and calls the AV guys any ways.

 

[beam3]

Snap, I apprecaite the replies.

I understand what your saying about a 3 zone receiver and about the prewiring for the a-bus. Since my mother didn't know what she was doing the den speakers are wired right behind where the armoire is going to go. The rest if the speakers in the house are wired to a closet next to the kitchen. Now I only need a 2 zone receiver for the a-bus system since I'm getting a seperate A/V receiver for ht in the den (since the wire terminations are in a diff location). I'm thinking of HK's 635 for the den since I get it through work for about 600.

So the receiver in the closet will control both porches, the dining rm, kitchen and mbr. I am 99.9% sure the builder said all the speaker locations are wired to a volume control in the wall first, before going to the speaker. Now I only need a 2 zone for this correct?

Ok, now for the speaker installs. The builder said the wires are stapled to a rafter above each room, so I don't think I will have too much trouble doing this. The main reason why I wanted to do it myself is that they were going to put the speakers in the den in each corner...which doesnt make sense for ht. Get my concern?

I'm really not a newbie persay, I have experience wiring ht's, etc. I'm an EE. The other problem is that their house is out of state, so I haven't made a trip down there yet.

I was thinking about getting speakers that have pivotable tweeters for the den, do you think that will make a differnece compared to speaker wo that. The ceilings are 11 or 12ft high. BTW, what state are you in?

 

[Snap]

eastern NC

Axial tweeters are the way to go for sure. Unless you are the dude that installed the ruff in kits and have placed them right were you want to go in the first place. oh....got to go the baby is crying...

 

[Snap]

actally you do not need a 2 zone receiver if the set up is like you say. You need a 5.1 or higher for the den, and another receiver for the disrbuted audio. Sounds like the AV guys did a good job, pretty smart how they wired it. I am suprised that they left the wires were you can find them. That is very rare for good av companies. I would not leave my wires were you could find them that is for sure!

Were is your folks place??

 

[MDS]

I am suprised that they left the wires were you can find them. That is very rare for good av companies. I would not leave my wires were you could find them that is for sure!

If what you say is true, I would not hire you or any company with the same mentality. Is it your system or the home owner's?

Like all the houses in my neighborhood, my house is pre-wired with a central network connection center. Nothing is labelled. There are 16/4 wires in the living room that are not connected to anything and definitely don't go to the network connection center. There are two coax in the master bedroom, but no cat5. There are 8 cat5 cables in the network connection center, but only 6 jacks in the house (2 of which are terminated with RJ11 instead of RJ45). One jack that is terminated with RJ45 does not work. It's a mess!

From what I gather from your post, you consider that 'good practice' because now the homeowner has to rely on you to make changes or troubleshoot problems and of course HOPE that you kept records of what is what because it isn't labelled in the house.

Well guess what? I called the company to come out and trace the wiring and talk about options for reconfiguring it to meet my needs. They sent me a guy that basically said, "Uh, I don't know how it works". He recommended another guy from a different company. That guy didn't show up nor return the call to him I placed an hour after he was supposed to be here. Then he had the nerve to call me two weeks later and say "I have a piece of paper here that says 'Sterling - Wed 10:30' but I don't know which Wednesday'.

Fortunately I am capable of tracing the wiring and re-terminating all of the jacks myself. I had hoped to pay a small fee and avoid the hassle but that didn't work out. If you want something done RIGHT, you have to do it YOURSELF.

Good luck, because your philosophy sounds the same as the people I was dealing with, and if word gets out your business will go downhill in no time.

 

[Snap]

MDS,
Sounds like you had a run in with a bad AV company. Please do not judge every AV Company, and my business practices based on your experiences. I joined this and several other forums to have fun with HT. I get nothing but the satisfaction of learning and some times helping people in this great hobby. To my knowledge I have not passed ANY bad info, or slammed any one. Please repay the same to me. Having said that I will say the following....

Fact of the matter it is the Contractors home till closing. So the contractor makes a deal with the AV company to prewire a house. It would be bad for business to leave everything in open and in plain site for any one to wire. You do the pre-wire in hopes that it leads to an install. That is what happened in your subdivision; the contractors had a deal with some AV companies to do structured wiring and HT prewires. It just sounds like to me you got the rookie HT guy.

