Speakers around the whole house

[andemz]

Can anybody give me some guidance on this issue.

If you want sound around the house, i.e run from a cd player in your living room or wherever the cd player is and then a speaker in your dining room, kitchen and bathroom and living rooms. So that when you play your music it can be heard in the rooms. Is it really as simple as feeding the speaker wire from where the cd is going to be onto the individual speakers in each of the rooms.

Does anybody know of anything on the market, i've looked on this forum for the past hour and on the web for advice but can't find anything, that would anble me to turn the music off and on in selected rooms only.

Any advice or guidance would be great

 

[Big_Spark]

Yes it can be done, I suggest that you have a chat with these people as they will be able to point you i the right direction if they only have the professional kit.

Try this link first: here

Audionics Ltd
Broadcast equipment manufrs

Telephone and fax
Tel: 0114-242 2333
Fax: 0114-243 3913


Address
Unit 7 Petre Drive
Sheffield,
South Yorkshire
S4 7PZ

 

[AdamW]

This is one of those situations where you can have your system as advanced and expensive or as simple and cheap as you want really.

My amp has two sets of speaker terminals that can be switched in or out at the amp, so I have a set of speakers in the living room with the amp, and a set of speakers in the bedroom. You can accomplish this if your amp doesn't have a second output by buying a speaker switch at Maplin or similar (taking care not to exceed the maximum/minimum impedance of the amp!)

Now, that is the simplest way and whilst very effective and cheap it has disadvantages:
1) You can't adjust the volume or switch CD tracks from the second "listening zone"
2) You can't turn the amp off without getting up and turning it off in the living room.
3) If you want to biwire your amp it isn't ideal

Of course these could be achieved by buying one of those remote control extenders they sell in Argos.

You can go to the other extreme and buy dedicated multi-zone amps that have several sets of speaker terminals and can send different sources to different rooms (CD in kitchen, Radio in bedroom). You can get controls that are fitted to the wall like a lightswitch to control the system and even some funky TFT touch screen thingamabobs.

 

[andemz]

Try this link first: here

WoW what a site. tahnks FWL_Engineer. I could play on that site for hours. I see what people are saying you can spend as little or as much as you want. Although it must be noted that cheapness does have it's disadvantges. This will be great for the house. A little something special.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I take it that none of you are the slightest bit interested in sound quality, or use anything better than bellwire for your speakers and the rubbish interconnects that come with the equipment you have?

 

[andemz]

Clearly the sound quality is of importance, but my original post was asking for guidance around wiring up sound around the house.

I guess it is technically possible to use standard speaker wire to run wire in every room of your house if you wanted with speakers attached at the other end. But this gives you no scope for change. You then have to listen to say one song or one station in every room. I guess if you had controls on each individual speakers that would be ok. This leads me to my second question. If somebody has a cd which only has 2 black and red places where you put the wire on the back of the cd unit (i'm totaly new to this) can you put more than 2 sets of wires in. E.G in one black part put 2 black wires and in one red part put 2 red wires. This then would mean that if the unit only has 2 red and 2 black then you could now run 4 speakers instead of 2. Or would it blow?

 

[AdamW]

I take it that none of you are the slightest bit interested in sound quality, or use anything better than bellwire for your speakers and the rubbish interconnects that come with the equipment you have?

What makes you say that? I can't speak for the others but I can say that I certainly am interested in sound quality. Hence I spent £2000 on one pretty decent system with an extra pair of speakers in the bedroom to improve on the traditional PC speaker idea rather than £1000 on each of two lesser systems or making a half-a**ed attempt at a full-on multi-room system.

What would you do in this case ban?

As for bellwire, LOCK UP THE BLASPHEMING HERETIC!!!

I bet ban buys all his hi-fi in Tescos, his car hi-fi in Argos and uses PC speakers to play his Barry White.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

First, apologies for the sarky riposte above - I'd just come back to the forum to revise it when your post came in.

I am extremely dubious that any system for distributing audio around the house could be compatible with high-end sound quality, but I recognise that not everybody is interested in that, and they view their music systems in a different light, and I should not have been so dismissive.

Clearly the sound quality is of importance, but my original post was asking for guidance around wiring up sound around the house.

I guess it is technically possible to use standard speaker wire to run wire in every room of your house if you wanted with speakers attached at the other end.

What I regard as "standard speaker wire" would be hard to install to every room in the house, would probably b*gg*r up the sound due to excessive lengths, and would be expensive.

