I have a question. I want to put speakers in each room of my new house. It's not a new construction, just an existing house my wife and I bought. I'm not looking for surround sound or anything like that, just two simple stereo speakers that has a separate volume control in each room. How can I do that? Is it easy to do yourself? How much would Best Buy or Circuit City take in order to do a job like this? I'm talking about five rooms ( four bedrooms and a dining room).

If this can be done yourself, how would I wire up the volume and ON/OFF controls (and no, I don't have a lot of experience with this)?

 

What audio source are you planning to connect to the speaker? Multiple sources?
Where will it be physically located?
Are all the bedrooms on the second floor?
Do you have an attic that you can get to?

 

OK, it's a one-story house. The attic area is easily accessible through a drop-drown stairs in the garage. You have to walk on the crossbeams, but each room is accessible. I would like either of two options:

1.) The person in each room can turn on the volume to whatever source the TV or surround sound receiver would be playing. They can adjust the volume manuallly by getting up near the light switch and manually turning a knob. I want this in each room.

OR

2.) I would like a little control station in each of five rooms. Each room would have an audio/video wall plate to plug a TV into. All the video would get routed through the walls and ceiling to the main A/V area, where I would have a huge 300+ disc DVD player, media server, surround sound receiver, digital cable, etc. From each room, the person could use a remote control, aim it at the eye near the light switch, and pick which source they wanted to watch or listen to (TV, AM/FM/XM radio, CD, DVD, HD-DVD). I would eventually like to do this, but would wonder how much something like this would cost.

Please enlighten me. Thanks!

 

multiple source + multiple speakers (zones) = a lot of $$$$$$$$

I connected 4 in-ceiling spearkers to a Sony receiver I had. I just made them A (living room) + B (kitchen). The systems that I was looking at for multizone control cost upwards of 2k for the receiver only.


Btw, one of my most shamefull moments of my life was falling through the ceiling of the house while installing the speakers in my living room...

 

Too bad there wasn't any video! LMAO!

Hmmm, Interesting. Would it be possible to just do something like Number 2 above in pieces, instead of all in one shot? Like how much would it be to just put in speakers in each room? What about a volume control (how even in the hell would that be wired up to a receiver)? What about adding just an A/V zone?

Also, what are some good speaker brands, and good components for the volume control in each room (can I get them from eBay)?

 

Sorry but that's funny!

 

Mine are Audiosource http://www.audiosource.net/

They are relatively cheap and have decent sound. Installing a volume control is easy. It is like cutting the speaker wire in half and installing the control box there.


SPEAKER (in) <--------- (out) <- VOLUMEN CONTROL <(in) <----------- (out) RECEIVER

 

Yep. It was pretty funny once my rib cage stop hurting. I was able to use my arms as a stop, so only 3/4 of my body up to my chest went through the ceiling. I had a lot of scratches in my torso. The other almost funny part was that I barely missed landing on a door. In other words I could have had my balls smashed by landing right on the top of the door.

 

Wait, so I would just wire up the volume control in series with the receiver and speaker, and that would control the volume (run speaker wire from the receiver to one side of the volume control (for two speakers) and then connect the other end to the actual speaker? It's that simple)? That's it? What about power to the volume control? Would I have to do that?

I know it becomes more complicated when I want to add multiple sources. Say I wanted to add a A/V faceplate at the light switch in each room. If the person wanted to watch a DVD, they press the DVD button on the faceplate, turn on the TV, aim the remote at the remote eye in the wall and press play to play the DVD from another room. How much would something like this cost, total? $5,000? $10,000?

 

Now you're talking multiple audio and video sources.

Your best bet is to avoid Best Buy and CC and find a boutique audio video shop that knows what they're talking about.

Up here we have Tweeter and they seem to have some pretty knowledgeable people. Bottom line is before you hire someone, check out their work.

 

The volume control does not need power, but make sure you have appropriate speaker wire thickness and quality as to not lose too much speaker signal.

Once you get into wanting multiple sources for multiple rooms, then you go back to my (MUCHO $$$$$) scenario where you have to buy a special receiver that can do that.

Go to smarthome They have very nice diagrams and info so you can visually see what I am talking about.

 

Well, I would have between $5,000 and $6,000 to spend on this potential project. I'm debating between this or a new Acura TL.

 

i think you need a bit more than 5K-6K to accomplish what you're looking for, especially because it seems you're looking to pay for labor as well. I would suspect at least 3K spent on labor and 5K spent on equipment.

 

Hmmm. Wow. I guess for now I'll get the Acura and put in the in-ceiling speakers myself. It shouldn't be too hard.

 

:ibgatrhumpytopsmamboking'sstory:

 

LMAO. Watch me be on the frickin' news because I fell through the roof, tried to brace myself by grabbing on a cross beam, and in the meantime collapsed a cross beam and then the entire house fell down.

On another note I'm thinking of buying this 9.1 Surround Sound receiver, the Denon AVR 5808.

Link

Thoughts?

This would permit me to set up at least 9.1 Surround Sound in the main living room, 5.1 Surround Sound in a second room, and stereo sound in the other two rooms.

 

9.1? Is that something new?

 

This receiver weighs over 100lbs. Shipping costs: US $220.00

Holy cow, might as well drive to Maryland and pick it up....


That is a great receiver though.

 

Yeah I could drive to pick it up, but then again the seller would probably add cost in order for me to do that. I HATE when people do that!

 

to save money, how about seperate recievers powering each zone? if you have wifi, you can get home audio to all zones with something like the Roku sound bridge http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/index.php

 

I don't know. I thought about that option, but it would be really cool it my house were wired for this. And I don't just want computer sound, I want sound in each room at least for the TV sound. if I were to upgrade, I'd want to get a 3 or 4 zone receiver so that they could each listen to and watch multiple sources.

 

I used to install home systems like this years ago. there are many ways of doing it. it all depends on how much your looking at spending. The easiest and cheapest ways you will have no control over the music choice nor will you have seperate music in each room unless you go to expensive home automation.

The easiest way is to get impedance matching volume controls and stick them in each room you want with speakers. there are acouple ways of wiring them and it all depends on how much time you want to spend. The easiest way would be

Stereo -> to a junction box,(left and rights get all conected together) from there --> seperate wires to each volume control --> to the speaker in that room.

now remember what ever is playing on the source reciever will be in each room. you wont have seperate music/sound. the only way to do that is extermly pricy and best left to the proffesionals

 

If I have two speaker wires going to a 6-room junction speaker box, what will that do to the Ohm rating and speaker output if 6 to 8 other speakers are connected to those two speaker outputs from my receiver? Will I blow any speakers?

 

As long as you use impedance matching volume controls on every pair of speakers you install every thing would be alright. The volume controls should have jumpers on them to select how many pairs of speakers you have installed