From what you say it actually sounds like the pre-wire was done right. Hear me out.

If you are the AV guy, you prewire. No one buys the house till after it is built. Or at least after all the wires are terminated for the CO inspection. Keep in mind this a hypothetical idea that may not be totally right but I think it will be close to what happened in your house.

So the AV guys have no customer.....just a house. They probably have deal to terminate the bare minimum. Just enough to get by and get the C.O. That would be why you only have 6 of the 8 jacks terminated. The other 2 are in the walls behind the sheet rock. As for the RJ11 instead of 45. That is simple as well. They just terminated that way for phone only. Also....you said there are 8 wires, 6 spots in the house. 2 are RJ11 and 1 is RJ45 what are the other 3 terminated with????

(I am assuming there is a structured wiring box?) If so pop off one the phone lines in your house, and use a tone generator to find what Cat5e wire it is. Just to see if you have structured wire, or if the phones were daisy chained.

If they are structured wired then you can convert the phone line to network. Install your network hub and press.

As for the speaker wire it was (99% Chance) it was left in the walls so that the home would not have wires sticking out in case the home owner did not want a HT.

Post some pix of your wire box, and the other stuff it can clear a lot of stuff up.

The final thing I have to say about pre-wire and hiding stuff is this......I know it is hard to believe, but there are a lot of people out there that do not want surround sound. So if the Contractor did not make the AV company hide the wires he would have to come back and do lots of touch up and painting to make it smooth again.

As far as doing it yourself....well that depends on who you are and who is around you. I do all of my business by word of mouth. No retail store. No big inventory, just custom home and pro installs. So if I screw something up like your guys did, my business like you said would fail. In my opinion a good AV company would know were EVERY wire is in the house. And terminating stuff that is already there is easy. Basically it is just labor. No ordering parts, just labor.

I do the following....

Take pictures of every wire. Also I get a copy of the plans and write the locations as of the wires. Plus label the pictures and mark the plans so that I have a picture to go with the plans. Put it into a folder with the address and all other info on the house, and hope the home owner who finally does buy it gives me a call like you did to your guys.

The fact of the matter is owning an AV business is not like selling food, or anything else that we really need. It is a luxury. It is something "Nice" to have. It is something to make our lives better. If you want to be good at this business, you can not make mistakes, and you do not need to push something that the customer does not need either. My dad always told me that "Excellence stands out in every thing" I may never be rich at doing this sort of work. But every customer I have ever had has been thrilled. Has it cost me money sure. But there is just something cool when you thrown that switch and the system works! Something cool when you see the owner thrilled at what you have added to there home.

I wonder who did your pre-wire? Very odd? Very strange that they did what seems like a good pre-wire, and then could not finish the job. very weird indeed?????

But please do not lump me into the same category as the guys who came out to your house. That is just not fair.

Oh side note.....if I did do a pre-wire and put everything in view, and labeled it. I would go out of business. God knows I do not make enough to pay the bills on what the contractors pay me for the pre-wire that is for sure.

I hope that this helps some.

Blessed,
Jim

 

[beam3]

Hey Snap, I hear you with regards to your 2 previous posts and maybe MDS took it to heart sicne his A/V experience wasn't the most plesant. I'm sure everyone is hoping to make additional money on each job, but since my rents are retiring they want to put as little $ out as possible. They still have to find a job for healthcare. So that's where I come in to save them a few grand.

They are moving to Hall Cty, in Ga. About 30-40mi NE of Atl.

 

[MDS]

Snap,
I wasn't comparing you to the guys that pre-wired this house. Obviously, I know nothing about the quality of your work. It's true that I am ranting because I am not happy with the fact that I have to now do things correctly when I was under the impression that everything was already done.

It's this idea that irks me: Oh side note.....if I did do a pre-wire and put everything in view, and labeled it. I would go out of business. God knows I do not make enough to pay the bills on what the contractors pay me for the pre-wire that is for sure. It's the third time you've said that so clearly you believe that approach is acceptable. I do not.

