Newbie in desperate need of help (whole house audio)

[Vojak]

Hi All,

I'm having some problems figuring out the best way to hook up my whole house audio system with the equipment I currently have. Basically I have the following:

1. Central control box in the MB closet. In there are a ton of speaker wires (for each room that has in ceiling speakers) which are working properly since I tested one by one.
2. A master source audio cable runs down to the living room (also in working condition)
3. In the living room I have an Yamaha HTR-5890 AV reciever
4. Each of the rooms that have speakers also have volume controls

What I was planning on doing was to connect the wire running down to the living room to my reciever and put a 6 pair speaker selector on the other end in the MB closet. The way I connect to the reciever can be one out of two:

1. Use speaker set "B" (since A is for the surround sound). This means I will not be able to utilize the surround and whole house audio at the same time.
2. Use the Zoning support of the receiver to eliminate the restriction in (1).

In either of the two cases I am worried if I have enough juice to drive 6 pairs of speakers with my reciever downstairs. Also, I know that the volume controls should have impedence matching capabilities but I am not sure if they do or how to find out. I've attached a picture of one of the volume controls in hopes that someone can identify just by looking at it.

Does this seem like a workable setup?

Any Feedback and/or help greatly appreciated.

Cheers!
Vojak

 

[JKL1960]

With my limited experience with this I will predict that you will kill your amp. I've seen it quite a few times. Amps that are designed for this, like something from Speakercraft, will run and run without a problem. If I read correctly you have a signal wire from the living room to the closet. Then you can still feed signal from your system back to an amp in the closet. I'm not familiar with your Yamaha amp but it may have a zone 2 line level out. If you can afford it, get the right amp.

Just my two cents.

 

[Vojak]

Thanks for the quick response. Yes - my reciever does have Zone 2 output. Do most modern recievers today have a protection mechanism that causes it to shut down if it gets overloaded?

Also, I've attached the picture of the VC since I forget it in the initial post.

Thanks!
Vojak

 

[jcPanny]

Whole House System

Can't tell much from your VC pic. Can you read off a model number? Does it have jumpers labeld 1, 2, 4, 8, etc.?

If it does not have any jumpers, then it probably does not have the impedence matching feature and the speaker selector with this feature (or new VCs) is your best bet. AudioSource makes some inexpensive speaker selectors that should work well.

Concerning available power, lets say that you have the whole house connected to the B speaker terminals and are not running any speakers in the main 5.1 HT. Your receiver can probably deliver 100 Watts into 2 channels.
100 Watts / 6 = 17 Watts per speaker. This will probably not play very loud and would tax your receiver as suggested above.

An outboard amplifier like the Behringer A500 delivers over 200 Watts into 4 ohms and is only $180 making it an inexpensive solution. You can connect the Zone 2 line level out from the receiver to the input of the amp. Your receiver might even be able to trigger the amp to turn on.

Concerning the speaker cable from the main HT to the closet, make sure that it is 12 AWG or better to deliver all the power to the house speakers. If it is an RCA type cable then the amp will go in the closet with the speaker selector.

Good luck!

 

[Vojak]

Thanks for the reply jcPanny.

The VCs do have jumpers labeled with 1,2,3 etc so it may be safe to assume it does have the IM capabilities.

I am not sure what speaker cable type I have (12 AWG or something else) but I can check that when I get home. To me it just looks like a standard white jacket 4 conductor speaker wire...but then again...I'm kind of new to this Will it say on the cable?

So if I'm understanding things corretly, if I do have IM VCs, my reciever, the speaker selector all this should work fine without risk (sound may not be too loud though). Is that correct?

Thanks for the help!

 

[JKL1960]

Actually we are both saying that it will do it but that it will be hard on your receiver. Think of it as always driving your car uphill.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Yes, it will work, no it is not recommended.

You should use the zone 2 output of your receiver and push that audio into another amplifier. Get a decent one that is dedicated for distributed audio from Niles, Sonance, Speakercraft or any number of other manufacturers. The key is NOT ruining your current receiver just to add a bit of audio in other rooms. Better yet is something like the Sonance 1230 amplifier which can provide separate amplification for up to 6 stereo zones (12 individual speakers).

Make sure the jumpers on the volume controls reflect the number of stereo zones you have hooked up. 6 stereo zones right? So, set the jumper to 6.

 

[Vojak]

Thanks everyone for responding!

So out of curiosity I plugged 4 pairs of speakers into the Monster speaker selector (allows for 6) and set the input to be that of the master input running from the living room. Note that I did NOT plug in this cable to the reciever though. I used an ohm meter to see what it said and the result was 4.5 ohms. A couple of questions:

1. First is this a valid test to see what the amp would have to work with if the cable was plugged in? It seems that it would be.
2. Typically I've heard people say that 6-8 is good but anything else is out of range and will ruin your reciever. I've also heard that nowdays on high quality receivers you can safely run down to 4 without any sideaffects.

Can someone help clarify the claims above?

Thanks much in advance!
Vojak