But this gives you no scope for change. You then have to listen to say one song or one station in every room. I guess if you had controls on each individual speakers that would be ok.

Not sure how that would help - you've still only got the one system at the front end, so if that's set to play the CD then it can't also be doing the tuner or record deck or whatever. Conceptually a multi-channel amp could easily be built, (and for all I know has been), but I shudder to think what it would cost....

This leads me to my second question. If somebody has a cd which only has 2 black and red places where you put the wire on the back of the cd unit (i'm totaly new to this) can you put more than 2 sets of wires in. E.G in one black part put 2 black wires and in one red part put 2 red wires. This then would mean that if the unit only has 2 red and 2 black then you could now run 4 speakers instead of 2. Or would it blow?

Ignoring the fact that speakers are connected to the amplifier, not the CD player, yes you could (but of course you'd still have the same signal going to each), but you may compromise the sound quality by virtue of impedance mismatching, and as your parallel loads will have halved the impedance, you might damage the amp. And if the speakers have different sensitivities, or are in different sizes/type of rooms, who chooses the volume? And what if 1 room doesn't always want the service?

Have you considered that you can get mini systems these days that offer surprisingly good sound quality for only a few hundred quid? Stick one in the kitchen, one in the dining room (but please don't use it during dinner parties) etc.

 

[andemz]

If i understand correctly you mean mini systems, i,e, stand alone players so you would buy a number of these and operate them obviously separately.... No that's too easy. I want to impress my friends so that when they go for a dump they can listen to the vibes of the night. Alternatively, if we are having a sing a long, they don't have to miss the fun because they simply leave the room..... Ha ha ha It's her indoors whose making me ask these questions, my fingers are tired but she insists........

 

[Big_Spark]

Adamz, but a load of walkmans and copy the bl**dy CD's, lot easier

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I bet ban buys all his hi-fi in Tescos, his car hi-fi in Argos and uses PC speakers to play his Barry White.

You know, before you go off the deep end like that, you should take the trouble to read what is written, not act on what you think is there.

If I'd seen a bunch of people discussing ways to send sound signals all over their house, why would I say to them "I take it that none of you are the slightest bit interested in sound quality, or use anything better than bellwire for your speakers and the rubbish interconnects that come with the equipment you have?" if I was of the Tesco/Argos persuasion?

 

[AdamW]

Thinking about this a bit more, I have the advantage that the speaker run from my living room to my bedroom is only 15-20 feet so I was able to use good cables and I ran them as far from any mains as I could (only goes anywhere near it at the amp end).

If you are doing long runs then you might want to look at shielded (screened) cables, otherwise you may pick up some nasty hums by the time your speakers see the signal. But then these are even more expensive!

This article gives a bit of info on what you need to know, but doesn't go to the greatest of depth.

What you appear to need is "whole house audio" if you just want the same music to dump by as what everyone is getting jiggy to in the living room. Problem with bathroom speakers is they are a bit ugly, they are expensive for their sound quality and also people buying the house off you may look at the ceiling and go "Oooh, I don't think I want big holes in my ceiling"... Well, the fairer member of the inspection party will anyway. That is the only thing that stopped me doing it. Damn logic.

 

[AdamW]

"Hello, pot? This is kettle. Just rang to say that you are black!"

You came off the line saying "I take it that none of you are the slightest bit interested in sound quality, or use anything better than bellwire for your speakers and the rubbish interconnects that come with the equipment you have?"

Like that is a REALLY productive comment to make.

Fact is, all the people I know who want multi-zone or whole house audio are geeks, and geeks luuuuurve good hi-fi.

Now, you tell me you DIDN'T buy that Matsui ghetto wow-machine in Tescos!

 

[xbond]

You'll also find some comprehensive information
here
including wiring diagrams & all...

 

[kendor]

Andemz here is a pretty nifty piece of kit that may be just what you want
It allows switching of speakers to different zones automatically using X10 technology or other forms of control, it allows you to hook up two different amps allowing different music to be played in different rooms simultaneously.
here

"Hello, pot? This is kettle. Just rang to say that you are black!"

Nice one AdamW this made me chuckle, I'm glad to see i'm not the only person here who thinks that one or two of the other people who reply on the forum are:
1 arrogant
2 ignorant
3 innacurate
4 don't read the posts properly
5 don't give positive advice but fluff round the edges because they don't really know what they are talking about.