Just for background, the wiring closet is in the master bedroom closet. The wires themselves are not in plain view - they are behind the drywall. It is the Home Director system (they call it the 'Network Connection Center'). Other houses have OnQ, which is similar. Obviously all cabling and jacks are standard parts and the only thing that differs is the proprietary box that takes different patch panels for phone, network, cable and video distribution. It's no different from Leviton structured wiring or any other competitor except of course Leviton or other patch panels won't snap in easily to the network connection center.

The Home Director website has PDF documents, one of which is 'installer guidelines'. They clearly spell out that everything should be labeled and even have conventions like incoming phone/cable wires should be placed in one cutout and internal wiring in another. Not only did they not label ANYTHING, they couldn't even follow the simple convention of separating internal from external wiring. Other sloppy work annoys me as well; like putting in an rj11 jack for a phone in the kitchen but instead of simply twisting the 3 unused pairs of the cat5 around the sheath, they cut them off. They could have just put an rj45 which works perfectly well for phone like they did in EVERY OTHER ROOM.

It's enlightening to hear that the sloppy work I experienced is standard practice. I've already traced and labeled all the wiring, fixed the jack that doesn't work and reconfigured ithe connections so I have phone where I want it and network where I want it. So much for buying a house that is 'pre-wired'. Had I bought this house new (it's 3 years old) and inspected the wiring beforehand, I wouldn't sign the contract until it was fixed.

I'm not attacking you personally - just the idea that it is somehow ok to maintain secrecy by not labeling things and not following simple conventions. I don't agree that such an approach benefits one's livelihood. Quality work leads to repeat business. Ranger American will definitely NOT get repeat business from me.

 

[Snap]

Sorry to hear that MDS/Back to Beam3 questions:

Dude it s sounding more and more like you got a botched job. What kind of crap is that to cut the Cat5e? That is STUPID! What if you wanted a LAN conection there? That is freeking stupid! That is definatly not what the CEDIA books say to do that is for sure! Just dumb.

As far as lable is concerned I do not lable till finish work. Painters sheet rockers, they all make your wires look like crap. I did it one time and 1 time only. Labled every thing after I pulled it. When I came back 3 months later I could read 1 lable out of 30. So I still had to tone everything out.

The more you give details the more it sounds like an Electricain finished the terminations. Either that or a bad AV company. From what I have seen my friends in the business and I do my self is just use the Blue, and Blue/white wire for the phone and twist the wires back around the sleeve like you have said they should. Makes it easy to turn a phone line into a lan line in about 10 minutes.

From the first post with the limited details it did sound like standard practice. But the more you tell me it does not. Haveing the wires in the sheet rock for the rooms in the house. Fine....not having the wires going into the structured wire box????? WTH That is not anything that I have ever seen done. That is also stupid.

Not seperating the wire groups. Also stupid.

I do agree that quailty work leads to repeat business. It does so by word of mouth. I could not agree more.

Beam3Sorry to get off topic Beam. You might have a small problem. If the system is the ABus that I am thinking about and posted the PDF link to the connections go like this.

Components to Receiver via RCA.
Receiver to ABus Hub via RCA.

From the hub to the volume contro via CAT5E!

From the Amplified volume control to speakers via 16/2 (or some other type of speaker wire. 16/2 is my guess.)

Stupid computer.....was trying to pull up the installation guide on my laptop to confirm this....... I will get back to you on this.

Yes it is cat5 from the hub to the VC.

So If I remeber your set up right, you have 3 rooms for Abus but you want 4. And the 4th is already wired? You are going to need to find out if the outdoor speakers are wired with cat5e to the VC! Every thing else should be. See if you can find that out and post.


Speakers.....If you want good speakers that are not very much money. NXG makes very good in ceiling speakers. I have used them lots of times, and they are very nice. The only thing I use other than NXG for inceiling speakers is Niles and Phase.

