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Mikedisco Unregistered guest | If you were to have 4 pairs of speakers, 8 Total, throughout your house, and all the wires from these speakers were sent to ONE location in the house, one main room, what would be the best way of supplying power to them? FOR INstance, I have seen speakers selector boxes, that let you put up to 6 pairs of speakers in them, but they require an Input from an AMP, now, can you just use any amp, or do you have to have some type of 1000 watt amp to supply enough power to all the speakers? Like, could you just take any receiver that you could buy at Best Buy or Circuit City and hook that up to the speaker selector box? I dont see how that would work, being that your only outputting about 100 watts per channel and you have 8 channels. HOw does this work, whats the typical application for a situation like this? Thanks in advance. |
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Silver Member Username: VarneyBirminghamEngland, UK Post Number: 234 Registered: Sep-04 | I cannot be 100% sure on this, Mike, but I think you may be expecting something more than the average domestic amp can offer. The idea behind selector banks is selection. That is to say, you can have one, maybe 2 pairs on at once. It may not be a good idea to try and run them all at once from one amp. I suspect the load may be too much but let's see what others have to say. This is just my opinion. If it's essential to you to have every single set running at once, then would it not be a good idea to be looking at either a 2 channel amp, with 2 sets of speaker outputs and enough headroom to run all safely. Even then, I think you'd have to keep the volume at a sensible mark. Nothing excessive. Additionally, you will have to check that they are all of a similar wattage rating and that the impedance matches throughout the plan. Another option would be two amps. You can bridge them to one source, so that you'd have double the output and more speaker terminals to play with. Then you would have 2, 2gang speaker selectors which allowed 2 pairs to run at once, from each amp. I personally wouldn't do this at all. Put a system in each room and build the entire empire slowly, until you have what you want. For the price you'd pay for the huge amp, all the (quality) selector boxes, this is probably your best option.... Especially when it comes to the second hand market. V |
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Silver Member Username: VarneyBirminghamEngland, UK Post Number: 236 Registered: Sep-04 | Another thought.... Have you thought how much this is going to cost you in speaker cable? I presume you are concerned about sound quality here? |
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New member Username: LasnyderPost Number: 3 Registered: Jan-05 | go to www.htd.com and look around. There are home hookup diagrams there that will answer all your questions. I have a Denon amp that has 100 watts x 6 that I use for whole house sound. It was intended for a 7.1 surround but denon has an option of playing music out of all 6 channels. Good Luck |
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Silver Member Username: VarneyBirminghamEngland, UK Post Number: 239 Registered: Sep-04 | There you are then. |
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guest Unregistered guest | look into Multyroom aplications |
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Lester Unregistered guest | Posted on Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 09:04 pm: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ For basic four room audio... a receiver or amp, a four way speaker selector box, and some volume controls. That one location in the house is refered to as the head end. A speaker selector box takes the speaker out put from a receiver or amp. Its internal circutry adjusts the impedence as you turn on speakers. This way, your amp will always think there's only on pair of speakers playing. No need for a 1000w amp. A 100w receiver can handle four rooms. There's more then one way to approach multi room audio. From the basic amp/selector box/volume control set up, to a multi zone, multi channel amp controled by key pads in remote rooms. All this depends on the wiring in place. If you're going to run new wires, then you can set it up any way you plaese. You can do a lot of reading here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=36 Good luck. L. |
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Silver Member Username: VarneyBirminghamEngland, UK Post Number: 249 Registered: Sep-04 | So by using the added circuitry, along with the impedance changes - won't this degrade the sound over the entire setup? A while ago, I got interested in how I could feed one system into two rooms. After finding the optimum setup I could with the normal arrangement, I decided it would be a compromise on the amp to keep running speakers off it - so I opted for a seperate system for each room. More costly if buying new, but for about the price of all the switching gear and cabling, I managed to put together another entire system using second hand units. Much less work, means more people can choose what they listen to and both sound great. I'm not saying you should do this, just that it's another option to explore. V |
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J. Vigne Unregistered guest | If you're not familiar with the pit falls of whole house disribution system, it is best to get a professional to do the job. While the ins and outs of the actual installation vary widely from one install to another, the basics of the equipment stay, mostly, the same. The size and scope of the installation will determine the actual products that will be required. For a system with four pairs of speaker the first question would be, "How many speakers will you want running at the same time?" If the system has to run all four pair simultaneously, you will have to provide protection for the amplifer in one form or another. Speaker selection boxes vary in complexity along with price. The simplest, and cheapest, selectors will do just selection and nothing more. If there is any type of protection provided, it will be in the form of a large load resistor which can be switched into the output line. This is really more problem than solution as most receivers will not care for the additional resistance any more than the lower resistance of all the speakers running together. This box is better suited to a simple installation where the speakers will be switched on and off and no more than two pair will be run at the same time. To provide the protection needed for four pairs of speakers running together you should be looking at a speaker selector with impedance matching provided by autoformers. This will do a better job of matching the overall impedance of the selected speakers to the needs of the amplifier than a simple switch box. Add volume controls of the same type (impedance matching autoformers) and the system will be as safe as possible for this type of installation. There are still problems that can exist, but, this will minimize the amount of danger your amplifier is likely to see. I would not pick any run of the mill receiver for this installation. Instead purchase a product that has the reputation for driving difficult loads. These are well known in the better audio shops and on this forum. The best solution for any multi speaker system is to provide a channel of amplification for each speaker. Since a single amplifier running multiple speakers will have to divide its wattage each time another speaker is added to the mix, a multichannel amplifier will probably give more power to each speaker than the single amp. The stress on the amp is minimized and the chances of a successful installation that will be service free for many years is more likely to result from a well thought out and distributed system. http://www.htd.com/muam.html |
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J. Vigne Unregistered guest | I would also suggest you look at a receiver that has two zone operation for your main amplifier. This will provide more control of volume levels and less stress on the main amplifier. If you don't want to spend the money on a dedicated distribution amplifer, you can shop the used AV receiver market. Look for a receiver that has pre out and main in for all surround channels. Buy a line (input)selector switch box and run lines to the main amp inputs (not pre amp outputs) of the six channels in the AV reciever. Done like this, your volume is still controlled by the main amp's volume control, but, the volume to each speaker pair can be run down in level by the individual speaker volume controls. My guess would be you could pick up an amp like this under $500 with at least 60 watts per channel. You would be buying a multichannel amplifier with tuner and pre amp and simply not using the two latter pieces. It might come in handy as a spare amplifier if your main amp is ever in the shop. |