Multi-room Speaker Control (1 Viewer)

[Gary Silverman]

Tried this in the tweaks forum. Maybe this is a better spot for it.

I have a friend who would like to install speakers in 5 areas of his home. We'd like to have volume controls in each; 4 indoor, 1 outdoor location.
Do we need to put a speaker selector switch outboard of the receiver or do the volume controls address the impedance issues that come with running multiple speakers at the same time?
What controls have members of this forum found to be good for this kind of installation?
The receiver, speakers, etc., are all open for discussion, as nothing has been purchased yet.
I'd appreciate input from anyone who has done this kind of set-up, as well as everybody else with thoughts on this subject.

 

[Shawn Solar]

It all depends on how elabrate your friend wants to go. If all he wants is one source in multiple rooms just run a speaker selector off speakers "b" output on a reciever and run the wires from the speakers to a volume control then to the speaker selector.

Now if he wants a audio system seperate from the HT I recommend the A-bus system from russound. Very easy to install. And allows for multi-sourcing and in as many rooms as you want. You run Cat5 from the location where you want you hub and sources, to the keypad. then run speaker wires from the kepad to the speakers. A keypad goes in each room and has infared ability to contol your componets and can select sources from the keypad and/or the remote. It also controls the volume and has built in amp. The hub is where the kepads conect to via RJ45 jacks and also where your componts connect to.

 

[Rich X]

Gary,
The sky is the limit with multi-room systems--it all depends upon how much control you want in each room. The solution that Shawn describes above would allow you to control the system from your remote rooms, but all 5 of those rooms would only be able to listen to one source at a time. If you want more control to independently select sources in each room you need a multi-zone system, which is more expensive.
If all you want to be able to do is to control the volume in each of your remote rooms there is a slighly simpler solution. You use impedence matching volume controls in each of your rooms and wire them to a connecting block so that you have a single connection to your receiver or pre-amp/amp (prefereably a multi-zone one). By setting all of the volume controls to the same impedence setting (determined by the number of speakers that are connected) it will seem to the receiver or amp as if only one pair of speakers are being driven.
There are good descpritions of how to do this on the Crutchfield site www.crutchfield.com

 

[Shawn Solar]

Just to clear it up. The a-bus system is multizone. You can listen to the radio in one room and the cd player in another. you can actually have up to 8 keypads 4 zones and 4 source's off one hub. the source can be selected from the keypad or optional remote. The remote can also control your other gear through the keypad. It is a neat little system but figure about $4000 for wiring and the a-bus system and speakers. With only the speakers, volume controls and the speaker selector your only looking at about $2000. Less for both if you do it yourself.