Home audio newbie here, with some questions about an existing setup

[amymccravy]

Hi all! About a year ago, we bought a house that has existing wiring for a full-home audio setup. It looks like a pretty "DIY" thing -- most of the speakers are ceiling speakers, but there are also some outside speakers, some that don't seem to be wired in at all, wires poking out of the floor, etc. -- definitely the work of a hobbyist. The previous homeowner left two old amps (I think) that are hooked up to the system. The wires come in in various bundles (probably 12-18 speakers throughout the house) and go into wire "clips" in the back of the amp. I'm assuming this is typical of all "older" stereo systems, vs. the new ones that use audio cables instead of just stereo wires. But seriously, I have no idea what I'm looking at, so please correct me where I'm wrong.

The amps power on, and we can get radio through most of the speakers in the house. (Some have a lot of crackling, and I have tried to find and unplug those. The wires aren't all labeled, or the labels are rubbed off, making it a pretty tricky job figuring out what goes where.) I have also been able to hook up an ipod using a cable that has an audio jack on one end and red/yellow stereo cables on the other (what is it called?), and stream music that way.

So, here is my question. For us to get much actual use out of this, we would like to have something similar to AirPlay, or a device where we can actually stream music from an iphone or computer in another part of the house, to the audio system. I have found speakers that will do this, or devices that have very simple inputs, but I have no idea if they will work with the amps we currently have. We can't spend much on this -- hoping for <$100, and much less if possible. I have a Kindle Fire -- if there were a server-type app I could run on that and communicate with via wifi, I could leave it with the stereo system, but don't have a spare computer or any other wifi device to hook up. Our speakers all seem to have different volume levels, which means that as I move through the house, I'm constantly wanting to adjust the volume, which is the main motivation for wanting a wireless option. But it would also be nice to be able to stream podcasts, Spotify, etc. through the speakers. What would really be nice would be a device that would replace the amps and simply allow me to plug in the speakers and stream music wirelessly, but my guess is that something like that, if it even exists for such old speaker wires, would be outside of my budget.

I can post pictures of the amps if it is helpful. If anyone knows of anything that might work, I'm open to any suggestions!

Thanks!
Amy

 

[rojo]

Hey Amy, and welcome!

This Auris Skye media player looks pretty interesting. It'll stream airplay and network DLNA (music served by a computer in another room), and has an iOS and Android app for remote control. It's made for an iPod dock, but I think you ought to be able to use a 30-pin dock to USB + audio adapter + any old generic USB power adapter to make it work and connect it to your amp. If passing signal to both amps, use this piggyback cable + whatever standard RCA cables you might have lying arround. If you'll only be using one amp, it's a little simpler.

I have no firsthand experience with this device, though.

Pictures of the amp might help. There are too many variable to know what to recommend for replacing the amps -- but replacing them isn't really within your budget, anyway. Replacing them would probably mean getting something like this Dayton multi-zone amp, but you'd still need an additional device to receive music streams wirelessly. You could get an A/V receiver like this Denon AVR-E300 which has Airplay and network streaming, but it'll only power a few of your speakers. Also, without knowing how the speakers are wired (parallel, series, stereo, whatever), it's hard to know whether you'd blow up an AVR like that Denon by attempting to connect more than 4 or 5 speakers. Measuring the impedance at each pair of speaker wires feeding your existing amp might give us more information about how the previous owner wired the system. But since your budget is so limited, it's probably a moot point anyway.

 

[amymccravy]

Thanks for the quick reply! I have not seen or heard of this device before, but it definitely looks like what I had in mind.

Thanks for confirming that replacing the amps are out of our budget. I assumed that it would be. I'm pretty sure every single speaker wire comes directly to the amp, and that they aren't wired in series, but that might not be the case with all of them. I just know that there are a LOT of wires coming into those amps. I should probably take some time to figure out what is what, and label them. We want to remove any speakers that aren't actually wired, or don't work, and some we wouldn't use anyway, so if we could reduce the load, I'm sure it would help. Just haven't had time. I love the idea of having a home sound system, though, and it seems a shame not to use it if someone spent so much time and money setting it up. I guess it's a fun new learning experience for me, though!

Thanks for your help!