It would also be nice if you were able to get some photos of what you are going to be dealing with before you drive there and get to work. That will help you out with what you are trying to do. See f they can take some digital pix of everything and email them to you. Study them and that will really save you a lot of time. Plus if you need to order something you can have it in your hand before going down there. If you find out that you need something while you are there, you are not going to be able to get it in time on line. You will have to pay a little bit more and get it from an AV store.

If I can get my scanner to work, I was trying to draw out a wire diagram for you to use.

I hope that this helps, and I am sorry that I got side tracked on to another topic!

Blessed,
Jim

 

[beam3]

Snap, you're right....everything was wired with cat5 which went to a volume control before it went to the speakers. But I talked to the installer about the porches since there will be no volume control and he said he will wire it directly to the speakers. (Again, not to add any more cost to the house.)

For the speakers I was going to use Infinity's CS80r's. I've heard them and they sound pretty good. For my folks they are more then enough. The price is also unbeatable. (under 60 bucks ea.)

http://www.infinitysystems.com/homeaudio/product_detail.aspx?prod=CS80R

You were right able the 16 ga wire, I checked with the company and that is what they used.

 

[Snap]

Snap, you're right....everything was wired with cat5 which went to a volume control before it went to the speakers. But I talked to the installer about the porches since there will be no volume control and he said he will wire it directly to the speakers. (Again, not to add any more cost to the house.)

For the speakers I was going to use Infinity's CS80r's. I've heard them and they sound pretty good. For my folks they are more then enough. The price is also unbeatable. (under 60 bucks ea.)

http://www.infinitysystems.com/homeaudio/product_detail.aspx?prod=CS80R

You were right able the 16 ga wire, I checked with the company and that is what they used.

Ok cool this is what I would do.
1. For the bed rooms the contractor will run cat5e to the VC and then 16/2 from the volume control to were the speakers are going to go in the ceiling. No big deal I am hoping that they are going to use ruff in kits. So that the sheet rockers will cut the hole for you in the ceiling? If they are just find out what size they are using. Or better yet get them yourself and mail them to him. They are going to cost you 25 bucks a set, and they are worth every cent of it.

2. For the out door speakers. Tell the contractor to do this. Run from the same place that the ABUS is 16/4 or 2 sets of 16/2 to a single gang j box outside on the portch. From the J box outside run 16/2 to were the speakers are going to be. That will allow you to have a volume control out side. And that is what you want. Niles makes a GREAT out door volume control that is under a 100 bucks. Trust me you are not going to want to walk inside to turn th out door speakers up and down. That just sucks. The contractor can place a cover plate over the out door j box to pass CO and then you can take the cover plate off and install the volume control once you get there.

3. For the distributed audio I would use a RX-V557 from Yamaha. It has 2 zones and is XM ready. And it is not that much loot. You will hook Zone 2 out to the ABus system, and run Chan a to the out door speakers. This set up will allow you to have something playing in the house, and something different playing on the deck. Like XM outside, and a CD in the master bed room.

4. Just get something simple for the surround sound in the Den. RX-V457 would be fine. I doubt that your folks are going to have huge towers or anything crazy that will need a lot of power. The 457 will do the job great and will save you some money in the long run. Plus it also has XM radio as well.

5. As for speaker those infinity will do the job, but I think you can save some money and get NXG for the out doors as well as indoors. Just my take on the matter.


I hope that I have helped you out, please let me know if you need any other help on this matter.

God Bless, and have fun!

Jim

 

[jcPanny]

Line Out to A-Bus

You don't really nead a receiver with Zone 2 (or 3) to connect to the A-Bus. Every receiver has a Tape or Record line output that could be used. The zone 2, however, allows you to be playing a movie in the main zone while sending a different source (CD, tuner, etc.) to the A-BUS.

If you don't need to be watching a movie at the same time you are listening to the outside speakers, then you could connect the pourch speakers (and other non-abus rooms) to the speaker B or powered Zone 2 connections and run everything off of a single receiver.

 

[Snap]

I think that the surround sound set up is located in one room, and the abus is located in a closet some other place. So he is going to need 2 receivers.

I have not used the tape outs like JCpanny sugested so I can not confirm or deny that procedure.