Multiple audio sources, selectable speakers? (1 Viewer)

[Stephen Heath]

Ok, if this is the wrong forum, please forgive me (and feel free to move it). While I've hung around the DVD section for quite a while, this area is new to me. Unfortunately, that also means I don't know what things are called to make the best use of searches. That said, here is my situation and I would love any suggestions or advice people could give me.

I am moving into a brand new house next year, so I have the opportunity to wire it up good. At our current house we have video wired (via a $5 radio shack slider that we manually set) to allow us to share DVD output, and all of the speakers in the house are wired to the main bedroom. Works fine for us now, but we're going to have kids in a bit and need to do things differently at the next house.

At the next house, I want to have audio speakers in the following spots :

Upstairs : Master Bedroom
Downstairs : Front Parlor (Adult Card Room)
Downstairs : Back Room (Kids TV Room)
Basement : Game Tables
Outside : Back Deck

I will have three different audio sources :

Upstairs : Master Bedroom Amp
Upstairs : Computer Room (My Virtual Jukebox)
Downstairs : Back Room Amp

What I would like to set up is some system whereby each of my speakers (or at least near the speakers) has a switch which allows me to select which audio source to listen to on those speakers and a volume control.

Ie, if it's just my wife and I & we have company over, we'd like to have all speakers just play the jukebox, but if we have kids and they are watching tv, they should be able to listen to their tv show in that room. Alternately, if we're in the basement shooting some pool but there is a game on, we'd like the speakers down there to be playing the audio from the game upstairs.

If each speaker were from the same source, it would be easy, but because I need to pick sources I need some kind of smart switcher. Can anyone help me? Or even better, point me to some good "how to" articles?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

Steve.

 

[Grant B]

here is some thoughts
just about anything is possible these days, all it takes is money.
I am not sure what you mean by

Upstairs : Master Bedroom Amp

an amplifier is not a source

Generally it is a good idea to run everything to a central location. Then if anything changes connections wont be a big problem.
A volume control in each room with a 3 postion source switch is not an expensive idea. I use (2) 6 channel amplifier and a 4 channel one to power speakers in other rroms with volume controls in each room. I tries to connect them so I generally need to turn one on at a time

audio video interiors magazine is a good source and idea generator. Niles Audio (they have a decent website) has a large selection of switchers etc that will help
good luck
One tip -if you think you will need to run 1 line - run 5. Wire / cable is very cheap and its as easy to run 5 as 1. Trying to add lines is a pain...overkill is good

 

[Stephen Heath]

Thanks for the help! Off to go check them out...

Oh, and I was thinking of the DVD that plugged into the amp, not the amp itself, as the source... freudian slip

 

[Grant B]

another thing to consider is how many zones to have. You might want only 2 zones depending on how isolated the rooms etc are. You dont want to have two different sources playing right next to each other
grant

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

While your doing that installation, maybe you should look into an intercom system for communication.

I agree with grant in that you put 3 button source selection switch, and an on/off and/or volume switch. This means you take the "speaker out" wires from your amp source and connect it to a distribution box, which then routes 1 of each source to each room.

At each room, you'll be able to select between 3 sources, and adjust the volume.

Have you thought of using mono sound instead of stereo as this could simplify things a bit more.