Home Theater & Audio Setup for Whole House - any help greatly appreciated! (1 Viewer)

[soriold]

Hello,
I am new to this forum and hope that some of you might be able to help me and my wife with our (rather intimidating) project to wire the whole house for audio, as well as having one dedicated home theater room. I attached a diagram that might help visualize the project.

1) Home Theater Setup
Currently we have a Marantz receiver (SR 8000), as well as two B&W speakers (DM605 S2), which we would ideally like to use for the whole house audio portion, home theater room, or ideally both. The plan is to have a dedicated home theater room (living room) to watch movies while enjoying surround sound. I understand that I will need at least one center speaker, subwoofer, as well as two bookshelf / satellite speakers to achieve this. I am not sure if the B&W speakers can be part of this setup or if it is easier to purchase a complete set of surround sound speakers.
2) Whole House Audio Setup
Basically, our goal is to have background music (not audiophile, high-end equipment) throughout the house in each of the main rooms (total of 6), with the option of possibly extending background music to the patio later. We would like to use iTunes, other computer based channels/libraries, as well as the occasional physical CD to play music while keeping in mind the following:

• The house has wooden floors and a crawl space underneath, making running wire underneath the house most likely much more affordable than ceiling speakers for instance. We were thinking to mount smaller speakers in opposite corners of the ceiling (not the ceiling itself) and run the wires down through the floor and back to the receiver in the living room.
• Somehow we would like to be able to control the volume in each role individually (e.g., using a speaker selector)
• We do not need to be able to play different music in different rooms. Having the same music throughout the entire house is totally fine.
• Most of the time, the background music in all rooms will be played at low/normal volume. For instances when we want to really listen to music, we hope to achieve this in the living room.
• Friends of ours use their Apple TV for instance to control the iTunes library via their phones or iPads or smartphones which sounds interesting

We would very much appreciate any recommendations in terms of:

• which speakers to select for the home theater part, as well as the background audio portion
• what other equipment we might/will need (e.g., speaker selector, additional amp, etc.)
• whether or not the Marantz receiver would be capable to power all speakers

I have spent many hours researching this project but honestly feel overwhelmed with all the options that appear available. While we are not on an extremely tight budget, we would like to keep the overall cost under $2,000 (if possible). I truly look forward to hearing from all of you and hope that this forum can point us in the right direction.
Thank you very much in advance for all your time and please let me know in case you require any additional information.
Stefan

 

[gartronics]

Not exactly what you are talking about, but defiantly easier.

 

[Martino]

These guys have a free service - you can upload your house plans and what you want to do with them - and they will design a system for you...
http://www.htd.com/Expert-Support/Send-Us-Your-Plans
There house boxed systems can be found here....
http://www.htd.com/Products/Whole-House-Audio
Also - looking at your plans - it seems like you have the dreaded corner placement for your main system. If at all possible, re-arrange your furniture to avoid placing the TV and main speakers in a corner.
Good luck...

 

[Wee Mad Arthur]

Good background speakers, non-audiophile, can be found pretty cheap on monoprice.com. I also agree with Martino, corner orientation is the worst, you end up with weird speaker placements, or weird acoustics and a lot of wasted space. Impedence matching volume controls can give you volume control in each zone, but no source control.
Good luck

 

[sross88]

i put 6 speakers total in 4 different zones.... i ran the speaker wires, then ran them mack to a splitter/zoner. the connected that the my av reciever. but am not getting any sound!!! i really am so frustrated with the project! what am i doing wrong??

 

[Martino]

i put 6 speakers total in 4 different zones.... i ran the speaker wires, then ran them mack to a splitter/zoner. the connected that the my av reciever. but am not getting any sound!!! i really am so frustrated with the project! what am i doing wrong??

Not sure if you want to start a new thread....but in order to possibly help you out - we need more information on what you are trying to do...
What are the make and model number of the 6 speakers you are using?
What is the "splitter/zoner" - model/make of this device?
What av receiver are you using for this effort?
We might be able to lend a hand if we have more information....hopefully it is an easy an inexpensive fix...