Question about whole house audio

[mspivy]

I'm looking at installing ceiling speakers in several rooms of my house. I have a great attic that allows me to easily get to the ceiling of every room I'm interested in putting speakers in. My question is what do I use to "drive" the system? I think what I need to do is run a dedicated receiver out of the "mechanical room" right inside the access door to my attic and from that receiver I would connect all the speakers around the house....I guess where my confusion comes from is I don't know how to hook up all the speakers. I'm going to have speakers in probably 8 or 9 different locations around the house so what do I connect all those speakers to on the receiver??? Am I just missing something obvious or is there some "special" component I need to purchase in order to run all the speakers for a whole house setup?

Sorry for being somewhat clueless!!

Mike

 

[BMXTRIX]

Mike,

There are tons of options for whole house audio - and some questions to be answered.

1. Do you want to keep it as simple as possible?

If so, then that would be speakers in each room and volume control back at the head end (mechanical room) with an impedence matching/volume control speaker selector. I haven't looked into these at all.

2. Do you want local volume control?

If so, then you have a speaker selector back at the head end, the speaker wires come out of that and run to volume controls located in each room, then they go up to the speakers in the ceiling. This is likely the most common way of doing things. If you only want to play one source, like a CD player, you can hook it up to a good (powerful) 2-channel amp, then to the speaker selector. Very simple, and it works well...

3. But, if you don't want to go down to the head end every time you want to start your music, and you want indivdual room control you might consider investing in some IR repeaters that go into the volume controls. That way, you can control the CD player (etc.) from the room you are in. IR repeaters are nifty - but you will be carrying a remote into every room - and losing it all over the place.

4. How about stepping it up to include advanced room controls? Ground up designed distributed audio systems use CAT-5 at each wall station to not only provide volume control, but allow for multiple source selection and for IR control of that source in each room. www.sonance.com as well as a bunch of others makes whole house systems that are very good. Typically you need a multi-channel amp - one pair of channels for each room, and the controls. For 9 rooms, you would need 18 channels of amplification which is 2 12-channel amps. Giving you some room to spare. This is very cool, but not the best still.

5. If you want ultimate room control you can go with AMX/Crestron control systems. I'm a Crestron guy so I will talk about that...

You have the similar pre-amp - up to 8 sources - at the head end, from there into an amplfier (1 channel for each speaker - same as above). Then from there directly to each speaker. Each room is controlled from a large variety of keypads, in-wall touchpanels, wireless touchpanels, or via Ethernet. It allows for XM radio and for you to know what station is currently playing. Setup playlists on digital jukeboxes, and for you to pick and choose your current FM station with ease. Almost anything you dream of can be done... But, it is expensive, and programming is done by professionals usually. At least, that's why I have a job.

What is best for you? Well, probably the second option - volume controls in the walls and speakers in the ceiling with a speaker selector at the head end.

Speaker selectors just have a row of buttons on them that let you turn individual rooms speakers on and off.

Volume control example: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20709&item=4387458492&rd=1

Speaker selector example: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3279&item=5780594743&rd=1

Is anyone aware of a 9 room speaker selector?

 

[mspivy]

Thanks for all the input! Its awesome for a rookie like me to get great feedback like this.

So Option #2 seems to be the way I'd be most likely to go.

Am I thinking about things right in looking at a "stand alone" receiver to run the audio system? I guess what I'm looking at doing (based on your Option #2 scenario) would be to get a receiver in place....connect it to an amp...connect the amp to the speaker selector and run speaker wires from the selector to volume controls in each of the locations and from the volume controls to the actual speaker in each room (I'm thinking of using just one speaker per location...is that a valid way to go for just audio?).

I would expect that I could play CDs or just tune a favorite radio station and be able to play either one (not that I could necessarily control that from the room...but I don't have a problem with going to the reciever to change sources).

As I think more about it, I guess I wouldn't need as many locations as I initially thought. Master Bedroom, Master Bath, Garage, enclosed back porch, office, study are probably the locations I would actually put speakers.

I want this setup to be as simple as possible (which is one of the reasons I don't want to muck with the existing Home Theater setup and just use a "stand alone" receiver for this).

Does all this sound easily feasible??

Thanks for the great help!!
Mike

 

[BMXTRIX]

Mike, the only reason to have a receiver is for volume control and source selection. The volume control is no longer going to happen inside the receiver, but in the rooms. So you don't really need a receiver. You may want a 'source selection' box - which can be had at places like Radio Shack pretty inexpensively. Tie the RCA outputs from that into the amp - then out to speaker selector and the rooms.

Easily is all about how good you will be running the wires yourself. The connections are all easy enough and the actual layout isn't all that complex.

A SINGLE speaker in each room? Not something I have thought of, but you will want to combine the stereo signal to mono at some point. Anyone have a clean way of doing this? I don't.

 

[mspivy]

Well one speaker or two speakers in each location probably isn't much difference to me.....I thought one would be easier to deal with - perhaps not.

As for the need for a receiver....I was figuring that would be my source selector that a CD player would hook up to. With the "source selector" you refer to do I just connect the CD player to it and choose the "CD Source"? What about a tuner for the radio? Do I need another external device or is that part of the "source selector" like it is with my receiver?

You're helping out a bunch here! I really appreciate it.

Mike

 

[av-man]

Most speaker companies make a single point stereo speaker which allows both left and right connections on the same speaker with dual voice coils.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Well, the tuner is definitely an issue, but you can pick up used tuners for 50 bucks on eBay and get decent performance from them. If you get a receiver, it must have line level outputs to allow you to hook up to a solid external amp - you want to bypass the internal volume control. It works, but isn't the way I would recommend.

Less cash (I believe):
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&product_id=15-1983
(part # 15-1983) - Gives you 4 sources and a very (VERY!) simple interface

The speaker distribution for more than 6 rooms can be found at www.sonance.com -> Electronics -> Speaker Distribution -> AF12
No idea the price, but it's what will give you solid performance for your rooms for sure. Take a look at the rest of their site as well! Great stuff.

You won't need impedence matching volume controls, so you will have a big variety available to you. Sonance makes some great ones, but others are out there that are very good.

The AMP? I'm not really sure what to go with that is good in this setup. I've only dealt with stuff a little higher up the food chain. Lots of homes with 8+ zones of individually amplified power.

Something like the Sonance 2120 might be perfect though.

EDIT: Used tuners on eBay - like this one -
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3282&item=5779460239&rd=1

Going for well under $100.00 shipped to your door, would be perfect. Don't forget a halfway decent antenna in the attic!

 

[av-man]

There are a ton of distributed audio products out there.
I use ,Russound, Knoll, ZON, and Control4
You can get links to most of them through my site link.