Quick Whole Home Audio Question - receiver related

M

Michael41

Audiophyte
Hello all!

I am looking for a good receiver to power the following. I have no video needs and my iPhone/iPad will be the only thing from which the music will come from for the time being. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm not looking to speand more than $200 on this receiver ... thoughts?

I will want "stereo" in 4 different zones of my home:
1 pair in kitchen (in ceiling Roussounds)
1 pair in living room (in ceiling Roussounds)
1 two way (basically 1 speaker that gives me stereo capability) in bathroom
1 pair on covered patio (bracket mounted Niles)

I want to "select" the music I will play from my iPhone and/or iPad via airplay. I will run an audio out from a router to the receiver/amp to provide this capability.

I will have VCs in kitchen, living room, bathroom, and patio.

I don't need to have different sources playing at any given time (ie. my wife's music in master bath and mine in kitchen) ... only one thing playing in one, some, or all rooms - I'll accomplish this with a speaker selector.

Yes - definitely not a high performance system by any means - but I would like to think it's a bit more than MUZAC! :)

Thanks again for any helpful suggestions ----
 
L

Latent

Full Audioholic
The proper way to do this is to have separate amplification channels assigned per zone. With Say 4 stereo power amplifiers or some other setup providing 8 amplification channels. And then you have a source/pre-amp/receiver device that can be controlled to output signals to the 4 stereo zones with various volumes and possibly use 12V triggers to turn the amps on and off ideally. All of this does not come cheap though...

The speaker selector you mention may have issues as you are meant to drive one speaker per channel. It is Possible to maybe drive two speakers from one channel but it will halve the speaker resistance the amplifier is forced to drive and can cause problems if the speakers are not high resistance models. Driving all 4 rooms at once is just not going to work with any reasonably priced amplifier. Because of this you really need to look at independent amp channels.

Also you won't get anything new for your $200. Even the online discounted refurbished previous years model sites may not get much for that either. You may be able to find an auction site with an old multi-channel receiver for a good deal. If you can get one that has 7 channel built in amplification and a 7.1 analog multi-channel input this may be a potential option. You can connect in 7 RCA signals (maybe using Y spliters from a sound streaming source box?) into the multi-channel in and you have 7 amplified channels. 7 channels means you are one amp channel short so may have to power bathroom with a single left channel instead.

But controlling it like you want with Volume controls in each room may not be so easy. Most modern systems work by having fancy home automation systems and mobile apps or dedicated wall mounted controllers to talk back to the sound control device in the central cupboard. Could maybe run speaker wires though the Walls/ceiling to a 2 way switch in each room which then feeds the speaker cables back up and to the speakers. Flick the switch and you have audio in this room and flick it off for no audio (Works the same as a light switch going to a ceiling light but has to be two way to switch both L/R channels at the same time). Then you just turn on the amp, set the volume on it, stream your music to a source device connected to the AVR and go around the rooms flicking on each room as required. You only have one volume control for all zones but you can set the channel trim per speaker in the AVR to adjust the balance between the rooms (you only do this once and can't easily adjust it on the fly without lots of fiddling)

The other option is to find a second hand AVR with multi-zone support in your price range. But most of these older models only have Main and Zone2. Some may have a zone3 option but normally will not support using built in amp channels for it so you need an external amplifier. Maybe find two of the cheapest AVR's you can find second hand with Zone2 support and the option to power zone2 from internal amps. But how would you control these old AVR's as they probably only have IR and RS-232 control options. cheap learning remote mounted in each room with IR receiver->transmitter units maybe.

Can't find an ideal simple cheap solution for you sorry and I would recommend that before you buy anything you read the manuals for it well first so you know what it can do.
 
M

Michael41

Audiophyte
Latent,
Thanks so much for your reply - I really appreciate it. I realize it was a stretch trying to get this done for $200.- I figured the worst people would say could be "NO!"

I am leaning toward the amplification route - I think if I have a decent receiver (perhaps even one with wireless capability as a bonus) and a quality 8 channel amplifier (even if it's 7-8yrs old) I should be good. Ideally I would like 1 amp to power the 7 (eventually) speakers: 2 living room, 2 kitchen, 2 patio, 1 bathroom. I have one shelf in the coat closet to work with.

Again - thanks for your reply and have great evening!

Michael
 
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