Ceiling Speakers

[CSutton]

Hi all,

We’re in the process of buying a house which is 12 years old and has Cat5 cabling around the house to television points from a central location. The property also has ceiling speakers and a control unit in each room. See picture of a controller unit. When the house was built I’m guessing the ceiling speakers were the ‘in thing’. We’re renovating the property and feel the control units are a little dated. We’re confident through a Sonos amp we can play and sync the music through the ceiling speakers and our Sonos Play devices together but what are our options regarding the control unit in each room? Can we remove them or do we need something there? Perhaps someone can answer who is familiar with them.

Many thanks in advance.

Chris

 

[LondonLad21]

Any make you can see?

Cat 5 will be handy, if you don't use the plates, get a blanking plate next to them in same style as light switch.

 

[Lucid]

The keypads are made by Russound. The model is Uno-S2.

When originally installed, they'll have been wired back to a central point somewhere in the house that acts as the equipment Comms room/area. The wiring connection will have been by Cat5 cable from the keypads to the controller box. Depending on the configuration, there may be one, two or three Russound boxes in the Comms to provide various functions. One of them will have been the amplifier that connects to the ceiling speakers. The wiring for that connection should be a pair of speaker cables per room.

This system was launched early to mid 2000s. Programming and updates will have been done with a laptop running Win95/ME/NT/2000/XP.

If you wish to remove the system keypads then that shouldn't present too much of an issue. The facia bezel is a screwless clip-on design. Beneath that you should find the screws that hold the various parts of the keypad and mounting plate together. The wiring is standard punch-down connections as used in network wall plates. Tape up the Cat wires.

The amp in the Comms room can be disconnected too. This will leave you with the speaker wires, Cat wires (from the keypads), and any source signal cables routed through from say a Sky box or external Hi-Fi equipment.

The speaker wires and speakers can be used with Sonos Connect Amp players if you wish. These should integrate just fine with any freestanding Sonos gear. If your plan is to use Play speakers instead then the in-ceiling speakers will be redundant. If your plan is something else then let us know in more detail.

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[CSutton]

Thanks for the advice so far.

Hmm, good question. Not sure what I can actually use the system for currently. Is it just audio or can you play and watch the tv with them producing the TV sound? Also if we connected the ceiling speakers to a Sonos Connect would there not be a delay when playing the Sonos Play speakers? What amp would I use?

 

[Lucid]

Does the system work right now? If so, then you could use the Russound amp and plug in the Connect(s) to that.

At its heart, the Russound main box is a 6 source audio matrix switch that includes 6 stereo amp channels. The keypads each control one zone. This means any of the 6 sources can be selected, and the volume for the speakers allocated that can be changed. If you were to plug in a Connect to say Input 1, then you could be in any zone (room) and select Input 1 and you'd hear the Sonos Connect playing through the speakers in that room. Go to another room, select Input 1 on the keypad, you would then hear the same track that's playing in the first room. Do the same for each successive room and eventually you'd have the Connect playing everywhere.

The Connect has two ways the volume can work. Normally it's set to variable. This means that if you change the volume via the device hosting the controller app then the volume of the Connect changes. It can also be set to Fixed. In this way the volume is always set at a level, and it's the amp or powered speakers that is used to control the volume. If you were to hook up the Connect to the Russound amp then that's exactly how you'd set it; the keypads would control the volume in each room.

There's more to the Russound and its features, but it's late now so I'll save it for another time.


If this or any other posts helped you then pay the authors the compliment of hitting the thanks button. It shows your appreciation and marks the reply for those looking for answers in the future.

 

[CSutton]

This all seems exciting, Thanks!

I notice there is a Russound app for the iOS. Could we use this app to control variable volume in each room? I think we will keep the speakers and remove the UNO-S2s...

Also, will the Russound amp create any delay in sound when connected to Sonos vs. Sonos Play devices?

Chris

 

[Lucid]

App control - directly, with this model version of Russound gear, no. It doesn't have the functionality. There are some 3rd party hardware solutions that do provide a tablet/PC interface.

Audio delay - stick with the red and white RCA/phono connections (analogue audio) then you shouldn't hear any delay so long as the Russound amp isn't doing any additional processing. I can't see a reason why it would need to. The distribution and switching can all be done in the analogue domain.

 

[CSutton]

Thanks so much @Lucid.
I’m guessing you can control which speakers are turned on and volumes at the amp without the Uno-S2 then?
Chris

 

[Lucid]

To keep things simple, then in tge short term I would recommend transfering the keypads to the comms room and then hook them up with short Ethernet cables in the same order as they were connected in-room.

Once you have the system set up to play the Sonos, then you can make some decisions about the keypads.

You can have a look the manuals yourself. Visit

https://www.russound.com/document-center/20-legacy-products/50-cav-cam-systems