Amp for whole house audio??

[aabrams]

Hi All,

I am working on a whole house audio project.

If I wanted to run 11 pair of inwall speakers (probably require around 35-40 watts). and 3 pair of larger outdoor speakers, what kind of amplifier would I need? The speakers I was looking at for outdoor say they want 125 watts! Should I downsize those?

I was thinking of using a AV receiver (preamp out), going to an amplifier, then to a speakers distribution box )to easily turn on and off), and then to a volume control.....finally going to the speaker.

 

[jcPanny]

House system

Aabrams,
I think you have the right idea for your large whole house system and your options will depend on the budget and features you want. Here are a couple configurations.

1. Use a couple stereo amps like the Behringer A500 ($180 each) to power the whole house system. The Zone 2 (and/or Zone 3) line out from the receiver will connect to the amps. Amp outputs go to two 6 speaker selectors and VCs in each room. The speaker selecotr or VCs must have impedance matching circuitry so that the amp will see a 4-8 ohm load. 30-40 Watts should also be fine for the outdoor speakers.
The advantage of this setup is it is less costly and a feasable DIY project. The disadvantage is that all Zone 2 speakers must play the same source. If you have Zone 2 and 3 then you have 2 different sources. Most receivers in the $1k price range will have the Zone2 and 3 features and would work well as the source for this system.
Here is a variation of the above. Buy a multichannel amp like the Emotiva MPS-1 ($1700) and use 3 channels for the HT speakers and 4 channels for the whole house system.

2. Another direction is a couple 6 zone distrubution amplifiers from companies like Russound, Niles, etc. These typically output about 30 Watts per channel and have keypads in each room to select any source in any room. It will probably cost $1-2k for each amp and $100 for each keypad. You will need to run cat5 to each room for the keypads and you will need a custom installer to setup and configure this type of system.

 

[AVRat]

It sounds like you’ll need 2-12 channel and 1-6 channel amps from companies like Niles or Russound. The installer that recommended the Russound system may be the one to work with. Which speakers does he recommend? Is this installer CEDIA certified?

 

[aabrams]

Actually, I saw one of the installers jobs today. Eventhough I was not initially interested in the Russsound module....I am more interested. He recommeds the Proficient Audio C610....which sounded really good.

 

[Ax-man]

Elan Home Systems has equipment for whole house systems including the following multi-channel amps ... Elan.

 

[kgb540]

The NuVo Essentia system I have works very very well and allows for the addition of exteranl power amps.