In wall speakers for the Kitchen

[sfurules]

Ok, during the finishing of my basement I ran speaker cable through the walls from my media closet to the kitchen. I want to use the Zone 2 functionality on my receiver to let my wife listen to XM radio in the kitchen while she cleans and does other menial tasks. The cable is there, but I want to use in wall speakers in the kitchen for the WAF (well....and it will just look cleaner too in there).

First Question - What speakers are recommended for this? The Kitchen is upstairs and finished. At the moment the speaker cables are up through the wall and just wound up and taped behind some pictures that we have. There are 2 cables, for 2 speakers (about 10 feet apart on the wall).

Second Question - I have already figured out a way to let my wife use the remote from the kitchen to control the speakers, but I am wondering if there is a way to use a sexy wall panel to control the zone 2 function of the Denon AVR-2106? The remote option (an RF transmiter/conversion set up) will work still....but I would like some suggestions. And also....how do you set up a wall plate style volume control?

 

[jcPanny]

Volume control

The simplest solution would be a volume control in the kitchen. You will nead a stereo volume control ($30) and a low voltage remodeling box ($2). The 2 pairs of speaker wires will connect from the receiver to the input of the VC and the output will connect to the speakers. You can also get a more expensive version with an IR repeater ($50+) but that would require an additional cat5 from the VC to the receiver.

An RF remote would also work if the receiver has a seperate volume level for zone 2. Check out the RF remote extender from Parts Express for about $50 to upgrade your existing remote.