New camp audio

[cathlabrunner]

Hello,

I am in the mist of installing a four room home audio system. This system is going into a camp for the sole purpose of background music. Therefore, I am looking to keep things simple and affordable.
A local A/V salesperson suggested that I go this route:

Receiver (with enough power for eight speakers) to
Speaker selector to
volume control knobs in each room to
respective speaker pairs in each room

I have a couple of questions regarding this setup:

1.) Has anyone performed this configuration without a dedicated amp?
2.) Should I use impedence variance speaker selector with volume controls, or impedence variance volume controls in the wall (thus using a simple speaker selector)
3.) If I selector a receiver only, what should be the minimal power rating?

Thanks,

Joey

 

[m_vanmeter]

probably the simple approach is a Sherwood RX5502 stereo receiver that can power 4 sets of stereo speakers.

the next step up would be a true whole house system like the HTD "Basic System" http://www.htd.com/Products/Whole-House-Audio but you would still have to have a "source" to feed audio to the amplifier.

 

[davidtwotrees]

You are on the easiest, simplest way to run audio to multiple zones. I can't speak to the in room volume controls as I didn't use them. I bought a speaker selector and ran speaker wire to four rooms in my home. I have run it off the speaker B on an integrated amplifier, off the speaker B on a stereo receiver, off the zone 2 of a home theatre reciever, and currently have a stand alone stereo (two channel) amplifier that runs the whole house audio. I have not had any problems with any of the set ups above. The speaker selector is doing it's job. I DO wish I had bought a volume controlled speaker selector which is just the s. selector with volume controls on it- my wife and I could then adjust each room accordingly.
Is there a reason you want volume control in each room? That is certainly nice, but does make install more complicated by far, imho. More expensive too. Used Niles 6 SSVCs (6 speaker selctors with volume control) are fetching $150 or so on ebay. I bought my simple 4SS for $25 shipped- it remains one of the best bang for buck audio purchases in my storied career.